Kremasti, Rhodes

...you to the village of Kremasti, a much-overlooked little fishing village with a shingle beach and plenty of atmosphere. My partner Allan and I stayed here in 2001 in the Margarita Apartments close to the village centre and unfortunately rather near to the Airport but what we had saved by choosing a little-known resort was spent on touring the island.

☼The village itself is compact and unspoilt by too many tourists making it ...
...lady" by the locals in Kremasti, but this woman actually lived and worked in Symi. A British woman who had settled in Symi after exploring most of Greece she painted pictures, translated documents, but kept up a campaign to get the government to neuter the strays thus cutting down on the many starving animals.

It was a pleasure to meet her in person (I had asked specifically if I could meet her) so we talked together as we went ... more

☼ Rhodes the sun island is aptly named with its wonderful climate boasting 300 days of sun each year. It's the largest Island of the group called Dodecanese (twelve islands) and lies about eleven miles west of Turkey. The capitol is Rhodes town with its magnificent harbour, ancient buildings and fortifications well worth a visit. A short bus ride from Rhodes town brings you to the village of Kremasti, a much-overlooked little fishing village with a shingle beach and plenty of atmosphere. My partner Allan and I stayed here in 2001 in the Margarita Apartments close to the village centre and unfortunately rather near to the Airport but what we had saved by choosing a little-known resort was spent on touring the island.

☼The village itself is compact and unspoilt by too many tourists making it ideal for couples and older people. Many of the houses are traditionally Greek in design with balconies giving shade to small lawn gardens where you can see the Greek families sitting outside in the cool of the evening. Children play in the streets dodging the occasional car and motorbike while the dark-robed women keep a watchful eye over them. The few stores are open for much of the day and English is spoken to the tourists although they are very pleased if you greet them with kali mera (good morning), kali spera (good afternoon) or kali nichta (good evening or good night). The younger people will greet you with yassu (hi or bye) but greeting an older person with ti kanis (how are you) brings a beaming smile to the locals' faces. We learnt a little of the language through a couple who run a small pub near to the beach road. Janet had married a Greek husband (George) and their son Christopher was happy to laugh at us when we pronounced a word wrong. We became good friends and often took our breakfast there on the way into town or to the beach.

They served breakfast up to midday when they retired for the afternoon siesta and you could have anything form a bacon buttie to a full English breakfast for about £1.50. In the evening they opened up for tourists and locals alike with there nine-year old pestering people to know what football club they followed, football is taken quiet seriously by some of the Greek people. Sometimes we planned trips away so bought fresh bread rolls and made sandwiches to take with us. It was Janet who recommended a good car hire company to us and we saved a lot of money by ignoring the sole rep's advice.

Wandering into the heart of the village we found many cheap and cheerful restaurants and soon learned what to eat. Souvlaki (shish kebab) was quite popular but I tried many of the local dishes, Kleftika (lamb stew) and Psito ani (roast lamb). I had been to Corfu in 1990 so knew that the salads are meant as a starter for at least two people but because of my milk allergy I was worried about the inclusion of feta cheese. I need not have worried, there were all different kinds of salads available and Allan ordered feta cheese separately.
There were few big restaurants in Kremasti but the food was adequate and tasty.

☼ Walking along the main road you soon see the beautiful church with marble pillars and opposite is the library where you can find the Greek men playing at backgammon smoking their cigarettes and catching up with the gossip. We strolled along looking at a few shops and found a good off-licence where we picked up some good local rose wine and a bottle of scotch for Allan. There was one lovely shop that sold hand-made rugs and I ordered one to be kept for me to take home, it still has pride of place in my living room and it washes well. On the way back we said kali nichta to the old men and they answered back with good humour. There was very little nightlife but this didn't bother us so we set off back to our apartment for a nightcap in the bar.

☼ The next day we went to the beach and hired some sun-beds and an umbrella for some shade it was already 80 degrees at 10 am and I had no intention of getting burnt. The shingle was a bit of a problem but once in the sea I was fine just lazily swimming and watching the fish darting around in the clear blue-green water. The view from the beach was confusing until I realised I wasn't seeing things, the grey-blue shape was the outline of Turkey on the horizon. We decided to find out about trips to Turkey when we went into Rhodes town. The beach was nice and quiet with just one snack bar serving sandwiches, burgers and chips along with the local beer (Amstral) and soft drinks. A burger and chips with a large bottle of beer came to about £1.75 so there were no complaints from us! After our siesta back at our apartment I sat by the pool and watched the planes roaring overhead I could read the names with no problem at all. This was the only bugbear but by the second week we got used to it. That evening we walked a little further inland but there wasn't a lot to see so we had an early night ready for the bus-ride into Rhodes.
The buses were air-conditioned but usually packed and as we tore along the beach road I had visions of us being squashed by the cliffs on one side when another bus passed us by with inches to spare but the sea-views were breathtaking especially when we came close to many tiny beaches.

☼ Rhodes town was everything I had expected it to be so after choosing our rental car we went sightseeing around the harbour and picked up leaflets for boat-trips, which we both loved. After a light lunch and a glass of beer we headed towards the shops where, much to Allan's disgust I had a henna tattoo on my upper arm. The back streets have a charm of their own with flowers spilling down from almost every house and shop, bright reds and blues vied with orange and yellow and the air was perfumed with their scents. We tried to see everything but failed as the last bus left at nine pm and I wanted to watch the sunset back at Kremasti. The trip back was even more hair-raising than the trip there so it was with great relief we arrived back in one piece just in time to see the sun set in a blaze of red, purple and gold.

☼ Our hire car was delivered the following morning at 8am full of petrol and cool with the air-conditioning running. We breakfasted with ice-cold melon slices followed by warm bacon rolls on our tiny balcony and made plans for the day. I wanted to follow the east coast road for a while and then make our way inland to get a feel for the countryside so we set off in the general direction of Falaraki stopping along the way to visit tiny coves and walk around the villages looking at local art and crafts. Falaraki was very commercialised so we only stopped for a brief swim and then headed inland just following where the road was taking us. This is something I really enjoy doing watching the landscape and finding little places that often reveal some real treasures, tiny little churches, shops selling crafts, olive oil, local wine and sometimes just stopping to breathe in fresh mountain air and watch the world go by. But time was passing by and we had planned to go to Lindos the next day so we drove back parking the car up and headed off to a restaurant we had not tried before.

☼ Up bright and early the next morning we took the Eastern coastal road once again passing through Falariki and on to Lindos where we parked the car and wandered a while around the old village. I was keen to see the Acropolis, which can only be reached by foot from the harbour and beach of Lindos. It's a steep climb although you can choose to ride by donkey if you fancy trying it. One look at the shabby old donkeys was enough to persuade us to use Shanks Pony instead so off we set huffing and puffing half way up the track and stopping to watch the boats come into the harbour. The history of the Acropolis begins in the 9th century BC but after a fire ravaged the ancient site in 342 BC the whole area became a mixture of later periods including the Dorian, Hellenic and Roman. If you have the energy (we didn't) you can visit ancient tombs nearby and the ruins of the Governor's Palace. There is evidence here of the cult of Zeus Poilca which can also be found on many parts of the island for anyone who is interested there are a few sites on the Internet giving more details, I was just happy to wander around this ancient site. Boats will stop off at Lindos but give you little time to wander around so take a taxi, bus or hire car to get the most out of the trip.

☼ The highlight of our holiday became the hydrofoil trip from Rhodes town to the little island of Symi our first stop before carrying on to Turkey. As the boat slowed down we could see the brightly coloured houses dotting the cliffs around Symi harbour giving this tiny island an air of festivity. The harbour itself was alive with the hustle and bustle of an open-air market with stalls selling all kinds of goods, leather, lace, herbs & spices, special olive oil in gift packs, fish caught fresh that morning, numerous types of food including the Greek nougat that I'm so partial to, a plethora of delights to suit anyone.
It was here that I met my namesake, "the tuna lady". Sadly Greece is full of unwanted cats and kittens many starving to death or riddled with disease brought on my malnutrition. Everywhere I went I carried tins of tuna to feed the starving cats and soon got nicknamed "the tuna lady" by the locals in Kremasti, but this woman actually lived and worked in Symi. A British woman who had settled in Symi after exploring most of Greece she painted pictures, translated documents, but kept up a campaign to get the government to neuter the strays thus cutting down on the many starving animals.

It was a pleasure to meet her in person (I had asked specifically if I could meet her) so we talked together as we went around with our cans of tuna and fish-heads scrounged from local restaurants. Allan kept himself busy buying souvenirs. This delightful eccentric older lady (about sixty-five) regaled me with tales of her travels and her own efforts at conservation; it was she who suggested I went to Zante on my next trip to see the turtles (Caretta Caretta). I could have stayed there all day but our next stop was at a market in Turkey and with promises to write we hugged each other and parted (I gave her the equivalent of £10 which would feed the cats for a few weeks).

Before we entered Turkey we had to pay a small fee and the staff of the boat changed our money into Turkish currency before we stepped ashore on to a small Turkish resort. It didn't take us long to discover that this was not a main resort selling cheap Turkish goods but we did manage to pick up some bargains and bought a couple of heavily embroidered hats just for a laugh. The journey back was swift and although we were warned against staying outside we ignored the advice and thrilled to the speed of the hydrofoil as it left a wake of white spray.

☼ Our holiday passed swiftly with other boat trips and days just spent relaxing on our quiet beach. We travelled inland and went to a winery where we sampled the wines we had tasted in Kremasti, buying several bottles of Red, white & rose wine. As each day ended we always returned to our village and went to visit the many friends we had made here. It didn't matter that the restaurants were cheap and cheerful we made friends and often got invited to share a table with a local family digging into a huge communal salad followed by the chef's speciality, something normally kept for the locals alone. We learnt a few more phrases, ne (yes), ochi (no), efharisto (thank you), parakelo(please) kala or poli kala (good, very good), and jama (cheers). We had travelled midweek so on our last Sunday I went with head covered to the little church on the fringes of the village somehow it seemed a fitting end to our holiday and it was with many tears in my eyes I finally said goodbye to the villagers and our friends at the "English" pub.

☼ Would I recommend this tiny village with no water sports, no main attractions and little nightlife? With all my heart I would to those who want a different kind of holiday, those who want see the ordinary way of life and to be privileged to share it for a while. I checked the Internet and Kremasti still keeps its individuality only appearing on a very few sites. I left some English books I had taken to read with our local pub and sent a postcard from Wales on our return to our friends along with a Liverpool tee shirt for Christopher.
Good intentions erode with time and I no longer hear from our friends but I hope with all my heart they are still there welcoming new people and adding yet another postcard to their collection form people all over the world. NB. I have changed the names of our friends in case it may be construed as advertising one particular place.

☼ I haven't said much about our accommodation it was sparse but suitable and the maids were as always the people I left tips to. They kept our room clean, brought fresh fluffy white towels every day and changed our bed linen every two days. I hope they can forgive us for only eating the occasional meal at the hotel but we enjoyed the natural atmosphere more than that laid on for the tourists.
The total cost of our fortnight's holiday came to just over £650 all in, a bargain especially as June is counted as high season.

I hope you have enjoyed sharing my memories with me and wish you all happy holidays,
Jama!
 

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