Chroscheria Castle

A local landmark is Chrysocheria Castle which stands halfway up the valley and looks down on the town. It's quite a steep walk up.


The castle which was built by Crusaders in the Middle Ages. Chrysocheria means 'golden hands' and is something to do wit ha Vrigin Mary icon which had golden hands... we don't kno the full story.


The last people to live here moved out about 300 years ago and it's pretty much a mess now. But you get a nice view down the valley and over the town.

Holy Bling

Kalymnos is big on statues and big on Priests. It follows that there are statues of priests.



This is our favourite. We reckon that, apart from that cross, this chap has two mobile phones round his neck. One for business and one for "personal".

You Don't Need All The Gear

Some people take fishing seriously and have all the latest gear.

In Kalymnos, this is also a common sight. A bloke rolls up to the wharf on his scooter, drops a line over the side and stays there until he harvests enough sea-meat to go home again.

No fuss, no fanfare. This is fishing for fish's sake.

Blue on Blue

A wee blue house with blue shutters and blue trim.

East Beach

You can't beat the East Harbour for a bit of serenity. At least, when its not overrun by the funfair of the damned or fighting dogs.

The rest of the time it looks like this:

Three minute walk from the town centre that is. Nice.

National Day of Greece 25th March

The Greek National Day was on March 25th. The protocol in Kalymnos is fairly well established having being free of Italy for over 60 years now.

First: the army walk up and down to military music, waving a flag.


Then the girls walk up and down to military music, dressed in traditional Kalymnian costume. One girl gets to carry the giant sponge.

Then its all over and everyone can have a fag.

What a Load of Rubbish

The sales brochure for Greece's Aegean islands rightly focus on the pristine beaches and the idyllic mountain/sea scenery.

Of course: there's more to life, and here on Kalymnos we have a whole neighbourhood, just outside the East End of the town, which is hopelessly devoted to trash.

There is a special section of sea cliff for washing machines (above) and a separate beach for crushed cars (below).

My favourite is the boneyard of battered lorries and fucked up fridges. It's beautiful.

Hey, if you're from Kalymnos Council and you're rading this, don't freak out - I'm not trying to put tourists off our Aegean paradise, I'm trying to attract artists. They love this stuff.

Secret Backstreet Casino

You find stuff out all the time. Apparently this completely innocuous building in the backstreets behind the Alphabank is actually a casino and is full of blokes gambling each other into early graves, all day long.

No lights, no sign, no nothing and yet there it is, the pit of all morals. Fancy!

East End Scene

This is a drawing of the East Harbour, beyond the fish market, the less popular side of Pothia's harbour where ferries don't dock and old dolphin boats go to rust and die.

Dogs are chained to rocks and people leave their front doors open; if you look in as you walk past you can see old people laid out under blankets on single beds.

From a metre-wide strand of gritty sand, housewives wade into the water, fully clothed, to swim every day for health. Somehow it doesn't stop them being fat.

I like the East Harbour.

A Moment of Peace

Aside from the crime and the riots and the dead animals which are, admittedly, more newsworthy there is a world of peace and beauty on Kalymnos that's worth reminding you about

After a more than a year away from Glasgow it's still remarkable to be living with so much sky and water.

Dawn is the best time of day to appreciate this, the quiet hour after the sun rises up over Kos but before everyone wakes up and starts fighting.

Don't worry - stories of malcontent will return as usual next week...

Crime Scene

So we finally got exposed to the Kalymnos crime scene this week when a little local incident resulted in a trip to the police station to make a report plus visits to the neighbours to ask them to keep an eye out.

It's good for our Greek. We now know the words for "thief", "electric drill" and "together we must protect our houses."

Never Knowingly Understated

You might have noticed a bit of Athens-based bother on the news lately. There are no riots here in sleepy ol' Kalymnos but I did find this leaflet the other day:

The headline translates (as far as we can make out):

THEY MURDER CHILDREN, THEY STEAL PENSIONS
THIS ISN'T A STATE - IT'S A MAFIA

The headline is followed by a reproduction of Picasso's Guernica for added effect.

We did hear some car-horns and chanting the other morning but by the time we got out to look for the riot, everything had gone back to normal: old men were smoking fags in the cafes and old women were crossing themselves as they walked past churches.

We don't think the Greek state is about to collapse.

Financial Crisis Fails to Rock our Rock

Down here in Kalymnos, we've heard a rumour that there is some kind of huge financial crisis engulfing the world and everyone's going to die.

I don't know. A quick check on the Kalymnos money markets reveal that not much has changed:

Perhaps the hysteria is out of proportion?

Greek Health & Fitness 101

The other week we walked all the way to Emborio at the top of the island. From Pothia to Emborio is about 24km.

It took five or six hours and at the end we were like "Yeah! Whoo! Pumped!" and promptly headed to the beach for a cooling swim.

Other people were there too.


The walk was beautiful but we're thinking this fella might have got there in the car. Don't you think he looks a bit like William Shatner?

What a lotta yachties we gotta

In Pothia harbour, the yachties are strong in number.



Their pricy boats fill up the harbour and you spend the walks along the front wondering whether or not they are thinking that you're jealous of their boat.

It's like very public caravanning. They sit on the back of their yachts and eat their breakfast, lunch and dinner within three yards of the pavement.

The difference between a yacht and a caravan. as far as I can make out is that a caravan is more spacious and you don't fall in the sea is you step over the edge of a caravan.

Bring on the Fun Girls

So they've got this Beach Volleyball championships going on down at the port just now. On Tuesday they brought in a load of sand and built the stands overnight. Voila: a beach volleyball stadium where there used to be a car park.

It's apparently the Panhellenic Championships or something, but what's really caught the punters' imaginations are the sponsors' scantily-panted dancing troupe - the Lipton Ice Tea Fun Girls!!!

The Lipton Ice Tea Fun Girls get their name from their love of ice tea in cans and from the fun way in which they appear from the wings whenever the crowd show any signs of being bored by the volleyball action. For around one minute, the Lipton Ice Tea Fun Girls rock one of their amazing dance routines from their endless repertoire, and they do it all whilst wearing very small pants indeed. Everyone gets excited again and the sport may continue.

Here they are, in the middle of another dance devastation. See how the Lipton Ice Tea Fun Girls hold their young fans suspended in a trance!

On The Beach

Summer, and the Town Beach is actually getting quite busy.

The cafe has started serving burnt hamburgers and that seems to be drawing the crowds even though there's nowhere to go for a piss and the 'sand' is the builders'-yard variety which leaves a thin film of grey cement-dust on your skin.

Daytime fills the strand with brown bodies: big fat ones lolling in the water; lean fit ones splashing or playing volleyball. Greek disco booming from the cafe. It can get quite noisy...


...But the true character of the Town Beach comes through later on, towards dusk, when there's no one around.

This is the place than can relax you even if you weren't stressed in the first place. Nothing is happening and you love it.

It's Echo Beach, so it is.

Not As Easy As Last Week

So, the Easy Cruise boat has been showing up at Kalymnos every Sunday.

The boat also goes to Kos, Siros, Samos, Mykonos and Paros, plus Bodrum in Turkey.

When we heard the ship was going to be coming weekly we feared being submerged by waves of lager louts but it looks like the clientele of Easy Cruise are slightly more mature than that and so far Sundays have been pretty calm and our local restaurants are feeling the benefit.

Ola Kala - all good.

Yesterday was a problem though. It was so windy that the Easy Cruise Life (the name of the ship) could not safely enter the harbour and had to anchor outside, ferrying the passengers to and from the shore in tenders, just like the old days.

One day Stelios might have enough money to stop the wind...

Time To Get Serious

Four years ago:


Four years ago, Greece were still the underdogs in Euro 2004.

Even though they'd won their first game against hosts Portugal, that result was still being dismissed as a flash in the pan.

No one seemed to think Greece could win that tournament at any stage, they were just too unfashionable.

Even after beating champions France, Greece were still marked by the bookies as 10-1 outsiders for the tournament. We remember that well because that's the point at which we lumped a fiver on them to win.

After they beat the Czechs in the semi, everyone said it was fluke: against Portugal in the final, Greece would finally get their comeuppance.

But, of course, Greece won the match and we won £50.

It was the start of an amazing year for Greece: Champions of Europe, then host of the Olympic Games and the icing on the cake... winning Eurovision 2005. It was the year that Greece ruled the world

Boom!

Anyway - Greece need to pull their finger out TODAY if there's to be any repeat. The loss against Sweden the other night was limp to say the least.

Tonight's opponents are Russia, another country with a weird alphabet. But you will notice as you watch the game that all players will have Roman characters on the back of their shirts.

Witness the imperialism of the English language and the Roman script!

Christ Has Flown - Now You May Swim

What's the dumbest thing you ever got told when you were younger?



Two days ago it was time for another religious celebration - 40 days after Easter which apparently marks the time that Jesus Christ finally went up to heaven after rising from the dead on Easter Sunday.

Anyway, Michael told us that, when they were kids, the adults told them that they had to wait for this festival for their first swim of the year.

The kids were warned that if they went in the sea before this date, they would grow a sponge in their arsehole.

We've been swimming for the last few weeks and so far I can report no sponginess. Looks like the bum-sponge might have been an old wives' tale!