A village beyond

Sunday afternoon and the weather was beautiful again. We took a drive south along the coast to a village called Trachila. There is only one road in and out of this place; it’s a dead end! Trachila is a small fishing village with a harbour that seems bigger than the local Agios Nikolaos.

The road from Agios Nikolaos to Trachila is less than 5 miles and runs by the sea with some magnificent cliffs inland. There are several caves in the cliffs that can be seen from the road, some of which have brickwork at the front, as the lower caves are often used as pens for livestock. One cave about a third of the way up even has a marble lintel above the opening, story has it this cave was the home of a hermitic monk who had food and drink lowered down to him on a rope.

We walked around the village then on through to the cove that some people call the ‘Blue Lagoon’. The rock face that forms one side is quite spectacular and as you clamber down the side of it you realise that the path high above actually overhangs the rocks below. Years of erosion have cut back into the rocks for many meters underneath the path. When we climbed and walked back along the path, we walked a little further from the edge than when we went down!

Walking back into the village we realised that it seemed deserted, all the houses had their shutters closed. Later we learned that at this time of year only about 5 houses are occupied, many people returning to Kalamata or Athens for the winter. Near the harbour there were so many cats sitting either side of the road, some on window ledges, doorsteps, boats and on the harbour wall. We counted at least 28 cats, and they all looked quite well fed. With the lack of people and this mass of cats we suddenly started to try to think of horror films that it reminded us of.

Behind the church an old lady who runs a caféneon greeted us. She called to us and we went to get a coffee. She was sitting shelling walnuts at a table outside and immediately gave each of us a handful. We sat and had a drink with this lovely old lady and learned that she was now 70 years old and ran the caféneon by herself.

It was evening when we left, and the drive back from Trachila was made even more enjoyable by another beautiful, colourful sunset.

We are still here

The concrete columns are now in place for the top floor of the house and the ground floor now has the inside walls erected. We have an entrance to the front door, which is not yet there, with steps leading up. The electrician has been and the lines for the electric are now in place downstairs. Plasterers here are like gold dust, and with all the building that is going on in the area they can afford to call the shots. Vaggelis plan is to move us into downstairs while the rest of the house is being finished. The plasterer however, is not keen to came and do one floor and wants to wait until the house is finished. This could cause a problem; even if he agrees we might have to wait about six weeks depending on how quickly we fix a date.

We have had the kitchen designed, chosen the units we like and are extremely pleased. Finally we made a decision on the central heating; this was a difficult as I had set my heart on under floor heating. This would have been an ideal opportunity for us, while the house was being built, to have this type of heating installed. However, after much advice from various sources, we have decided to go for oil fired heating using radiators. The under floor heating is apparently very good but would appear to be more appropriate for colder climates as it is best left running continuously on very a low setting as it take several hours to heat up.

We have visited the factory where the aluminium windows and doors are made and have tried to decide on the ‘right’ units. We have looked at many houses in the area with double-glazing units trying to see which is the best colour, design and type of shutters for our house. It is very important where to position the unit in the window-opening, front, middle or back, as this can affect so many things. Not being able to reach the shutters, or when the window is open, the frame taking up to much room inside the house and so on. This is particularly difficult in a stone house. With more conventional types of buildings the patio doors and mosquito nets can slide into the walls and there is no problem with space.

An accountant is now preparing our tax return for us. If you think the UK tax return is difficult the Greek version makes it look like childs’ play, not just because of the language difficulty, even the Greeks have great trouble. Here in Greece if you buy a car/house or have a house built you have to prove where you obtained the money that was used to buy them. At any time in the future if you want to sell your house and can not show the source of the payment you will be taxed on the assumption that it was undeclared income. Therefore, for each foreign transfer made to a Greek bank a record is kept in the form a ‘pink slip’ with the relevant information on it. It is important that you ask for this to give to your accountant as evidence that the money was brought legally into the country.