Lately we've been swimming with the regulars each morning at the nearby natural pool here in Chania. The regular crew consists almost entirely of older Greek retirees. We love how they sashay from home to the pool in their cover-ups then strip these off to reveal 75 year old bodies in speedos and bikinis. These people have admirable joie de vivre. They do their calisthenics but they really love their partially submerged socializing and bronzing on the rocks in the fierce Cretan sun.
The Pool Crew
We've met interesting people at the pool. The first time we went to there, Sam had a meaty chat with a woman who works on fashion (jackpot for Sam!) and lives part time here and also in Thessaloniki. Several days ago, as we were coming out of the water, we saw a guy using a knife to pry something off the rocks near the coastline. Sam asked him what he was looking for, and he showed us a box filled with little mollusks. We learned he is a chef and he was harvesting (what we learned are) limpets (or petalida in Greek). We asked him how to prepare them and soon he was cleaning a few of them for us to sample right there on the beach, like raw oysters. They were little seasalty-clammy-tasty morsels. And after we showed our pleasure, he insisted that we take his entire harvest! We refused several times but he ended up waving his arms and skedaddling away from us to ensure we couldn’t give them back. We were left with no choice but to cook them for lunch. We made the limpets as he suggested, with just a bit of olive oil and lemon. Mmmm.
That same night we walked into the old town and we bumped into chef again, this time outside his restaurant where he was talking on his phone. He hung up and we chatted a bit but he disappeared briefly, only to return with a special spoon sweet he had made from figs he harvested in our neighborhood. Since then, we’ve received more gifts of homemade food from his foraging, including a whole bottle of the fig spoon sweet and also kritama, a tasty type of coastal green he pickled. He also showed us where to harvest a few more wild edibles. Jackpot for us!
Movie Night
On our path into the old town we walk past an open air cinema. As luck would have it, they were showing an English language movie for a couple nights, so we went to see it. The theater is lined with well-tended flowers, and because it's Greece the tables next to the seats all have ashtrays and the before-movie entertainment includes seeing cats (and a couple kittens) hopping underneath the screen. Is there a better pandemic movie experience than sitting outside in Greece under a starry sky in 70 degree weather, with a sea breeze? That’s a rhetorical question! We saw a British movie called Boiling Point, which is about a stressful night for a chef. It's a very good but intense movie and, astoundingly, it was shot in one continuous 90ish minute take. Luckily, our new chef friend seems to have much less stressful circumstances than the movie chef.
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The natural pool, with a couple regulars
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| Socializing during the banyo |
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| The path down to the pool |
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| The container of limpets we were gifted |
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| Limpets on the rocks |
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| The water is so clear here—all of this is underwater |
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Sam in her Aussie hat at the pool (thanks to Bella for letting Sam steal her hat look!)
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| Waiting for the movie to start |
And here's a little movie snippet of the pool (click to play)
