Makrinitsa is like a balcony from where you can see Volos, the nearest town.

 

The village was wonderful, although the third day the fog came.

In the evening of Good Friday, we go to the Procession of the Epitaph-in our case around the village- holding candles. The Epitaph is paraded through the streets in what is made to remind a funeral procession.

Holy Saturday evening is the Resurrection Mass, around midnight. The church is decorated with red and white ribbons this time. We go with our Easter Candles. For kids this is a great moment because they get to hold the candles their godparents have given them for Easter. That’s a tradition for godparents, along with the giving of a big chocolate egg, and new shoes.

At midnight all the lights are extinguished in the church to signify the darkness of the tomb. It is one of my favourite moments. Then the priest comes from behind the doors on the altar carrying a candle. He walks to someone in the front row and lights their candle with the holy light that has arrived by a military jet plane from Jerusalem. When the priest holds the first lit candle and says "Deute Lavete Fos" which means "Come and get the holy light", people light their candles from him and pass the light to each other. Traditionally, you take this light home because it brings good luck and blessings.

When the priest says "Xristos Anesti" which means Christ is risen from the dead, the bells ring joyfully and the sky is lit with fireworks. This goes on for many minutes and you can hear people screaming. Not everybody is fond of fireworks above their heads. People give each other the Kiss of Love and say "Xristos Anesti". The priest distributes red eggs to everybody.

Finally, everybody returns home and eats ‘mageiritsa’ soup, made of lambs innards. Yucky. So this year I made my own veggie mageiritsa and you can see it here. We also tap our red eggs with each other, saying "Christ is risen" and replying "Alithos Anesti" (truly he is risen). Again, we cheer and clap for the winner: The person whose egg stays uncracked for the longest time. This is the lucky egg. We also eat tsoureki, a sweet Easter bread. (We don’t go egg hunting and there is no Easter Bunny, just chocolate bunnies, just like chocolate eggs).

Tsoureki

Easter Sunday is a happy day. Not for lambs though. I had taken a picture of people turning the spits with the roast lambs in the gardens and courtyards but it mysteriously disappeared. People also eat kokoretsi, which is one of those WTF traditions I was telling you about. Because kokoretsi (banned in the European Union) is liver, heart, kidneys, sometimes lungs and spleen of a lamb or goat, placed on skewers and then covered in intestines which are wound around the skewer in a tube-like fashion.

I found this mural in an old church. This is what happens if you eat too many kokoretsia.

 

This is the church we went to.

Pilion is full of apple trees (there is a village named Milies which means Apple Trees), cherry trees, pear trees, berries, plane trees, oak trees, mushrooms, oregano bushes, thyme, more than 3.600 kinds of flowers and more than 1000 different kinds of herbs.

You must know this is "anemone the taomorph". I didn’t, because I have been living in a city all my life.

 

We call these purple flowers "pasxalies" because they blossom around the time of Easter (Pasxa) and fill the air with their lovely perfume, that in effect, reminds us of Easter.

The Food

This is "glyko tou koutaliou" which is a generic term for all sweets that are prepared in this way, namely fruit or even flowers, and tomatoes too, boiled in sugar. These above are little apples in syrup and they are delicious.

 

Here they are, all together.

 

Empty bottles of tsipouro, a strong, but very straight drink that never gives you a headache.

 

Feta cheese baked with tomatoes and spices

a kind of potato salad

Leek pie

 

My red eggs

 

Our friends had bought the most amazing cheeses for us. Clockwise beginning from the snake like cheese: That’s a soft cheese from Pontos, next to it there is a cheese from Crete, the other one is a French blue cheese and the one in the net is called parxarotyri, a smoked kind.

The Village

This little tavern is called "Theophilos" in honour of Theophilos, a well known and much loved folk painter who lived in the area in the beginning of the century. In the tavern there is a huge wall painting by Theophilos who was a very interesting persona. He used to dress as Alexander the Great and wander in the villages of Pilion, totally in his own world.

Typical house in Pilion.

 

This is in Portaria, another beautiful village.

 

Makrinitsa and all other Pilion villages are full of fountains, some of which are a couple of centuries old.

 

A little cafe that provided shelter from the spring rain

The old train station in Milies village.

Today the little steam train still operates not for real transportation but for tourist reasons. It still goes round many villages. I scanned a postcard because it wasn’t there when we arrived.

There is a little hotel and a tavern by the old train station, called Train Station.

 

My son and his friend. The hell raisers, the Gallagher Brothers of Makrinitsa.

 

The nice square in Makrinitsa where I wrote you postcards

 

On the way back I took this picture to remind you of summer being near.

 

That was really hard work. But I got paid in cheese and wine, so it’s okay. (A big thank you to our hosts who don’t read this blog, but just in case).