A wonderful chance encounter...

This morning John and I decided we would go for a bit of a walk which was to be a voyage of discovery because I had come across an advertisement for a newly opened eatery in Ineia.  Now this comes as something of a surprise because there used to be a taverna in Ineia many years ago but it is long gone - Dad had eaten in it and if we ever drove past he would say - "there's where the taverna used to be, up those steps".  We can't remember where he showed us now.  

Anyway John and I set off for a little walk and quickly stumbled across the place.  Archoniko Elenia is situated on the corner of a back street and looked to be right up our street - very traditional.  There was no-one there but at least we knew where it was for future reference.

We took a little wander around the church and the Weaving Museum which I seem to think has been shut down although looking through the open shutter on one of the side windows there are still exhibits inside.  Ineia is also to house a Turtle Centre and there are signs for it although we didn't walk that way to take a look.

It was a glorious day with fabulous cloud formations which was useful as this week's challenge is An Interesting Sky so our walk was leisurely and peppered with photo opportunities and treading paths less trodden.  We walked down the old cobbled road and turned right to do a longish sweep back into the village.  As we did so a battered old blue 4x4 stopped and the guy inside engaged us in conversation, or at least he tried as he had very limited English which didn't seem to dovetail with our equally limited Greek but what we did find out was that he was the man from the new eatery and he proudly gave us a card.

After this encounter John and I went down one very interesting track which didn't end up going anywhere in particular save for some fabulous fields of fruit and another track which should have taken us back into the village but which has disappeared even though we tried to find it and ended up with socks and boots jiggered with burrs.

We returned home and set about doing a few jobs in the garden.  I unpicked a waterproof barbeque cover so that I could create a new smaller one for our gas barbeque and then used some of the material left over to reline the hanging basket in the front garden having taken out the sad looking contents and replanting with a selection of succulents which should do well.

With nothing much planned for tea we decided to go and give the new eatery a go and I showed John a short cut which brought us out right by the top of the street where it is situated.  It was like stepping back in time!!!  Acheleas apologised that he had been delayed in getting the grills lit because he had had to open the church this evening so there would be no food for a little while - we remember going to Zingas in Droushia way before we moved here and had a similar experience which ended up with John and I drinking two large carafes of wine before a single morsel passed our lips!

We decided to take a seat out on the terrace so we could take advantage of the remaining sunshine.  We ordered a bottle of wine - he didn't have Vasilikon white but the Sterna equivalent was very drinkable.  He brought dips and some pickled caper and some toasted pittas to keep us going and then after a while came and asked what we wanted - no menus here so we opted for two staples, pork kebabs for me and a pork chop for John with some chips and salad.

 As the evening wore on several locals came in and others came to pick up a takeaway including our lovely taxi driver Tassos from Droushia and Savvas the tyre man's wife Eleni and daughter Angela.  We then realised that this was a relative of Eleni's - in fact it belonged to her aunt and uncle!!!  I haven't seen Angela for a long time but she still rushed up to give me a huge hug.  

We had a lovely evening - we were made to feel so much part of the community.  A couple of old guys came in - one spoke perfect English and looked round and said to us "this is a good place"  he was not wrong, what we had was delicious and the wine slipped down far too easily as we had two bottles along with a large bottle of water.  

The only problem with places like this is that you can sometimes get a bit of a nasty surprise with the bill so we were trying to work it out - two bottles of wine, one large bottle of water, salad and dips and pitta, a big plate of lovely chips, souvlaki and pork chop.  Well the wine could have been 24-30 euros on their own.

Our bill was 30 euros because Eleni had paid for one of the bottles of wine but even so - what a bargain!!!  We shall be back!!