Mere and Rich in Greece: Easter in Ios

After an amazing few days on Santorini, we headed off to the last island on our trip, Ios. Our landlords, Panos and Eva, hosted us with their family and friends for a traditional Greek Easter celebration. Saturday afternoon we explored the island and found some beautiful beaches. Since Ios isn't as much of a tourist island, we were able to enjoy the views all by ourselves. The main town, Chora, is a very cute traditional Cycladic looking town with white washed walls, blue doorways and window frames and narrow streets. Saturday night, Jeremy, Rich and Meredith joined Panos and Eva for the midnight Easter service. Everybody brought candles (which are traditionally given to the children by their godparents) and at the end of the 10 minute ceremony, a candle that was lit in Jerusalem is used to light the priest's candle and pass the flame through out the congregation. The church wasn't much bigger than somebody's living room but it was packed with people. Once the candles were lit, the men outside set off bottle rockets and fire crackers that could be heard all over the island. After the service, we went to a local taverna for the traditional Easter meal of lamb soup (we had the "light" version made with actual lamb meat but Panos enjoyed the "heavy" version made with the rest of the lamb), hard boiled eggs died blood red (for the blood of Christ), salads and entrails. We each had our no thank you helping of the entrails and were very glad the soup was delicious and filling.

Sunday, we headed over to Panos and Eva's home on a secluded beach. There are only about 5 other homes nearby and it was actually the home that Panos was born in. He enjoyed showing us around and telling us how they would take the donkey over to the local well (that was 500 meters away) for water and didn't have electricity until about 15 years ago. He even showed us where he brought running water from a spring that he found half way up the valley. We enjoyed meeting more of their family friends and had a huge meal of spinach pies, salad, home made wine, 3 types of goat and several local cheeses that are given to Panos by the local shepherds in return for letting them use his land.

Narrow streets with white walls and blue door and window frames

Our private beach

Goats roamed the hillsides in herds. We could hear their bells from across the valley.

View from the top of Ios

The view from Jeremy and Margo's balcony of Chora

Everywhere we went Greeks couldn't keep their hands off of Bryce. While we were having lunch in a taverna the owner of the taverna came over to say hi to Bryce. Next thing we know she took him over to the next table with her girlfriends and babysat for the rest of our meal. Even little Greek children would come up and try to pick him up.