wish you were there

[fanntosseas]

 hi i would like to relate a story from one of our first visits to san stef.we awoke one morning after a vicious storm as we were sitting on our balcony eating crossants & drinking coffee we noticed that the telegraph post on the wasteland in front of us had been struck by lightning & was smouldering away merrily.at this point we heard the sound of approaching bells.by now our attention was fully focused on the evolving scene.then it came!! a fully functional green godess fire engine.it pulled up to grinding stop & five firemen got out they looked magnificent in their black uniforms & shiny silver helmets.then the leader of the pack got out you could tell he was the leader as he had a shiny golden helmet! he barked orders at his troops who salluted & attacked the inferno with there hose.well by now we are on the floor sharing our crossants with some passing ants as i could have peed higher than the feeble spray coming from the hose.after about half an hour & much shouting & gesturing by golden helmet they decided that discretion was the better part of valour & duly recoiled their hose & left the pole to burn itself out,i think the pole is still there. i will check when we come out on june 22.it was in front of the old vikki appartments.i just wondered if anyone else wittnessed this so i can test if my mind has not become befuddled by age & ouzo.please dont think i am mocking the firmen as i am sure they were doing a great job with the tools at hand but it really was very funny.

[Jules]

What year would that have been?

[fanntosseas]

hi jules we met last year in september lovely to here from you.this is our 21st consecutive year in san stef so i guess it was in the early ninetees .

[Jimbo]

Love that story!

A very long time ago I took Gillie for her first trip to Greece. Went to the island of Tinos. The whole trip was bizarre.

We had a night flight from Luton, and while we were waiting in the "departure lounge" (kind of shed) bar, I stuffed a pound in the fruit machine, which then jammed on a winning combination: pull handle, win, load of pounds clatters into the tray. Keep doing this until it's seriously time to board, and stagger onto the plane weighed down with what felt like half a ton of coin of the realm.

Having previously stayed in nice Lindian villas, with jolly well-spoken Sloanes dishing out breakfast, it was a bit of a shock to dwell in an isolated shack several hundred yards up a lonely and wind-swept beach. There appeared to about three other tourists on the island.

We were eating one evening at a taverna in a narrow street in Tinos town. Suddenly, about fifteen yards up the road there was a huge bang, a shower of sparks worthy of The X-Factor, and the oil-filled transformer on the side of a house exploded. There was a large of tongue of flame leaping up, and the lights went out. Being British we expected some kind of urgent response, but nobody took a blind bit of notice, and all that happened was that candles appeared on the tables in seconds.

The next day was festival of the Panagia (Virgin) at the Catholic cathedral, and we stood on the steep steps of the hill up to the cathedral as locals stood eating ice-creams watching old ladies crawl on their stomachs up the hill to be cured by the Blessed Mary.

The weather was bad and the ferry was delayed. We had to get Thessonliki airport. It's the only time I asked a Greek taxi driver to go faster!!!

[IrisG]

We'll be at the Vicky tomorrow, so I'll look out for the pole!

[tonyco1]

Hi Fantosseas, welcome to the Forum, We can also recount a similar story.

We were staying in Michalis & Katie's Apartments (Anatoli), above Kamini Bar (just behind Manthos Taverna), in it's slightly elevated position, and there was a ferocious Storm.
It was fantastic to view the continuous forked lightning dancing over the sea and Islands, and the thunder was deafening and crashing over the rooftops.
We were sitting in the Apartment just inside from the balcony as the rain was sheeting down at quite an angle.
We were enjoying watching natures show of shows, - - just mesmerising!

The waves were whipped up into high frenzy and we noticed the wind direction had changed towards us.
The wind blew harder into a gale and sent strong gusts of wind - which whipped up the washing (you know who) had put on the line inside the balcony to dry!
I noticed that the said washing was flying around so I reopened the door to get it.
The wind nearly knocked me back and just as I reached out for the final item, my son Mark's shorts, the wind took them and they flew!

This was followed by lightning strikes and as in Fantosseas story, it struck several of the sub-stations mounted on a wooden pole.
Fires broke out immediately in these units, and we all lost power in most of the village.

This time no fire engine as they were dealing with various other fires, so two (at least) of these sub-stations just burnt out.
Torches were the order of the day and it was a touch scary with the lightening, but quite a fun adventure that Mark still remembers!

The day after the holiday was a still calm, we surprisingly found Marks shorts in a mud pool near the Nafsika Hotel, and managed to wash them out.
It was three days before full restoration of power, but everyone just got on with things, cooking was by BBQ or bottled gas, everywhere, but it made a memorable holiday.

I have now seen storms like that half a dozen times there, but that was the daddy of them all!
We also had torrential rain one August which flooded out shops in Stef and also in Sidari.
We had hired a car luckily & when we went for a drive as there was no sun, we observed shopkeepers in Sidari,
trying to brush water out of the shops and bars, the roads were running water!

[Gavlah1973]

Great tales folks, great tales. Love hearing old folk like Tony regailing  stories from the past!!!

[tonyco1]

Old? it's just a state of mind!