Ag Galinia

I was developing a cold. When the next morning dawned as rainy and cold as the one before, I decided to flee the town of Iraklion and called Zorba RentACar. (Kazantzakias is a Cretan hero) A taxi driver had told me that "in the South, it is dry and warm" so South we went, in a tiny car on poor roads over drenched hills - and gradually the sky cleared. I had little idea of where we were going: I’d expected to be in Heraklion for several days - but the consensus of the Greeks I’d talked to in the hotel and the night before in the taverna was that we should go to Ag. Galinia - St. Peace. And in Ag. Galinia we found a little pension for $7.50 a night (most of our other hotels had been $15 a night) and lay in the sun in the wildflowers, on a hill overlooking the tiny harbor. We watched a peasant lead her donkey and her goat, followed by a tiny trotting Easter lamb, along the coast; we saw the fishing boats returning home. I felt much better.

After dinner we wandered around the town. Someone was opening a new "nightclub" there called Greenwich Village and so, as Americans, we were asked to tell people please, what did Greenwitch Villlage mean? We went for dessert to a little patisserie. (The Greek tradition is that coffee and dessert are not bought at the taverna.)

My voice had disappeared. So I was ordering completely in pantomime. The host was sympathetic. What I needed, he decided, was tea with metaxa in it. Very good for the throat. Of course he did not charge extra for the brandy, it was purely medicinal. It did indeed do wonders for my throat. And in St. Peace, we slept well.