A Village Called Sirince, A Bar Called Horizons

Saturday, 21 August 2010. The coach leaves St John's Basilica and takes us to a small village called Sirince, pronounced Seh-RIN-jay.

We visit the Artemis Restaurant where we are given a glass of wine and a pancake stuffed with spinach. Apart from being just a little dry, the pancake was lovely. The wine was produced in the village which has been producing wine for quite a while.

Sirince is one of those villages that exchanged populations with Greece after the First World War.

The Greeks who lived here went to a village in Greece and that village's Turks came back to Turkey to live here.

There's some debate as to whether it was the Orthodox Christian Greeks or the returning Turks who instigated the wine making but the Turks either started or continued it and we sampled it and honestly couldn't tell whether it was Greek or Turkish in flavour... The restaurant cat - or it may have been a stray - purred as it brushed past me under the table and clawed the leg of the woman sitting opposite...

Sirince is one of those places where you wonder how they all make a living if not for tourists. I suspect many of the inhabitants work in Selcuk but the main street is a row of shops or stalls selling clothes, baskets and all sorts of stuff that I never ever buy on holiday... Actually if all tourists are like me, then it's to be hoped the majority of the population have a job in Selcuk!

Even the local road train only had one carriage. We had a couple of old ladies sitting opposite us on the coach and they reminded us a lot of Sadie and Joan who we met on an Island Star cruise. They were skilled experts at haggling to the point of making loud disapproving sucking noises if anyone else was in danger of paying too much! We waited in the hot sun for the coach to come back to pick us up. The locals were mainly sitting in the shade or having a siesta and probably thought us all mad...

A row of catering size tins, once containing cooking oil held a row of sunflowers.

That night in the Horizons bar we again sat to enjoy the music of Tomas and Maris - 2 Intense. At the end of one set Tomas brought the guitar off stage and gave it to me. The nylon-strung classical guitar felt nothing like my Fender Stratocaster, but I ran through the opening riff to Johnny B Goode and then dropped into Concrete and Clay whilst becoming aware that tables around us had gone quiet to listen.

"Come up and do one at the end of the next set," said Tomas. The end of the set came really quickly and as I was called up on stage, Fran realised our camera was still in the cabin and dashed off to get it! Talk about support - as I take the stage she runs out of the room!!! Once on stage I'm realising another challenge. Tomas did not use a strap or a guitar pick. My fingernails are not long enough so I had to strum and pluck with my finger ends. Also his legs are longer than mine. So whilst sitting on the stool Tomas's thigh is horizontal and supporting the guitar whereas mine is sloping down and the guitar wants to slide away from me!

So I play Concrete and Clay and am rewarded with a large burst of applause from the room. I thank Tomas and Maris - who has been keeping time, playing an egg-sized rhythm shaker throughout without even knowing the song! During the break between sets someone comes up to say how much they enjoyed my song and that I should go on again... Ooh aye! Feed the ego!!!

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A Day on La Palma

7 March 2004. Santa Cruz de la Palma is the capital city and port of La Palma, one of the westernmost of the Canary Islands. It is to this teardrop shaped island that we have sailed overnight.

Fran woke first and said "Have we docked yet?" I admitted I didn't know and she whisked back the curtains on the cabin porthole then shrieked at the sight of a much taken aback harbour pilot who was standing on the deck of his pilot boat about three feet away from her naked self... He could probably only see her face and shoulders but since that day Fran has been careful how she looks out of a ship window first thing of a morning...

By the time we were dressed and up on deck, the sun was out and blazing merrily down at the cruisers onboard, who by now are various shades of pink to bright-red-with-blisters... The bodies beautiful are still hard to find amongst the bodies crinkly.

We are booked on a half day afternoon excursion, so it is a lazy morning sunning ourselves and reading. Here Fran has gone for a couple of glasses of iced water - hopefully a bit fresher than the harbour water below which has a trail of rather disgusting looking stuff which has floated our way from a cargo ship moored at the other end of the dock...

The crew are playing on the lifeboats. This is described as a drill and is no doubt serious stuff, but it still looks good fun! Ok! The morning has gone and we must stir ourselves for the afternoon coach trip.

Our first stop is at a ceramics studio, where this chap is taking a break from making hundreds of little pirates - and one big one, obviously, to make a bowl in the manner of the ancient indiginous inhabitants of La Palma. As it's a volcanic island, I'm not sure how it could have indiginous anything except lava flows, but perhaps they mean the first ones to land after the fire went out...

Our next stop is at a local vineyard where the courier helpfully described the paint thinners posing as red wine as "not quite full bodied..." I should say not and to avoid litigation have avoided posting any photographs of the location or the grapes which the local goblins fill with vinegar every night.

Moving swiftly on, we arrive at one of the island's volcanic craters. The volcano, San Antonio last erupted in 1677 and was peaceful as far as any fire and brimstone was concerned.

The wind though was unbelievably fierce, threatening either to blow us into the crater or down the side of the volcano into the sea far below.

This was the view looking away from the bowl of the crater and either side, it was a heck of a long way to be rolling down razor sharp volcanic rock! Not a bad place though to tip any wine you may have bought without tasting it...

Final stop was at a small village with a small park laid out with mosaics and stone patterns. La Glorieta was the name of the park and admission was free and (Oh no!!!) there was a wine museum just 100 meters away.

It was extremely hot. Hot enough that you'd think the volcano could have rekindled itself, but we got back to the Carousel without any mishap or seismic phenomena. Tonight will be special and not just for the harbour pilot... Apart from breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, and main dinner, there is a midnight feast! Not to be missed!

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