Wednesday, 1 March 2023

Pissouri - Green Day walk

 Green Monday (Also sometimes called Clean Monday) is celebrated as a holiday in Cyprus. 

Eating meat, eggs and dairy products is traditionally forbidden to Orthodox Christians throughout Lent, which begins with Clean Monday. Fish is eaten only on major feast days, but shellfish is permitted in European denominations. This has created the tradition of eating elaborate dishes based on seafood (shellfish, molluscs, fish roe etc.).

Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece and Cyprus, where it is celebrated with outdoor excursions, the consumption of shellfish and other fasting food,[b] a special kind of azyme bread, baked only on that day, named "lagana" (Greek: λαγάνα) and the widespread custom of flying kites,[2] as it symbolises "trying to reach the Divine". From Wikipedia.

I have also been told that in Cyprus it's a day for spring cleaning - washing curtains, linens, walls and floors. When I was here in 2020 there was a huge village celebration with seafood BBQs, music and dancing. This year, it was announced, there would be no official village celebration although some people had indicated on Facebook that they were hoping people would still gather in the same area.

In 2020, under lockdown, I found a walk that I could do right out of the house and Rick and I went to see if it was still passable.


Going past a house I wanted a picture of this strange looking fruit on a squat palm tree. A woman came out, following a yappy little dog, to see what the fuss was about. She said she had 2 of these trees but that they got different fruit so she assumed there was a male and a female.


The Anemones are flowering in abundance and as the majority are white, the coloured ones


really stand out.

We heard family gatherings at some of the homes that we passed and one had lots of attendees, men looking after 4 smoky charcoal BBQs, Greek music playing and a couple of children flying a kite.

As my Valentines rose was looking a little sad we picked some wildflowers for the table.

Luckily Pizza Venetto in Pissouri Bay was not closed for Green Day and we headed down there for Rick's last Cypriot Pizza.

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