1st May 2011 - Happy MAY Day To All! Καλή Πρωτομαγιά σε Όλους!

Camomile flowers all over... an experience for all senses

We can share the beautiful view (Double-click on the picture to enlarge it)
but not the incredible  camomile-scented atmosphere.
Just close your eyes and imagine you are in the field with us...

Ist May, Πρωτομαγιά 

May Day today, a beautiful day in Athens and a wonderful day to do what we normally do on this day... enjoy the beauty of the countryside!

 

After a great lunch - salads, souvlakia feta cheese and our own homegrown Cretan wine and extra virgin olive oil - we set off to go up to Pendeli Mountain to spend precious quality time enjoying the Athens' Spring and the magnificent colours of nature all around us and, of course, picking wildflowers for our usual May Day Wreath or Stefani! 

Blue...

Blue in close-up...

Purple...

Red...

White...

Green...

Blue and Purple...

Purple again...

Trees...

Green, green, beautifully green hills...

the benefits of an unusually rainy Athens April

Love this mixture ...grass flowers inter alia

Luscious green Pendeli mountain side

 Athens at our feet...

 One of the burnt out tree (devastation) but at it's roots

a small pine tree can be seen struggling to grow...(hope)

 It really is marvellous seeing all the new life - the small pine trees that hundreds of volunteers have planted springing up all over the mountain...

 Rock where the soil has gone...

 Lots and lots of marble...

after all this is the mountain that gave 

the Parthenon its sparkling white marble

We gathered our flowers and carefully made our May Day wreath...but as we couldn't decide which May Day wreath photo to share, we decided to leave them all!

Kai tou xronou!

Hope your day was as beautiful as ours!

Καλή Πρωτομαγιά!

Kali Protomagia! 

Happy May Day!

1st May 2010 - Happy May Day To All! Καλή Πρωτομαγιά σε Όλους!

Ist May, May Day today, a beautiful day in Athens and along with much of the population we decided we were going to do what we normally do on this day... go up to the mountains around Athens and  sit in the sun  and spend precious quality time enjoying nature and picking wildflowers for our May Day Stefani!

We decided to leave the officials from the IMF and the EU to do their work, and joined all those not protesting in Syntagma Square against the austerity measures to be imposed because of the economic crisis which seems to have taken over all aspects of our life in Greece.

We decided that we would protest in our own way, by not letting it affect our lives negatively ...  and had a lovely day!

And yes, in case you are asking, we did stop at a nice cafe on the way down from Pendeli Mountain and we did enjoy  a leisurely afternoon coffee in the sun... much to the chagrin, I'm sure,  of all those who would shut out our sun and have us sit inside our houses crying at our fate...

Αs we all know, tears do not become Electra and we are all descendants of Electra...

The only depressing part of our excursion was seeing the young trees which we had all planted over the last few years burnt and blackened after last year's destructive fires on Pendeli.

The encouraging part of that was seeing that natural regeneration is indeed taking place... 

The miracle of nature in all it's glory!

We gathered our flowers and carefully made our May Day wreath...

The finished product ...

And because the flowers all around Athens are in bloom, and we need as much beauty as possible to brighten the doom and gloom of the days ahead, we thought we would add some of our garden flowers too...

Hope your day was as beautiful as ours!

Καλή Πρωτομαγιά!

Kali Protomagia! 

Happy May Day!