Kouvelles

The house my mother bought in Evia was in Kouvelles, a small village 3km from Nea Styra and 5.5km from Styra. It nestles between the two villages. Kouvelles is a very small, traditional village - it's so small that there's no amenities there, no shop, no cafe, nothing, just the houses, a church and the ruins of an olive oil mill. 

Unfortunately, I have no photographs of our house. The man who bought the house had it demolished and built a new, two-storey house, a house that is a bit too modern for the village. 

We took a taxi to the village, wandered around, then walked back to Nea Styra. So many memories, some heartache, a very emotional experience.

The taxi left us at a cross roads on top of the hill, at the end of the village 

by this house, the last of the village.

We stopped to take in the views

North

East

South

All these houses are to the north of where ours was

I am recording all of them, because this post is a memory record for me

I like the round extension

We had reached the spot just above where our house used to be, so this is the view we had from our terraces and garden. 

Our house was old, after she bought it my mother discovered that her great grandfather had lived there - an incredible coincidence.

Stopped for the views again

This is going to be a long post, but I need to record as much as possible

Walked down this path

First sighting of the new house on the plot where ours was

the side of the house

The house is on a very steep hill. When we lived there bushes kept the earth in place but when the council cemented the road (they did not use tarmac but cement) the bushes were taken down and our house was in danger of sliding down the hill - my mum had to have this wall built to protect the house and garden.

On our way we stopped at our neighbour's house. Sophia was our closest neighbour and she'd had a very difficult life.

But, now the house is abandoned. I hope that Sophia has gone to live with her daughter

The yard where they would sit and where she would do all her cooking preparations

This outhouse is where the oven was and where she would bake the week's bread every Monday

The stairs to the roof where they would dry all sorts of things, tomatoes, raisins, fruit

a fuller picture of the house

and the views

In order to get a view of the front of the house we had to walk down this path - it's very steep and horrid to climb. We all remember the time when we were doing some work on the house and Ken walked up this path with 50 kg of cement on his shoulder!

Halfway down we saw some sheep and stopped - they must be our other neighbour's (across the stream from us) Aristos, who is a shepherd

And there it is. You can see how steep that path is

A crossroads here - behind us the stream, on our right the path to the west side of the village where Aristos' house is, and in front of us, the road that leads to the coast and Nea Styra. 

The path it's just earth, leaves and twigs and things, and I remember how by the time we got to the main road that leads to the coast and Nea Styra our feet and legs would be covered in dust - it was awful. We used to do that walk four times a day, to the beach and back, then in the evenings to Nea Styra and back. Eventually we got a motorbike and that made things easier.

Most of the road to the coast has been tarmacked now, but not this bit in the village - this does not make sense, I don't know what the Council were thinking, but there you go...

The best view of the house so far.

Our house used to be at the back of the plot so that we had the garden facing us. The garden was on two levels; the first level consisted of a veranda, a mulberry tree, then the path that lead to the bathroom, the sheds and the front gate; the lower level was where the kitchen was, then a terrace, followed by another terrace with a huge mulberry tree which is where we sat for shade, and then the garden. 

We started walking

I turned round and said goodbye to the house. So many memories. So much life lived there. It wasn't easy, living with an outside toilet, it was hard keeping the house clean, and the 3km walk to Nea Styra four times a day got tiresome, but we had great times here, as well as really difficult, hard ones.

We started walking in earnest, the dried up river bed on our left

plane trees 

houses on our right

a pomegranate tree leaning on this fence

You see these everywhere in Greece - they are often on sights where someone died and in a lot of them you can light a candle

olive groves on our right

and fields

and more houses

This is new - a little footbridge over the river bed

leading

to a house

We had reached the end of the village, and saw this sign: a taverna in the village? We had to go and investigate

so we took the path on our right that leads to the west side of the village

the old fountain which I presume must have been the only, or one of the few sources of water in the village, and where I imagine people would meet up to talk and exchange news

Bourgainvillea inside a garden

good views as we were getting higher

We had a chat with this lady. I asked her about the sign for a taverna, and she said that it did not last long - maybe a year, and then it shut. So, there's still nothing in the village and things will continue this way if the Council build roads all around it but not inside the village itself.

We stopped again to admire the views

zoomed in and there it was, the house, again

We retraced our steps, 

got to the main road, and the ruins of the old olive oil mill

I looked through one of the windows and it's all overgrown

On the road again leading to Nea Styra

the odd house on our right

the river bed on our left.

This unfinished house was half the size when we used to come here, and was even then unfinished. The only livable bit was the cellar where people lived. We would walk back, after midnight having had quite a few drinks, and say 'oh! look, the cellar people, they are still awake'. So this became the 'cellar people'. And even though they have added bits, it's still unfinished.

A cross roads, but we continued straight ahead

I stopped to look at these, took one with me, put it on the table in our hotel room and forgot about it

four days later, it had opened

A blackberry bush - I did not know that blackberries grew in Greece

the new football pitch for kids to play

I remember this rock - it looked very imposing at midnight in the dark while we walked with just our torch to show us the way

a few houses scattered about

a lamb jumped in front of us, and then scared run off

rhe riverbed on our left and the view beyond

We had reached the main road that leads down to Nea Styra, or up the hills to Styra.

Looking back towards Kouvelles

A few minutes and we entered Nea Styra

the cafeterias

the empty beach (all of this is really buzzing in the summer)

 and the port.