Clean Monday, Pure Monday, Lent Monday or Ash Monday is of Christian origins, meaning spiritual and physical purification. For most Greeks, celebrating Clean Monday means going to the hillside or by the sea to fly kites and enjoy a fasting picnic. These celebrations are also called Koulouma, a word that comes from the Latin cuuilus, which means both abundance and end. Thus the Koulouma stand for the culmination of the carnival period and also the beginning of the season of Lent.
The first day of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Lent requires the consumption of shellfish, taramosalata, lagana (a special kind of flat bread), gigandes and other beans, and halva.
We celebrated by having most of the above in a local taverna with family. We had to book two weeks in advance in order to get a table as most people like to go out on this day.
We then walked to the sea to watch people flying their kites.
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