Joy in Schinoussa

You know my love for the old cafes. The emotion I feel when I see them carrying memories and images from a lost world. Like how many kilometers I can do to locate one of them, or my sadness when arriving happy my owners announced: "You are very lucky Mr. Pitta, we just renovated the cafe", and I go to sleep!

I say this because of the joy I felt when I discovered it the cafe of Chara in Schinoussa can not be described. First of all, because it complied with all its aesthetic standards. Old place, Aegean building, their layers of whitewash dozens, the indigo oil paint up to the middle of the height of the walls in embossed plaster. Beams snakes and indigo. Advertising sign of Tam-tam and others of the time, old ceiling fan and lamps for lighting. Did you remember from the cafes of the small Cyclades before 1983, when during Gennimata in a solemn ceremony the islands were electrified.

But my joy for Chara, multiplied when I saw that the "coffee makers" were young children, that for the first time after many years it worked in the winter and that the "world" of the cafe was what it should be. Hangout of the youth, locals and vacationers, people who loved the place. And endless stories, everyday conversations about things that happened to us and our neighbors. A sucker that escaped, the goat that gave birth, the vintage that is late, the fava that came out earlier this year. Experience stories.

Around a table with rakes and appetizers, local tomatoes, xinomyzithra, the Lila Klaoudatou and Thodoris Nomikos they tell us their stories.

"The building belongs to my grandfather Klaudatos and my grandmother, the Mani family, both local families. Since 1960 It functioned as a cafe-grocery store and in 1971 some rooms for rent in the garden were built. I was living in Athens, I spent some years in the snowy Karpenisi doing winter ski lessons to young children and suddenly I said to myself that I had to go to the island. I came in the summer and got stuck. For the first time in years, I worked in the winter cafe and it was very human, warm, confessional ".

Next to her, Thodoris Nomikos, a family with estates, groves and animals, told us the story of the resumption of its production fava beans which is one of the most optimistic messages coming from the island. Read more about it in the chapter «Fava Schinoussa».

"Joy" you gave me great joy!