As all our friends know, we like to go abroad on one of the most traditional Greek holidays! Sunday prior to Lent is the culmination of Greek carnival with people feasting and watching parades. Then comes what is called Clean Monday (Kathari Deftera) (known as “Ash Wednesday” in other Mediterranean, primarily Catholic countries), as tradition has it that all meat and cheese residues have to be cleaned out of pots and pans in the household. In Greece, Kathari Deftera is a day of picnics, Lenten foods (including unlevened flat bread called “lagana”) and kite-flying, an activity particularly loved by children. But although we usually spend this three days break in London, this year we are going to Berlin! We leave Athens at 15 oC and expect to find sub-zero temperatures in Berlin (Come to think of it, this was a German winter for us: we went to Munich, now to Berlin - we even had house guests from Frankfurt for a week!) Aufwiedersehen!
