Day 10 Nemesis, Kato Katelios

“Ken! Your son is very hansom!” Is how I am introduced to Denise, the proprietor of “The Nemesis”; one of about eight travernas on the Kato Katelios beach.

With these words she can pretty much guarantee my patronage for the remainder of the week.

She is a late middle-aged  Greek woman, clearly with some sort of eye infection or short-sightedness. She moved here three years ago, to open the Nemesis, she wanted to combine her two favourite things, owning and running her own business and talking to people; both of which she does really well.

The place is humming. With the World cup on, and Greece still in the game the Nemesis has become the place for tourists and locals alike t sit in the fresh air, share a beverage or two and watch the game from two big screen TVs. She and her husband are clearly doing something right.

The days are long. The sun, hot and the shade sails flap lightly in the breeze. Beatie, our waitress is on hand to deliver my Dad’s beers, my sister’s margaritas. Add in the boy’s with their ice-creams, Mark with his beer and Jeanie with her sangrias. Quality family time. Bliss.

Dad and Jeannette have been coming here for the past 3 years, little realizing Denise’s place opened only 3 months before their first trip.

“The pace of life here is better” Denise confides. “Much more relaxed than the busyness of the mainland.”

And she’s right. Tourism accounts for about a fifth of the islands income and Kato Katelios, where we are, is placed on the southern end, ‘far from the madding crowd’. As I may have mentioned earlier, there are eight eateries and possibly twenty villas and a further 30 to 50 apartments peppering the hillside which services this bay. We really are out of the way for most peoples’ taste.

But this suits Denise. Although she is here at breakfast and works through until often eleven and often times later still she doesn’t mind. It’s rarely “crazy busy”, she enjoys her staff, her family, the banter with the customers. I feel it is this casual familiarity which has them coming back time and again, Dad and Jeannette – I mean.  It’s certainly working on us . We’re feeling like we’re part of the family already and I can’t help but feel we’re are not the only ones.  And it certainly doesn’t harm being referred to as “the most hansom British person on the island”.