“I now work at La Frianderie. The owner Mr Tassos was an officer at the naval academy, responsible for the supervision of the bakery. Mr Tassos is also from Poros so he knew me anyhow and approached me to ask if I wanted to help. At the beginning I joined almost as a joke, well, not really a joke, and here I am now, waking up at 4am every morning to work. I’m the first to arrive and I bake all the pastries. If you add up the two family bakeries I worked for before the navy, the 38 years at the naval academy, and my work at La Frianderie, I have over 50 years of baking experience.
My best friends are the whole of Poros island. If I had to single out some, I would say Kostopoulos, Livanos the fisherman and his brother who was the chief of staff at the Stella Maris hotel. And a lot more, I cannot name them all. But I still meet all of them frequently.
We used to go to the tavernas, back then there were no tourists and the locals were their only customers. Similarly, there were no bars. We would either go to the cinema -the same one there is today- or to the tavernas. And when the bars started popping up, we still opted for the tavernas. We enjoyed the wine, the good meze, dancing. The dance chasaposerviko started from here and the island of Koulouri.
During my time at the naval academy I met a lot of people, navy trainees from all walks of life, wealthy and poor. If I travel through Greece, half of the population knows me because everyone who joined the navy started their training at the Poros naval academy. Having said that, I have not travelled much and I don’t know what is the most beautiful place in the world, but I would like to visit the parts of Greece I have not visited yet. I enjoy visiting villages that have grill with “kokoretsi” (lamb intestines). Travelling is always beautiful with kokoretsi and wine.”