Kathari Deftera, or "Clean Monday", is one of the most important holidays in the Greek liturgical calendar and certainly one of our favourites. Growing up in a Catholic country and accustomed to a definitely gloomier and more introspective beginning of Lent, we could not be anything but (pleasantly) surprised by a celebration of reconciliation, regeneration and raising of the spirit characterised instead by outdoor excursions, flights of kites and good shared food.

Like every year, even in this disastrous 2020 the first snakes appeared in the Church of Panagia Lagouvarda (or Panagia Fidousa, Panagia of the snakes) in Markopoulo and in nearby Arginia, Kefalonia.