After the tourists leave ………..

Now the thing about the end of a holiday is just that. 

Most of us return with little thought to the resort we left other than fond memories, a tan, and a souvenir fridge thing.

Not so those who service the tourists, for them life goes on, with new holiday makers, fresh souvenirs and postcards to sell.  

Except if your holiday coincides with the end of the season, because then the sense that it is all running down is all too evident.

It starts with the lack of tourists, and the absence of hire cars, and that knowledge you will not have to be first down to the beech to nab the best sunbeds and umbrellas.

Already some restaurants faced with few customers have shut up shop, and begun shifting out the tables, chairs, and kitchen equipment.

Others are debating just when would be best to call it a day. 

And so, it is with the Sunset Bar beside the beach.  

Last time we were here in August two years ago the bar was heaving.  

This year in late Sept it is still doing well but the signs are there with fewer sun worshippers on the beach and so fewer retreating from the heat to the bar.

 They will close this week ahead of the official close of season. 

But unlike others, Maria, her dad, and brothers will not take the long ferry trip to Athens or somewhere else on the mainland to be reunited with the family.  

They live above the resort in a fine house.  And during the next month will begin harvesting the crop from their 90 olive trees from produce a fine organic product.

They also own long thin strips of land which run up from the road beside the beech.

On these they grow the tomatoes, onions, aubergines, cucumbers, and courgettes which are the ingredients for the dishes they serve up in the bar.

They even proudly include on the menu, chips made from “our own organic potatoes”.

This year they not only will finish a few weeks earlier but also started later, guessing that the tourists would not be as great as they had been in 2019.

This had been a bumper year, followed by the year of the covid lockdown.

So by early November the beech strip of restaurants, bars and the solitary supermarket will have closed up, the holiday apartments will stand empty and apart from the occasional car taking a short cut along the sea road, the place will be quiet till the spring.

Location; Lourdas, Kefalonia

Pictures; lunchtime, Sunset Bar, from the collection of Andrew Simpson,  sunset over Lourdas , and the apéritif , Argostoli, Balzano, 2021