I am currently on a tour on Kos island and visited the last operational windmill in Greece
Today I visited an old mountain village called Pili. It is less touristy and you can find many natives that are happy to talk to you. In the middle of the village Square there was a little museum which showed the old way of life here. Everything was original and it was amazing to see how different life was just merely 100 years ago!
This house was a bit larger than the ordinary family home as it has three rooms. Normally two were all what people had. Don't forget that the parents the children and the grandparents sometimes all lived together. As there was so little space the rooms had to be multifunctional.
Here we start with a working room where the family did some of the chores or produced goods for selling. In this case there is a machine for weaving cloths as well as carpets which still has all the original parts and should be functional.
The main room was the sleeping room whih also stored many possessions. You can see how the people dressed. Women after getting married were expected to wear a head scarf. The most interesting furniture to me was the bed. The bed seems to have been the main furniture storing many things under it and reaching all the way to the top. As you can see they had a little "bed" for the baby as well. This seems so clever as it would be easy to push it slightly so it would rock back and forth a bit and calm it.
And finally the kitchen. Women cooked on the "table" right next to the Fite place and it was also the place where people sat to eat. There are many pots and jars which hey used to cook with and store liquids like olive oil. Left overs were stored in a box hanging from the ceiling which prevented animals from eating it. You can also see a large black "pot" under the table. This was used for washing! Obviously it was possible to heat it, but it really doesn't look very inviting... There are also some wash boards which were used for... you guessed it... washing clothes. This was of course very laborious but the only way to get a clean set of clothes again.
Finally we have the oven which they used for baking bread and other things. However, you might have wwondered about one thing... where is the toilet?! It was outside in the yard/garden. But I am sure they would have had something to give them privacy...
So in a nutshell: life was hard back then! But people still managed to produce many wonderful things (like the carpets in the rooms) and I think life was not just about survival, although it certainly played a much bigger part in their lives as for contemporary Greeks.
Check out the Love The Clouds Community if you share the love for clouds!