Kea island

KEA, Greece – Father Lefteris – habit flowing, serving tray in hand – exits the kitchen and glides into the monastery's shaded courtyard. The middle-aged Greek Orthodox priest is carrying a half-litre carafe filled with what looks like water. Only it isn't water.

The shot glasses give it away.

"Some `white coffee'?" he proffers, a twinkle in his eye.

He is euphemistically referring to the locally distilled raki, a clear variety of firewater similar to grappa in its powerful kick and alarming capacity to inebriate.

"Bravo," he says when a visitor refills his own glass after the first round.

The southern Peloponnese

We had two options when leaving the Ionian Sea by yacht.

Turn left at Patras and take a short cut through the man-made Corinth Canal to the Saronic Gulf, Athens and the sun-drenched Greek Islands, or carry on south around the outstretched fingers of the Peloponnese Peninsula.

We opted for the long route.

The Peloponnese is a huge chunk of Greece separated from the mainland by the Gulf of Corinth with the Ionian Sea on the west and the Saronic Gulf on the east.

It's a region of outstanding beauty with fertile valleys, spectacular mountains, beautiful beaches and some of Greece's prettiest towns, including the former capital, Napflion, and the old walled town of Monemvasia.

Greek authorities vowed to clean up the tourist scene in seaside resorts

GREECE
Greek authorities vowed to clean up the tourist scene in seaside resorts after a 20-year-old Australian was beaten to death by bouncers at a Mykonos bar. Much of the resorts' violence and indecency comes from bar owners serving drinks fortified with industrial alcohol.

GERMANY
A five-day strike by Lufthansa staff ended Aug. 1. The airline does not expect its schedule to return to normal until mid-August.