Clean (or Lent) Monday is a bank holiday in Greece which marks the end of the carnival season and the start of Lent or the period of fasting until Easter. People traditionally spend Clean Monday outdoors, enjoying picnics with Lenten dishes and flying kites.

Clean Monday delicacies include: lagana (a special unleavened bread eaten only on this day), taramosalata (a fish roe spread), dolmadakia (vine leaves stuffed with rice), grilled octopus, gigantes plaki (oven-baked broad beans), seafood salads and shellfish as well as a special semolina pudding known as halvas are just some of them.

Customs and Traditions

Clean Monday is celebrated in unique and colourful ways all over Greece:

On Karpathos island, the “popular court punishing immoral deeds” event takes place. The “judges”, the island's most venerable citizens, are called to trial, the villagers are “arrested” by masquerade police, for exchanging obscene gestures.

Tyrnavos in Larissa is famous for the custom of Burani, a Bacchic day during which the rules of decent behavior are temporarily suspended. The use of sexual and love symbols are combined with traditional folk manifestations, and of course tsipouro, wine, not to mention ouzo!

The wedding of Koutroulis (second photo) is a tradition that revives in Methoni, Peloponnese. It refers to a 13th century incident, when the knight Ioannis Koutroulis managed to convince his wife Dona Agathi to give him a divorce to marry beautiful Arsana. The wedding celebrations lasted for many days; through the centuries the phrase “Koutroulis' wedding” came to mean “great party”!

In Nedousa, Southern Peloponnese, an agricultural carnival takes place every year on Clean Monday. The custom involves a kind of popular theatre that dates to antiquity, according to poet Hesiodos - a series of acts “performed” by a group of people dressed up as goats with bells around their waists to ward off evil spirits, and secure good luck and prosperity for the village.

During Carnival, the town of Galaxidi revives the unique custom of "alevromoutzouromata" [VIDEO] (flour fights) dating back to the heyday of the town’s merchant fleet, as a fun event for departing sailors at the end of the Carnival.

Galaxidi is transformed into a battlefield as hundreds of people mercilessly pelt one another with ample quantities of variously coloured flour and dance around fires – the most daring even jump over them!