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Practice the Greek Alphabet

By , About.com Guide

6 of 10

Taverna of what?

I like this sign because, in six letters, it helps you past four problems in the Greek alphabet. Do you remember the symbol for "Pi" when calculating the area of a circle? That will help you get started.

Then, what clearly looks like "P" is not "P", but "R".

Next, we come to the funny angular letter that is not a flipped "L", but "G" - though it is sometimes pronounced as a "Y", as in "Yanni".

Last but not least, you get to see what looks like "E" in action - but you'll remember that's really an "S", right? There's a special problem here with this letter because people back home trying to make things look Greek will sometimes use it as an "E" in psuedo-signage. The biggest recent offenders, who should have known better, were the ads for "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where they used it for the "E"s, actually making it "My Big Fat GRSSK WSDDING". Don't be fooled!

Put it all together and it's Taverna Pyrgos, and you now have four of the "difficult" Greek letters firmly in hand. Pyrgos means "Tower", here referring to the stone tower that marks this spot.

It's well worth a stop on the main road across Crete going through Spili to Rethymno and beyond. Their homemade walnut cake is especially good, they have Carte d'Or ice creams, nice bathrooms, and the view is terrific.

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