In an interview with the magazine Gala, Nikos Aliagas returned in detail to his Greek origins and in particular to his childhood memories. “Every summer, we drove to Missolonghi, where my parents and my grandparents are from” he said, before specifying that he lost his paternal grandfather at the age of 18 and his grandmother “Maria” four years earlier. “We went to their house in Stamna, which we have kept as it was. I stay there a few days a year with my wife and children.” he confided. A place steeped in history and very rustic, far from the artifice and comfort he knows in France.
“The toilets are in the garden. On the ground floor, there is a very dark stone kitchen with holes in the wall, like loopholes, because this house dates from the end of the XIII century, time of the fights against the Turks. Another world. There is barely electricity, no telephone, no TV, nothing” he detailed, before saluting the courage of his grandparents. “They were marked by the harshness of life and the difficulties linked to the war and the dictatorship (…) They were manual workers, people of the land. It was a fascination for me: the hands, the craftsmen, it comes from there. They were both modest and very strong.” The presenter of 50 Minutes Inside also added that they live “in an incredible setting, far from being sanitized like that of Paris“.
A “courageous” grandmother
For him, the values instilled in him by his grandparents when he was little are priceless. “I never felt poor because we had everything: dialogue, love, culture. And in general, a lot of philosophy” he explained. He also remembered some times spent with his grandfather. “After waking up, he said to me, “You clean your face, and you smell the smell of a pot of basil. Because when you smell basil, you remove all the evil spirits.” I also remember that he taught me to “read” the flight of birds or to decipher their song“.
He also had a thought for his grandmother, who “decoded dreams” and “protected from the evil eye.” “She was one hell of a woman. Courageous. And on this point, I can afford to say it: I got it from her” he estimated. Nikos Aliagas has never hidden his pride in his Greek origins. Now we understand better why!