Athens - Mostly Food

Before I say another word,  can anyone suggest a browser for Apple devices that supports Blogger? Safari doesn't, so I can't blog when on the move, and I'm away a LOT this year. So I am really sorry it's taken me so long to write about Athens, and that I haven't been commenting much on blogs. Well, hopefully that will change!  

I really loved revisiting Athens after several years away.  The picture above shows a stunning sculpture of a boy jockey on a horse from the transformed Athens Archaeological Museum.  I can't get over that that it was created when we in Britain were scratching things on walls of our mud huts, or whatever we did in the years BC (see below). 

I knew there were many new things in Athens since my last visit, over 10 years ago.  The cleverly-planned, world-class Acropolis museum, extensions to the fascinating Benaki, new venues, parks, restaurants and hotels. But I'd also seen some negative stuff because of the economic situation, and been warned by Greeks to be a little more careful about personal security than before, even though the city is still very safe by most standards.

So I took the advice and was careful, but despite more empty shops, to me Athens seemed much the same as usual, better in many parts, the only worse thing I noticed was more graffiti than before.  I felt safe, welcome and happy there.  In fact, people seemed to go out of their way to be generous, hospitable and friendly; but then, I tend to expect that in Greece.

For instance, in the city's central market, I saw these strawberries, very cheap. I bought half a kilo, and the stall owner tipped in an extra handful, and knocked off the extra cents due to him when he weighed them.  And they were the most wonderful strawberries, very fresh and just as good as they looked.  I was impressed. He knew we were just tourists, probably wouldn't be back, but still treated us well.

So as a little thank you to that proud and generous Greek stallholder, I'll tell you a bit more about the food in Athens.  Of course it's a great city to walk around the back streets of, and en route to the central market we saw all kinds of interesting things, including a shop selling honey and bee products, with honeycomb stained glass


 and we met this nice lady who feeds the tortoises who live in the grounds of the Petraki monastery.

We climbed the many steps up Mount Lycabettus,

and saw the silver icon of St. George in the little church at the top

and the views on the way down.

And finally arrived at the market. It's still a typical old European city wholesale market, lots of fun to walk through, looking at lots of good quality stuff, while the owners call their wares.

  A lot of meat, mostly lamb....

Fish of all kinds, very fresh

preserved fruits and nuts

 - all kinds from sesame roast almonds to silvered wedding nuts, dried nectarines, peaches, kiwi-fruits

I bought crystallised kumquats and hibiscus flowers

Red easter eggs (since it was Easter)

Great piles of whole spices...



All types of unusual olives

and, in the familiar,scruffy area around the market, there are now shops selling wonderful cakes, which there certainly never used to be.

I remember when it was impossible to get decent international food in Athens, even though Greeks seem to use very good quality ingredients.   That's not the case now.  The hotel where I stayed, (Airotel Stratos Vassilikis) had remarkably good food for what was otherwise just a pleasant, middle priced hotel.    This was all I managed to photograph at breakfast, but they had lots of unfamiliar things, sweet and savoury, and different each day.  The evening meal we had was also way above average, and not expensive. I reckon they have a chef who loves his job. Although the hotel was some way from the centre, I'd stay there again for the care they took over the food.

Oh, and I was pleased to learn that a whole lot of travel articles I wrote years ago are coming online. Nice to know they have not been forgotten. I will investigate and will link to them as soon as I can, in case anyone's interested. (Well, I am! ) I'd added a couple to the sidebar already, but it will be much quicker to link.

Back from Greece

 We're back from Greece.   It's crazy and I can't find the time to blog, but I'm trying to visit as many people as possible and right now I will leave you with a few photos - I hope you like them.  As soon as I get things together I'll tell you all about it. We loved it.

One little turbo prop plane per day at the island airport. 

A ruined village on a huge volcanic gorge

You'd think the spring flowers had been specially planted but they're completely wild.

The people we met there were charming, the pace of life was slow and I'm almost scared to tell anyone about it in case hordes of tourists come and it gets messed up and over developed.

Soon. Later. And Rhodes - Θα το κάνω αργότερα.

 I am spending a lot of time sorting out my mother's estate as well as doing bits and pieces of work. I haven't written here because I want to do a good job of sharing my travels and my life - that's the reason I write the blog, really.  No point in writing up some scrappy post is there? Or that is what I have been telling myself. .

But I've been to Greece, I have a packed diary and a trip to Germany coming up. So I'm going to post  .. well ... SOMETHING.about wonderful Rhodes.

There are all kinds of things to write about Rhodes, and I will do more than one post on it. But I'll just say for now that it's been under the control of Turks and Italians, it has some fascinating history. and - to me - even more fascinating architecture. This is the government offices, but it looks distinctly like Venice, doesn't it?  (And, English readers - just check out that Belisha beacon!)

Its old town is very Middle Eastern in feeling, though whereas the streets of Beirut, Damascus (as it was before the war, of course) or Istanbul would be busy and full of people of an evening, the touristy bits of Rhodes Old Town off-season were strangely quiet and deserted.

To be honest, I didn't warm to the very historic bit, because it was so carefully preserved as to be pretty lifeless.  Luckily, when you got into the back ends of the old town, there was lots of normal Greek life going on.  Here are some kids having a whale of a time in a ruined temple with their toy guns - it was a completely fabulous place to play and I was almost jealous of them being little and being able to roam all over this place that lookedl like an Indiana Jones set.

As you would expect, there is so much fine scenery off the beaten track.

And we saw countless spring flowers.

We went with a very good company called Walking Rhodes - and it is a trip I paid for, so it was genuine holiday, not commissioned, (although I will write something about it and hope to place it in some publication..  When I get time.)

When I get time.  When I get time to sort out - or even look at my photos.  When I get time to look at the journal I kept. When I get time to write up the German story, which IS commissioned. When I get time to do my paperwork,  deal with the house sale, celebrate birthdays and see friends even maybe do a spot of housework...  And I should really change that wintry header picture too, now. Even read a book or watch some television.

Am I getting lazier? I know I am getting older, but still not quite sure why I'm not on top of it all.  I used to be the wizard of multi tasking. I suspect some of the reason is that I am still having other problems which are not yet sorted, too, and which I don't really want to share on this blog. And maybe I really am just a bit lazier than I was...

Well, never mind. I'll write another post about Rhodes soon.. Later. I'll do it later. What's that in Greek?. (Google Translate says it's Θα το κάνω αργότερα. Apologies to Greek speaking readers if that is wrong! )

On Learning Greek, and Model Railways, and COLDNESS

I've been very fully occupied sorting out things to do with my mother's estate.  I'm trying to get round blogs so my apologies if I haven't yet reached yours! And I also have a couple of trips coming up, soon, so my time has been very full.

One of the trips is to Greece. We used to go to Greece so often (almost always with our bikes - the Greeks thought we were totally insane cycling round rural roads in remote areas).that T and I actually learned some Greek.  Where we went, people often hardly spoke any English.

We took Greek lessons with a delightful man who was convinced that the best possible textbook for us was an ancient children's alphabet primer.

It gave interesting glimpses of the daily life of country people not so very long ago.    Here is the page to teach the infants the letter "fi."   You see little Anna confidently blowing the flames to make the fire blaze up, and when the flames don't get high enough, she gets more kindling until she succeeds.   Of course children had to do this and no doubt were taught to be careful..

A later edition of the book had new pictures.   In the new book, Anna is blowing the fire rather than feeding sticks into it by herself.   But I love this picture, she looks so calm and competent in her little apron and her ankle strap shoes.

Unfortunately I forgot all the Greek I ever learned. I don't have any talent for languages, but T is now reminding himself (with the BBC language course) of what he has forgotten, so I expect we'll be fine. Where we're going, they probably all speak English anyway.

Other than studying Greek, we found time yesterday to take S to the annual Model Railways show at Alexandra Palace. It is a regular outing and we always enjoy it.  I never fail to marvel at the absolutely incredible model making skills of the club members who exhibit.  I don't suppose they are professionals, and yet they turn out work that could hardly be improved upon.

Here's just a detail of the background of the Helford Valley Railway.   I am not even sure this railway ever really existed - click the link and read up about it and make up your own mind! Hmmmmm....

But I feel as if I could step right back into this little Cornish village in 1920 - don't you?   The houses are about 70cm high - about dolls house size.  All the stones of the houses are irregular, the concrete yard in the front is weathered, the roads have stones on them......

Each year we try to choose our favourite diorama, although it is always hard to pick just one.  Since the weather outside is so cold outside, this frosty diorama of Kinmundy appealed to young S.

London's actually getting better weather than most other bits of the country, so we didn't have any problems getting to the venue, unlike some of the exhibitors, who didn't manage to turn up.  Parts of the trip between our home and Alexandra Palace were lovely in a Lion Witch and Wardrobe-y way.

Actually I didn't feel too well, and ended up looking like poor old Yiayia (Grandma) in this picture.   I see that I have written the translation (although I am darned if I could translate it now.)   Grandma reckons that it is freezing, and she wants her corner by the fireplace.  Corner by the fireplace!  YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!

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