October 29, 2015

We’re Going on Vacation

It’s a 4:50 wake-up this morning but that’s OK because you know how it is when you’re going on vacation.  We’ve been working pretty hard for the last 7 weeks and we have scheduled ourselves 5 days to sit on a Greek island to read books and go for walks with no museums or ancient ruins.  After this it is a two week busy sprint to the finish of Europe 2015.

We’re packed and ready to go by 6:00 and the front desk guy calls a cab for us.  We arrive at the ferry port at about 6:35 for our 7:25 departure.  After a couple false moves on the ferry we find some comfy chairs by a window with an electric outlet to keep everything charged and off we go.

The ferry is an 8-decker which we’re sure is really busy in the summer but not so much now.  Breakfast is a couple muffins and coffee but we can hardly wait until lunch when Goody’s Burger Bar opens.  It’s a pretty day to be on the water for our 8-hour cruise.  There is a pretty heavy chop on the water but the big ship seems to handle it very well.  We looked at scheduling a flight—they’re cheap—but for the hassle of doing the whole airport and baggage check routine this is a relaxing alternative and a pretty day on the water.

We have three stops with the first, Paros, about four hours out.  These are the Greek islands that everyone talks about and we get a peek at Naxos and Los after Paros.  It is all pretty spectacular.  Once we leave Paros the other islands are all within view although there is an hour sailing time between each.  Mary hits Goody’s for lunch and grabs a couple combo meals that surprisingly (in a good way) come with a Heineken.  We take turns reading, fiddling around on the computer and walking the decks.  Is that a nice start to a vacation or what?

We arrive at our destination, Santorini, at 3:20 and are met by our driver (yes, our driver) for the 20 minute drive to Oia and our little cave home.  There we are met by Tim the porter who grabs both suitcases, one in his hand and one on his shoulder, to lead us up a long stone path through the village and then multiple flights down old stone steps to our front door.  We’re puffing and Tim isn’t.  These homes are dug out of the hillside with one side open to the water and the other three sides tucked into the hillside.  We have a two story with the entry on level one and another bedroom, bath and patio upstairs.  Tim gives us the quick intro and calls Fanis our real host who will come over for the real intro.

Santorini is the curved top of a volcano that wraps around a caldera making for unbelievable views.  That coupled with the white and blue villages around the rim makes this the poster child for Greek islands.  Fanis gives us the local spiel when he shows up about where to eat, shop and play and we give him a little list of things we think are missing.  No problem.  We swap text numbers and we’re on our own.

Our first order of business is to explore Oia.  We struggle up the stone steps to the main pedestrian walkway that runs along the top of the cliff on the water side.  There are shops and restaurants lining both sides of the walkway that probably extends about a mile along the rim.  We are somewhere in the middle and we make note of the shops on both sides of our stairway to make sure we can find it again.

First impression is that these shops are really upscale and are designed for the parade of elephants (cruise ship buses) that show up each day to disgorge their passengers for a couple hours of “Greece.”  Our traveler snobbiness is showing again.  It is unbelievably beautiful, however, and as we are here near sunset we are getting great light effects.

After enough walking for now we get back to the villa so Mary can continue the laundry she started earlier and John can fiddle with some camera shots.  There will be no new pictures for the next few days, we could take three and repeat on and on because they will be the same views that inspire thousands of paintings.

There is no happy hour for us tonight since we don’t know how to get up the steps in the dark.  We are old and don’t need to be breaking a hip.  We have a couple restaurant recommendations from Fanis and settle on Skala that hangs over the side of the cliff on the water side.  It is a little chilly and breezy tonight so the plastic coverings are pulled down around the outside of the patio.  That doesn’t help the view but it is still pleasant to be outside. 

We share a fava bean puree (local specialty) and then John has a lamb shank baked in parchment with tomatoes and peppers and Mary has a fresh cod baked with the same veggies.  Both are very good.  The 10-euro bottle of house wine is serviceable for the price.  The service is reasonable for Greece and you can tell that they are accustomed to dealing with tourists. 

There is a problem on our walk back.  All the shops are closed and boarded up for the night and we walk right past our stairway down.  We probably are 5-minutes beyond our turnoff before we realize that we have gone way too far.  We do an about-face and finally recognize a clue in the now unfamiliar landscape that leads to the right stairs.  Mary, of course, has a flashlight that improves the dim lighting so we can find our way back down without further issues.

There is a full moon shining on the water.  We try to take a picture of the moon over the lighted hillside but of course phone cameras aren’t designed to do that.  We’ll just have to remember it.  We try to read for 2 minutes before falling asleep.  A good first day of vacation.

What did we learn today?  If we have the time, slow travel can be better than fast travel.

October 28, 2015

 

 

Happy Oxi!

The bells are ringing this morning to start the holiday.  This is sort of a patriotic day in Greece but it starts at church for a lot of folks.  The country is mostly Greek Orthodox (or Orthodox Christian) and there are churches on every other corner, sort of like bars in Wisconsin.  There is a little coffee shop next door where we grab a couple cups to go and a couple lemon-filled flaky pastry things.  We want to see what is going on down on the square and take our treats down there to sit on a wall like locals.  There isn’t a lot of activity but it is a crisp, cool morning with blue skies and we’re happy.

We leave the square on Adrianou Street past the Greek Agora on one side and rows of little restaurants on the other.  There are a couple little restaurants down here that we have on our list and wanted to make sure we could find them if necessary.  Whoever told us that all the shops would be closed today was very mistaken.  Some of the bigger businesses are closed but the little places are still scrambling for euros.  We reverse course going back through the square again looking for some sort of celebration taking place but it isn’t happening.  There are a couple folks with little Greek flags but no parades or fireworks.

We trudge most of the way back up the Acropolis hill to the Acropolis Museum.  There is a pretty long line of people waiting to get in (it is free today) but it is moving quickly.  It is pretty crowded with a lot of families—bring your little kids to look at old vases and statues—which maybe means it is a patriotic thing to do today.  The place is huge, however, so we can get close to anything we need to see or read.

The marble statues, many reconstructed from scraps, are incredible.  We’re amazed that the people who do this can start with a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and be able to make it whole.  There are also large pieces of the structures of the Acropolis that are preserved here acting as models for some of the reconstruction.  Interestingly, the museum is built over the ruins of a part of the original city of Athens that you can view through a glass floor.  Pictures were not allowed so for future reference we will be reminded of our day by going on-line to http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/photos-amateur-use.

It’s about 12:30 when we leave the museum and walk up to the Acropolis Hop-on bus stop.  We’re going to finish our tour today.  We take the green line for two reasons.  This bus goes to the Port of Piraeus, our departure point on Thursday that we want to check out in advance, and we want to have lunch down on the water.  The bus employee tells us to get off at stop #5 for a nice authentic lunch on the water.  On the way to Piraeus we go past some of the venues from the 2004 Olympics; the basketball/volleyball arena and the beach volleyball stadium.  We see our ferry pier as we go around the harbor and on past the cruise ship terminal and some pretty fancy marinas.  We see a lot of places on the water for lunch so stop #5 must really be special.  Even the automated narration on the bus suggests that stop #5 is the place for a fun on the water experience.

Well, we got off at stop #5.  What we see is a smallish harbor lined with restaurants about 200 feet below us.  Well, it’s a nice day for a walk but we dread the walk back up.  Since we have zero information we decide that we should look for a place that has a view and is busy with locals so we head down.  As it turns out every place has a view and is filled with locals so just grab one.  Now we know what people in Greece do on holidays, they go to lunch with their families.

We wait for a while for menus and then another while for a waiter who eventually brings us a couple beers.  There is a long list of fish on the menu priced by the kg. and we really don’t know the ropes.  Our waiter is having long conversations with other tables obviously discussing the options, but the language barrier doesn’t allow for that level of dialogue.  Finally we just order a Greek salad and a plate of fried shrimp to share.  The salad arrives fairly soon but not so much with the shrimp.  The real restaurant is across the street and waiters run back and forth with trays of food and we keep watching for ours.  In fact it takes about 45 minutes and when it comes there are 5 shrimp on a plate with a menu price of 17 euros.  This is just great.  We scarf those down grumbling all the while and get our check.  The price of the shrimp turned out to be 10 euros so we don’t know if that was a crappy service price adjustment or if the menu was wrong.  We do cross the street to use the WC and we got to share side by side stalls in the unisex bathroom—a first for us.

We trudge back up the hill, catch the green line back to the Acropolis and switch to the red line for the rest of the tour.  We see the rest of Athens that we have ignored for the last 48 hours.  Pretty parks, impressive museums, the parliament, embassies and the Olympic stadium from 1896.  We also pass the Athens tennis club that has hosted three Olympic tennis events.  We like staying close to the ground in the neighborhoods but the pretty places are fun to see too.

The sun is pretty well down by the time we finish the bus ride and we are cold to the bone from sitting in the upper open deck.  We get off at “our” square and hustle back to the hotel to warm up.  John does a little more restaurant research and finds a “don’t miss” place about a 15 minute walk away.  They have some Greek dishes but it has a greater variety in a cool Sinatra sort of setting.  Perfect.

We’re pretty hungry after two lemon pastries, a salad and five shrimp between us for the day.  The restaurant is tiny and more bar-like than restaurant.  We get a seat inside and there aren’t many people here.  We order a bottle of cheap wine—sorry but we’re out of that, but we can bring you this.  OK, no problem.  We order a houlimi (the grilled cheese) and a lamb burger with mashed potatoes and green beans for John and a pesto pizza for Mary.

Now we notice that several people are smoking and we ask our server if you can smoke in here.  Of course.  We tell her that we are going to move to an outside table.  When she brings out the houlimi Mary points out the no smoking sign on the window and ask why there is smoking allowed inside.  “That’s Greece,” she says.  A few minutes later John gets his burger, a regular burger, not the lamb burger, fries not mashed, no green beans.  The pizza will be out in just a minute.  John slowly starts to nibble on his burger, no pizza yet.  The burger is half gone 10 minutes later, no pizza yet.  John shares the last half of his burger with Mary, 15 minutes later no pizza yet.  We ask for the check and take off the pizza.  OK, so sorry.  Well, that’s Greece.

It’s a good day to be on a diet.  We take a leisurely stroll down Ermou street, a newly invented shopping/pedestrian street.  When we get to the hotel we each take a hit of the local liqueur that resides on the front desk and head upstairs.  We have a 4:50 wake up in the morning.  The clouds and full moon and Parthenon make a great sight from our balcony.

What did we learn today?  Maybe there’s a reason tourists go to tourist restaurants.

October 27, 2015

 

 

Our Big Fat Greek Day

Today will take some planning.  Tomorrow is a Greek national holiday and we understand that most things will be closed which means we have to pick our spots today.  There are mixed opinions about whether the Acropolis will be open tomorrow so we put that on our list to check.

We have a first day breakfast included with our room which saves us 8 euros apiece.  It is a pretty mediocre spread and we’ll probably skip it tomorrow.  Our plan is to do the hop-on hop-off bus and use it for two days to see a lot of Athens without a lot of work.  It is after 10:00 when we finally get rolling, walking to Monistiraki Square to catch the bus.  We have 23 minutes before the bus is scheduled, plenty of time to get cash from the ATM, buy our ferry tickets for Thursday from a travel agent, run the tickets a couple blocks back to our hotel room and get back to the bus stop.  19 minutes flat!  Of course the bus is 15 minutes late and they run every 30 minutes.  Welcome to Greece.  

The first bus stop is the Athens Market which is on our list but missed the cut for today.  As we travel to our next stop we realize that the Market will be closed tomorrow and it will wrap up today at about 1:00 so we may have missed our chance.  No way.  We use the hop-off option and do the 15 minute walk back to the market.  The outside perimeter of the square block market is all meat.  Some of the stalls are making a show of refrigeration although we question whether it’s real.  There are a lot of skinned whole animals hanging around which we believe are lambs, having eliminated German Shepherds as a possibility.  Also large barrels of lamb heads which have to be a soup ingredient.  No, we didn’t take pictures.

The inside of the market is all fish with every type of sea creature represented.  Everything looks fresh and good but again there is an obvious lack of refrigeration.  They better sell it fast.  The fruits and vegetables are across the street where the smells are better and the displays are prettier.  It’s probably all in the eye of the beholder.  We do like to visit the fresh markets wherever we travel as they provide a unique glimpse into the daily lives of the locals.  They are never dull.

Now, it’s back on the bus for a trip up the hill to the Acropolis.  We have to walk uphill for a couple hundred yards to find out if it is open tomorrow (it is) and while we are there we decide to stay.  Here’s the abbreviated version of where we are.  Greece was a key player in the world 25 hundred years ago.  It provided us with some of the great philosophical concepts of western civilization including equal rights for everyone and a full blown democratic system of government.  While they were at it they were also busy creating great works of art, fighting off Persians and implementing a sophisticated economic system while much of the rest of the world was still living in caves and clubbing animals.

Athens was the main player in Greece although other city-states were either allies or enemies depending on which century it was (hello Sparta).  On a high ridge over Athens the citizens created a place of worship and sacrifice worthy of their stature and that is the Acropolis.  Within the Acropolis are multiple places of worship, the most impressive being the Parthenon, the temple of Athena.  Athena was the most powerful of the Greek Gods having defeated Poseidon in a contest of equals and forever reigned supreme.

The Acropolis has had a difficult time over the years with the Greeks unable to defend itself against more powerful foes beginning in about 300 BC.  Eventually the Romans moved in but were respectful caretakers compared to others that followed.  Over the last few hundred years the Acropolis has made a comeback as archaeologists have put the bones back together again, filling in the blanks where necessary to recreate much of the original form.  To say it is impressive would be an understatement.  To imagine the society that existed here, 500 years before the Roman Empire, walking these same walks through these same gates is mind boggling.

Looking down from the Acropolis, Athens spreads out in every direction inland towards some low mountains and seaward towards the port of Piraeus.  Below the Acropolis the ruins of the Greek and Roman agoras, the stoa and various city gates are still visible.  That’s where we’re headed now.  It’s almost 3:00 and someone will be getting hangry without getting something to eat.

The Plaka neighborhood is the oldest in modern Athens and sits tight against the hill of the Acropolis.  We nosed around here for a while last night and saw plenty of fun little restaurants. At a sidewalk table just below the Acropolis Museum Mary gets a grilled cheese (not sandwich and the cheese is from Crete) snack and John has a kabob with tzatziki, pita and tomatoes.  Beers go without saying.  Now we all feel better.

We walk a little back up hill to the Acropolis Museum and thought our Acropolis tickets would get us in but no dice.  It is open and free tomorrow so we’ll come back then.  We spend what’s left of the afternoon wandering the back streets of the Plaka and down through the Athens “Flea Market,” a permanent warren of little shops sort of like a Moroccan souk.  It’s almost 6:00 when we get back for our late afternoon nap but a good day.

Dinner tonight is at Oinopoleio Cookhouse, next door to last night’s place.  We start with a meatball appetizer and a house-made wine.  John orders the lamb shank (sorry all out) and settles for the lamb chops with fries.  Mary has a cheesy ravioli, obviously with Greek cheese.  The lamb chops are really a pile of lamb ribs, at least a dozen of them nicely charred and really tasty.  A couple of scraps “accidently” fall off the table to the kitties underneath.  There is a single German girl at the next table who tells us a little about her travels.  She is just returning home from some time in Thailand and we get the impression that she gets by on the kindness of strangers.  She and the waiter might have a little thing going before dinner is done.

A short walk home again tonight.  It is almost a full moon over the Parthenon from our balcony.

What did we learn today? 2500 years ago Greek politicians were arguing about equal rights, income inequality, and what to do about the Persians. We’ve made a lot of progress.

 

October 26, 2015

 

 

Arrivederci Roma

Good-bye to Rome for now.  Here’s the deal, dear Blog.  When planning this trip we said sometime we should figure out how to get to Greece.  Maybe not on this trip, but wait.  Let’s check airfare from Rome to Athens, and at $120 apiece round trip we decided we would never have a better chance.  I mean who wouldn’t fly to Athens for 120 bucks round trip.  So that’s the plan for today.

We have a 6:00 AM wake up this morning that we blow off for an extra 20 minutes.  When we appear in the breakfast area at 8:00 we’re packed and ready to go.  Frederico has a nice little spread of fruits, cereals and pastries but it is certainly not B&B quality.  B&Snack maybe.  Anyway we grab coffee and some nourishment and we’re in the van to the airport by 8:45.

Rome is a big airport but not difficult to navigate and security is a breeze.  The checked baggage belt has broken down so there is a guy from Aegean Airlines hauling suitcases on a cart which somehow increases confidence that they will eventually arrive.  We’re way ahead of schedule for our 11:00 AM flight which gives John some kindle time and Mary some browsing time.

We snared exit row seats for our flight which is good—the plane is packed.  We don’t know much about Aegean but everything seems alright.  They even feed us a little pasta thing with a dry roll and a packaged lemon pie.  Sort of the same quality as breakfast.  We fly down the coast of Italy before we get into high clouds and lose our visibility.  Flying in to Athens is beautiful.  The skies are now clear and as we approach Athens from the water we get a great view of the thousands of little islands off the coast.  Bump-bump and we’re in Greece.

The airport is only 14 years old and feels pretty slick to us.  We grab our bags and when we exit to the arrivals area our driver Kostas is waiting for us.  This private driver thing is getting a little over the top, but Kostas is really just a taxi driver who works for an on-line service that costs about an extra five euros so you don’t have to negotiate with Greek cabbies.  He is a chatty guy with good English so between the airport and center city we learn about the Greek economy, Greek geography, German efficiency, the Greek higher education system, his kids and Greek personality disorder.  You don’t get that negotiating with a cabbie in a foreign language.  His key point was that the airport was built by a German firm for the 2004 Olympics on budget and on time.  The road to the airport was built by a Greek company, three years late and triple the budget.  That, he says, defines the current Greece problems.

We’re at the Hotel Attalos in the middle of everything in Athens.  The hotel was recommended on line and by friends we know who are Greekophiles.  After we settle in we go up to the rooftop bar and get our first view of the Parthenon on the hill above us.  As a lady said to us later, “Is that what I think it is?”

We take it to the street and wander around our neighborhood, into Monastiraki Square and up the Acropolis hill into the Plaka neighborhood.  We thought Naples was an assault on the senses but this is even more, that is, better or worse depending on your point of view.  Right now it feels pretty exciting to us.  As the old saying goes, you can’t swing a cat by the tail without bouncing off some sort of ancient archaeological site.  It is like Rome in that regard. The streets are lined with graffiti, restaurants and little shops selling whatever you want to buy.  And. It is noisy.  Car horns, shouting café owners, people arguing (maybe), kids hollering and overall traffic and city sounds.

Our first couple hours of wandering give us a preliminary overview of the neighborhood which we always consider to be a good first step in a new place.  We have a little trouble with street names that sound like fraternities—take a left at Tau-Kappa-Epsilon--but there is fine print underneath in letters we sort of recognize.  Learning curve.

Our front desk guy recommends a restaurant a few blocks away, Taverna Tou Psiri, which we locate after a couple false starts in this little warren of tiny angled streets.  The Psiri neighborhood looks like a disaster but we understand it is up and coming and THE place to hang out for all the hipsters.  We’re early for dinner (7:30) which gets us an outside sidewalk table.  Our waiter is very patient with us and walks us to the hot table inside and explains the dishes on display and available for dinner tonight.  There are other things on the menu but these are the stars of the show.  Mary picks out a Mousakka and a plate of some sort of big baked beans in a spicy sauce while John opts for the roast chicken and potatoes with a lemon/herb sauce.  We start with a ½ liter of red wine that is served in a little metal pitcher with two small glasses and tell the waiter to serve the dinner however he thinks it should be served.  We find out that means the beans are a first course.  When in Athens…..

The food is good, the people watching is great and there are a couple guys playing traditional music on a patio a couple doors down.  It is yet another magical night for us in a brand new place.  We go around one block out of the way and decide that is as adventurous as we need to be tonight.  Hotel Attalos, here we come.

What did we learn today?  Athens is a fascinating mix of ancient classical and modern scruffy.