November 3, 2015

 

 

See Ya Santorini

Our nifty 5 day vacation from our travels is over.  This was a nice break with no big agenda, good food and laid back atmosphere.  Would we come back?  No.  There is a unique vibe to Santorini, but it isn’t different enough to see again.  Sometimes the t-shirt that says “been there, done that” pretty much covers it all.  For this sort of break we could find somewhere closer to home with a nice cultural scene and maybe without the cruise ships.  The back side of a Hawaiian Island would work nicely.

We have spaced our breakfast items to come out even this morning.  We have plenty of time to get ready and packed before Tim, the porter, shows up at 9:15.  Again, he throws one suitcase over his shoulder and grabs the other by hand and up the flights of stairs he goes.  We each have one small bag and as usual we are puffing when we get to the top.  Tim is doing fine.

We are at the meeting point for our pick-up to the airport at 9:20 and our ride doesn’t show up until 9:45, 15 minutes late.  That gives us plenty of time to chat with Tim.  He is a native Albanian (name all the native Albanians you know) who has lived here for 15 years.  He still has family in Albania but seldom gets to visit there with his children in school here and him busy all summer.  The economic situation seems the same here as in northern Minnesota with everyone in the tourism business in the summer and then scrambling for other jobs in the winter.  Tim starts his construction job next week that will continue at least through February.  He has had an interesting life, and it is some of these brief encounters that are the most educational as we travel.  We wish we had more time to chat but then we would miss our flight.

These travel days are a pain.  Yes, it is whiney once again, there are a million worse problems, but compared to the rest of our travels these are at the bottom of the heap.  The bad news is that there are long check in lines at the Aegean desk for our flight to Athens when we get to the Santorini airport.  The good news is that the desk person can get our bags checked all the way through to Rome with all boarding passes even though we booked the continuing flight separately.

The flight to Athens is fine although crowded (exit row) and then the 4 hour layover.  We get a couple bad sandwiches and good beers from a lunch counter and then take turns walking around the concourse and sitting and reading to break up the time.  John threatens to buy a pair of skinny jeans and a black leather jacket to look truly European but chickens out.  That’s how these stores do their business, boredom.  Again, our flight to Rome is crowded (exit row again) and John volunteers for the center seat.  Bad timing as the guy in the aisle seat is wider than he is tall.  We get a snack on the plane and John eats with his face on the tray as his upper right arm is pinned against his torso.

Our bags show up in Rome as promised and our driver (last one) is waiting in the arrivals area.  He has a nice Mercedes wagon for a smooth ride to the Hotel Santa Maria in Trastavere.  This guy is no Kostas from Athens—he is not communicating with us but does keep up with friends on his cell.  We weave through the center city narrow streets and get dropped about 20 feet from the reception door.

What a surprise.  This hotel is a former cloister and is a low slung hacienda right in the middle of Rome.  The 21 rooms are spaced around a central courtyard filled with orange trees and ours is tucked in a back corner away from the rest with its own small patio area.  Really, this is like something you would see in rural Spain or Arizona and would normally be impossible in a big city.  We’re a couple blocks from the Tiber River, a 30 minute walk to the Vatican on one side and the Colosseum on the other.

Our check-in lady tonight is welcoming if a little hurried.  She takes us through the map routine and gives us a recommendation for a nice easy casual dinner tonight before walking us to our room.  There is a chilled bottle of Prosecco waiting for us with a couple glasses and bowl of nuts because we had mentioned Tripadvisor when we made our reservation.  Very smart of them.  We unpack and move to our little patio with a small table, two chairs, our bottle of wine and our bowl of peanuts and the day seems fine once again.

It is 7:30 when we go down the street to find our restaurant for dinner.  This takes us through Piazza Santa Maria where there is a couple performing a modern dance routine using a glowing baseball-sized ball that is tossed and glided back and forth between them as part of the dance.  One of the best street performances we have seen anywhere.

Our restaurant is La Freschetta, a local trattoria and pizzeria.  The place is pretty crowded when we arrive and it is fun with a lot of energy.  The fellow who seems to be in charge is moving around the room taking orders, hustling the staff and entertaining the customers all at the same time.  We order a 7 euro vino rossa della casa and a 6 euro anchovy and tomato pizza.  The wine appears in a minute and the pizza about a minute later.  There is a large wood-burning oven in the front room (we’re in the back) and the pizzas are cooked in less than two minutes.  It is mostly locals and then a large group comes in to sit all along the back wall.  It looks like a tour group but all Italian. 

Now the place is really hopping and there is a line waiting for tables.  Our pizza is one of the best we have ever had—much better than the premier pie we had in Naples.  We love watching the show and nurse our wines long after the pizza is gone so we can keep our seats.  A little rude but we’re having fun.  This turns out to be a great recommendation from our hotel person and just what we were looking for tonight.  We love being back in Italy.  Molto Bene!

There are only the young folks hanging out in the square on our way back through.  The entertainers have all gone home on a Tuesday night.  We get buzzed back into the gated hotel complex and were off to our little corner of Roma.

What did we learn today?  Our first insight into the long-time communist and isolated Albania.

November 2, 2015

 

 

EOV (End of Vacation)

This is our last full day on Santorini.  We take off tomorrow morning making this the last of our nap-eat days.  We start by not sleeping late but not getting out and moving either.  It is a pretty day outside but we dawdle with computer stuff, TV, breakfast and books just like you might do on vacation.

Our final small thing to do this week is to walk down to Ammoudi Harbor for lunch.  It is right below us—we can look down and see it—but it is a lot of steps down and painful back up.  When Mary sees that the steps are reasonably consistent stone and very wide she overcomes her previous reluctance to go for it.

We start down at 11:00 and walking pretty steadily we are there by 11:30.  John’s watch says we went about 2000 steps (about a mile) which is a long stairway.  We gape at the beautiful clear blue water of the Aegean and the little boats tied up in the harbor.  One of the last of our recommended restaurants, Katina is right in front of us so we grab a table on the water for an early lunch. 

We get a couple of Mythos beers (we’re on vacation) and Mary orders the Greek salad and John the seafood salad.  There is a fellow a few feet away from us who has a charcoal grill built into the outside of the restaurant wall where he grills all of the seafood.  There is a window from the back of the grill to the inside where they can pass prepped plates out to the grill guy.  Mary notices a big plate of grilled seafood pass by us and then it reappears as John’s seafood salad.  Make no mistake, Mary’s Greek salad is perfect with a big slab of feta on top and all of the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, olives and peppers.  However, John’s seafood salad is a work of art.  There is squid, mussels, octopus and shrimp piled high on top of nicely dressed greens, tomatoes and onions with a sprinkling of fresh dill.  It couldn’t be more perfect.

We are mesmerized sitting in the warm sun with the waves lightly splashing against the harbor wall, good food, good beer, small boats coming and going.  We decide that we have finally accomplished the goal of the week—relax!  John walks over to chat up the grill guy for a while and to watch the process of grilling a whole sea bass.  The cook loves the recognition of his efforts.  Mary meanwhile has decided she is staying right where she is for the rest of the day.  Well, almost.  We do manage to stretch two salads and two beers into an hour and a half of down time.

It is a long and only slightly painful walk back up.  We take the road instead of the steps which is longer but less steep and less painful.  We log a mile and a half going uphill which is today’s workout for the calves.  Mary wants to pick up some more bottled water while John thinks the balcony and sling back chair is calling his name.  It is almost completely silent today.  Our favorite day of the year in our old Lodge days was the day after Labor Day when you could actually hear the difference.  Today in Oia is the same.  Mary notices while out that not only are shops closing for the season, but they are taking down signs and boarding up windows.  They must go elsewhere when the second hand passes midnight on October 31^st.

The siesta (we don’t know what the Greeks call it) is nice but we still have things to do this afternoon.  The official sunset time is 5:21 and we are going to get there in time for a prime spot on the town wall.  There aren’t many people left in town but they are all going in the same direction when we merge onto the walkway at the top of our stairs.  It has been sunny all day and with clouds on the horizon the last few days there is some pent up demand for a famous Santorini sunset.  We do get a nice spot and we watch the sun gradually submerge into western clouds.  Phooey.  No green flash on this trip.  It’s too early for dinner on Greek time so we get a couple more chores done before retiring to our balcony with a final bottle of Santorini white wine on a cool starry night.  We both decide we are happy we came and probably wouldn’t be back.

Dinner on the water tonight back at Skala.  We know the “guys” now as well as the menu and the routine.  We get the Santorini fried tomato balls as an appetizer, Mary has a really good spaghetti with tomatoes and lots of olive oil and garlic and capers, and John has the cumin laced Greek meatballs on rice.  The “famous” tomato balls are on every menu here and we haven’t tried them yet so this is a must.  What they really are, are green tomato slices with a flavorful coating and deep fried.  We now recognize them because Lucky gave us a taste of his version yesterday in Fira.  Everything is good again.  The restaurant is reasonably busy tonight which is supply and demand at work.  As many of the restaurants close the remaining customers are funneled into those few that remain open.  All is working as it should.

We celebrate our last night here with an Ouzo nightcap before bed, our farewell to Greece.  We set an alarm for tomorrow morning for no apparent reason—we don’t leave until after 9:00 but better safe than missing a flight.

What did we learn today?  Ouzo tastes like “Good and Plenty” candy.

November 1, 2015

 

 

Explore Santorini

Yet another perfect morning on Santorini.  The folks who were closing their shops yesterday could be making a few bucks today but they probably have history on their side.  They could also be cleaning up on the cruise ship tour groups that magically appeared this morning.  This has to be close to the end for them.

We have our one simple plan for today but it is different for each of us.  John is going to do the 6 mile cliff hike from Oia, our home base, to Fira the “big” city of Santorini.  Mary is going to get some shopping done this morning and then she will take the local bus to Fira to meet up with John for lunch.  Backpack, water, phone all accounted for so Mary walks with John to the start of the trail.  No point in going if you can’t find the place to start.

It’s one of those days that you aren’t sure if it is hot or cold.  It is certainly warm in the sun but in the shade and breeze if feels pretty chilly.  John stows the sweatshirt even before beginning and heads uphill over the first of three pretty big peaks to be encountered today.  He is figuring 2 mph uphill and 3-4 downhill making it about a 2-1/2 hour walk.  The path is sometimes stone pavers, sometimes loose gravel, sometimes packed dirt and once in a while just loose rocks.  It wouldn’t be considered difficult and the fact that a chubby old man can do it would seem to bear that out, but it isn’t just a stroll around town either.  There are no flat parts, it is either steeply uphill or steeply downhill, and you do have to be careful where your feet land.  The views however are spectacular.  Looking back on Oia gives a great perspective of our position on the island and the caldera as a whole.  On the other side is the valley where we sipped some wine yesterday.  The sea is of course the back-drop for all of it.

There is a young couple from Bellingham, Washington going the same way as John and they join up for a bit to hike and chat.  They are here on the cruise ship and opt to do the walk rather than shop in town with all the old folks on the cruise.  They have been in Europe for about 6 weeks and may stay for a bit longer.  There might be a volunteer opportunity for them in Norway that includes room and board and could keep them here indefinitely.  Good for them.  After John separates they still leap-frog each other a couple more times which is like chatting with someone at the grocery store and then you keep running into them.  Oh, hi.

John drags his sorry butt into Fira pretty much on schedule and Mary is waiting at the bus terminal, the agreed upon meeting place.  With some extra walking through Oia to get to the trail and through Fira from the end of the trail John’s watch said the whole trip was 7-1/2 miles.  He’ll feel that tomorrow.

Mary had a good morning wandering around town and resupplying our breakfast items.  (Wordy Mary has added this in-depth description of her morning.)

We had an old recommendation for a place for lunch in Fira called “Lucky’s.”  We found it in the next block up from the bus terminal.  It was a tiny place with a few bar stools, maybe three tables and a little take-out counter.  You order your food and pay Lucky who is at the register while holding court for all within hearing range.  He is a jovial fellow and good with the few kids who are in with their parents.  The food is just what we have been looking for.  There is lamb and chicken spinning on vertical spits, pitas on the grill and all the extras.  We each have the “Chicken Pita” which is shaved chicken on a tzatziki lathered pita topped with tomatoes, onions, and French fries all wrapped in a paper cone and washed down with an icy cold beer.  Perfect.  We wish Lucky was in Oia so we could go every day.

We do a little walk around Fira and except for Lucky’s we are happy we’re in Oia.  We take the 2:30 bus back to our little town just in time for a break for John while Mary does a bit more grocery shopping.

Nap, eat, nap, eat.  Here we go again.  There is still a low cloud bank on the western horizon so we are not optimistic about a sunset.  We will only have one more shot at this tomorrow.  There is one more restaurant that has been recommended and we search high and low but can’t find it.  It is in one of the little alleys that wind around and stop and start throughout town.  The alleys don’t have names and there really isn’t a good map so you just have to wander and search within a reasonable quadrant.  Since we have committed to go to a restaurant away from the water tonight and do our last water dinner tomorrow, we settle on Roka again.

We don’t have the large American group in tonight which means Roka is quiet but welcoming.  Mary goes appetizer route with a spicy cheese dip served with bread and another cheese pie. The cheese pie actually turns out to be sweet little turnover things.  She wanted the “Green” pie thinking spinach but of course they were out.  John finally goes for the octopus tentacle.  He has been looking for an opportunity to have grilled octopus but time is running out and settles for this sautéed dish.  It is coated with a dark sauce that is sort of sweet almost like hoisin.  It is served with a mashed fava bean puree which makes for a nice combo.

It’s been a busy day for being on vacation and we hustle back to bed.  No strolls around town tonight.

What did we learn today? A guy like Lucky who serves good food at a reasonable price while welcoming his guests will be successful anywhere.

October 31, 2015

 

 

No Tricks, All Treats

Happy Halloween.  We’re into day 3 of our vacation and have a tiny plan of activity for each day.  One activity is to make sure we know how time works.  Not in a cosmic sense of course, but rather what time it is here and how it relates to home.  We had a strange situation last weekend when the change from “summer time” to “winter time” slipped right past us.  Some of our clocks changed automatically and others didn’t and it took us some time to catch up.  Somewhere we got an extra hours of sleep and didn’t get to appreciate it.  Since we moved to Greece we’re an hour later than Italy so 8 hours later than Minnesota until last week when it fell back to 7 hours but now this week it will be back to 8 and then when we go to Italy on Tuesday it will be back to 7 again.  Those are the things you think about when doing nothing.

We have some very crunchy Greek cereal for breakfast with real Greek yogurt and a banana.  While we miss our hotel spreads it is nice to just throw something together in the morning.  We take our morning walk and things are changing fast here.  There are very few tourists marching around today and some of the businesses are moving furniture from patios and boarding up windows.  November 1^st is apparently the end of the “season” for these folks and many of them seem anxious to move along.  As long as we have a couple options for meals we’re fine with the whole process.

It’s another lovely day with temps in the 60’s and a few high clouds.  Our “one thing to do today” is to walk a couple miles into a valley on the north side of the island for lunch and a wine tasting at a local winery, Domaine Sigalas.  Going this way is downhill and reasonably pleasant, outside of the fact that we are walking along a narrow road all the way.  Santorini and all of the Greek islands are not the south Pacific.  They are arid and strewn with cactus that is more like Mexico than Maui.  Since this island is the rim of a volcano, obviously the soil is volcanic which can be good for growing grapes.

The end of the season is very apparent when we arrive at Sigalas.  Not only are we the only ones here, but our hostess seems very surprised to see us.  She is able to scrape together a tasting of 7 wines which is normally 12 and applies a price adjustment.  There are a couple we like a lot and most are OK.  They also do food and we impose on them for lunch.  We order a plate of Dolmades (stuffed grape leaves with a lemon sauce), and another plate of local specialties to share.  That includes olives, dried tomatoes, pureed fava beans, feta and a crumbly bread product topped with their tomato paste, caper leaves and capers.  What the heck, let’s get the dish-of-the-day too which is a homemade barley-like pasta in a tomato sauce.  We perhaps over-ordered and we’re stuffed.  It was all washed down with our favorite wine, the Santorini Barrel select white.  We grab a bottle of the white wine and begin to waddle back up the road.

Only some of the grapes are trellised here while other grow in “baskets” on the ground.  The vines are literally woven into a basket right on the ground.  The big time wines are the dessert wines with Vinsanto as the star of the show.  Vinsanto grapes are left in the sun for 10-14 days after the harvest to concentrate the flavor and sugars and then aged for years to mature into something that really tastes like candy.  Delicious and expensive.

It was a slow chug up the hill back to Oia (we're thinking of an incline of about 8 or 9 on the treadmill) and finally to our little cave.  John is still under the weather (in spite of the wine) and crashes for a couple hours.  Mary deals with our original porter Tim who has come to replace a couple light bulbs.  He has a helper who supervises and the result is that Tim needs a screwdriver and a couple bulbs he doesn’t have at his disposal but he will be back later.  When he returns he still has his helper as well as his son and they plug away for a few minutes and decide that we need to leave an upstairs lamp on to substitute for the stairway light that doesn’t work.  And, ya know tomorrow is Sunday so he probably won’t have the right things until Monday or Tuesday.  Mary says, “It’s Greece.”

We’re back in the routine of nap-eat, nap-eat and after a couple hours it is time for “eat.”  There is a small tavern down a narrow lane near us, Roka, that has been recommended and has worked its way to the top of the list.  It is getting chilly out and we opt to eat inside.  We will miss our cats that are always around our feet whenever we eat outside in Greece, but they will miss us more.  There is a group of about a dozen Americans having a birthday dinner inside.  They’re a little noisy but having a good time—we’ve been there.  Again, it’s the end of the season so multiple things are crossed off the menu including our wine choice.

There is still plenty to eat.  John has a veal dish in a spicy red sauce that tastes very Indian.  It is supposed to be served with Duchesse Potatoes but they are out of those so it comes with rice which is more appropriate.  Mary has the grilled Greek meatballs that are a specialty with fried potatoes.  It is all very good and we’re fat and happy once again.

We do a pretty long walk after dinner tonight.  It is just us, a big moon and perfect night views of our island.  Vacation is going well.

What did we learn today?  You can grow grapes with the vines curling around on the ground like cucumbers.

October 30, 2015

 

 

Oia, Santorini

Just move along folks, there is nothing to see here.  We’re on vacation so there is no news from the big town of Oia, Santorini, Greece.  We got a huge night’s sleep last night.  Mary has been coughing for the last two months and John has joined the club.  It is all about having nothing to do for a few days so the bodies say, “this is a good time to break down.”  A great night’s sleep has both of us feeling pretty good this morning but with the help of drugs.

John goes out at 7:30 for pastries at the local bakery and finds out that they open at 9:00.  Wow, this place really is laid back.  We have a couple apples and some crunchy pieces of cardboard disguised as food for breakfast.  Mary gets the coffee maker sort of working and we do get a pot in about a half hour.  We have picked bathrooms (or one of us has) and the next adventures are the showers in our tiny bathrooms with no shower curtains.  But first we need to turn on the boiler to heat the water and that takes about 10 - 15 minutes.  Each new spot to stay has its own challenges and this is no different.  So far Santorini seems to be a blend of first world Gucci and third world “Borat.”

Our mission today is to explore our domain in detail, or at least more detail then the cursory review last night.  Blended in with that is our need to find some groceries for breakfasts in our villa and some drinking water.  No you can’t drink the tap water here.  We cover a lot of the same steps from last night and check out 4 different grocery “Super Markets.”  These are all the size of a small 7-11 back home so we opt for the one furthest from the center of town with the thought being that it would be the most likely to cater to locals and therefore not rip off tourists.  It is also the farthest to carry bottled water.  We buy it anyway along with some yogurt, fruit and cereal and we’re set for a couple breakfasts.

We run that back to our home on the hill, and then begin the search for lunch.  Mary is set on gyros for lunch today and we discover it is like corned beef and cabbage in Ireland.  Finally we get to the main road away from the touristy streets and they have gyros and special gyros.  We ask what the difference is and the waiter says, “They’re the same.”  OK, we order one of each trying to be funny.  The gyros aren’t what we normally have at home.  They have sliced roast lamb as well as the tzatziki, tomatoes, feta and onions with quartered pitas.  Works for us and we wash it down with a Mythos beer.

We do a bit more exploring of the city proper before taking our afternoon break with a promise to move again for the sunset.  We take up positions on lounge chairs on our balcony and read books while peeking at the bright blue waves and ships in the caldera below.  It is very pleasant but these little cave houses are so close together that people are walking within a few feet of us whenever they walk past on the upward or downward path.  When in Oia…

At about 4:30 we head for the point of the island a few “blocks” away for the big time sunset.  Unfortunately there is a low cloud bank on the western horizon blocking the great green flash sort of view so we go for another little walk before heading back to continue our vacation.  We have a welcome bottle of wine in our fridge and decide we can risk getting up and down the steps after a happy hour so we pop the top and move to our balcony as the evening turns into night.  It is a perfect evening as the lights all around the caldera start to come on and we watch a big cruise ship sail right below us in its way north.  We’re sure they’re having fun on the ship but we don’t envy them from our little piece of heaven.

Nap, eat, nap eat.  That’s our routine for a few days so dinner is next up.  Mary now has her heart set on a spinach pie.  We march the full length of the pedestrian walkway looking at every menu and then back again.  Eventually we opt for the same place we ate last night, Skala (Sigma-kappa-alpha-lambda-alpha on the other side of the sign).  They have the plastic down on the water side windows but not on the sides which makes it a little more inviting than before.  We split a Greek salad (not as good as Bites) and John has the meat mousaka and Mary finds a cheese and spinach pie on the menu.  Unfortunately when it arrives it is only a cheese pie in a puff pastry sort of crust.  Not perfect but with the serviceable house wine it is all fine for us tonight.

One more arm-in-arm stroll around town and then off to bed.  We have to protect our health.

What did we learn today?  Local stores are hard to buy from but have great prices; tourist stores are easy to buy from but have high prices.  Hmmmmm.

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.