Goodbye and Hello

Vic has secured us a beautiful room at reasonable prices for high season in Athens. Not only did he get the Chandris friends and family rate, but it includes breakfast. And what breakfasts they are. Hot dishes include the standards like scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage as well as egg white “omelets” (more like a frittata), roasted tomatoes, and a mushroom and pepper sauté. There are probably four different kinds of some of the most delicious full fat Greek yogurt you’d ever hope to eat, sometimes mixed with fruit and cinnamon. There is honey, nuts, dried fruit, berry sauce, fresh fruit, salami and cold meats, hard-boiled eggs, feta and other cheeses, croissants, breads, crudités, and fruit juices. Yowza. I have been judicious at breakfast; egg whites, roasted tomatoes and a bit of yogurt (and they actually did have a 2% available today) with berry sauce. Trust me, I caught up at lunch and dinner. We had our leisurely breakfast with Vic’s cousin John, said our goodbyes and saw him to his airport taxi.

Jeanne, Vic, Steve and I shuttled to downtown Athens. The bus dropped us at Syntagma Square in time to catch the end of the changing of the guard. The Parliament building fronts the square, and the guards are stationed in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The monument has a large relief depicting a nude, dying hoplite (citizen soldiers of ancient Greek city states). On either side of the tomb inscribed on the wall are excerpts from Pericles’s famous funeral oration. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is permanently guarded by Evzones, members of the presidential guard in traditional attire, called foustanella. The Greek revolutionaries who fought the independence war against the Turkish between 1821 and 1830 wore the foustanella. It consists of a white skirt with four hundred pleats (the number of years of Turkish rule), white shirts with long sleeves, red pointed shoes with large pompons and an embroidered vest. What I want to know is who does the ironing?

We explored the Metro station, which shows the levels of excavation and includes a tomb with the skeleton exposed. I bet that guy didn’t guess he’d end up there. We came across a sort of bazaar in the station, with food, spice and oil vendors, including an array of dried fruit like I’d never seen. One in particular looked like an alien life form I’m sure ate the brains of a few unlucky original Star Trek cast members. It turned out to be dried hibiscus. I was very afraid. Another vendor was selling repellant. She said it was for mice and mosquitoes. I began to be concerned about the size of the mosquitoes in Greece.

We took a coffee break at the café at the entrance of the apartment Jeanne and Vic own just off the square; their upstairs open-air seating area has beautiful views of the square, the Hotel Grand Bretagne, and Parliament. It also has a flat screen TV, comfy couches and Wi-Fi, not to mention coffee frappes, so I think Jeanne and Vic will be spending a fair amount of time there later in July.

We walked down Ermou Street, a trendy pedestrian walkway, past the Church of Kapnikarea, and eventually found Vic’s favorite gyro  restaurant, Mnaipaktapae, where Steve and I shared a mixed grill, a pile of pork, beef, lamb sausage, sliced tomatoes and onions on the freshest oiled pita bread, with tzatziki and a tomato/cucumber salad Vic had ordered for the table. I don’t know how someone could possibly eat this serving all by themself. The restaurant was packed and hopping, with live music: a guitarist and a bouzouki player. The juxtaposition of the owner’s large framed photos of he and what I am guessing were famous Greeks along with Greek Orthodox iconography and shadow puppets was strangely wonderful.

Vic’s theory is that the number of times you visit a restaurant equates to the number of free desserts they give you. He’d been to this place A LOT. We were given Raki, the Greek equivalent to Portuguese cachaça, Italian Grappa or even a rednecker’s moonshine.  This was followed by fruited yogurt with honey, and halva made with farina and sprinkled with cinnamon. I’m used to halva made with sesame seed, which is gritty and, well, weird. This was smooth and delicious. I had a bite, just to taste.

We waited for the bus back to the hotel and watched the show of police with riot gear waiting around for a demonstration. Austerity measure protests made a mess of Syntagma Square, with graffiti on all surfaces (which has since been cleaned up), but there are still regular protests and police making sure things are controlled.  Or at least police looking official as it seems no one pays much attention, especially taxi drivers and motorbikes. We watched a police bus with siren blaring try to make its way across an intersection get cut off by multiple taxis and the Athens Happy Train.

We watched a taxi driver maintain his prime position in front of police by faking a breakdown. Steve tried to help him push his vehicle out of the way, but the driver just wanted to chat. Once a potential fare approached the driver motioned them in, started up the cab and drove away.

We ended up cabbing it to the hotel as the shuttle never came. We were relieved the taxi shut the windows and turned on the A/C as one cabby told Vic’s cousin he wouldn’t use his A/C until July. Once back we took naps as Vic ran to the airport to pick up the rest of the family.

Later that evening Vic returned with his son George, daughter Victoria and her wife Shana, and Vic’s cousin Leo, fresh (or not so fresh) from their transatlantic flights from L.A. and Atlanta. The did a quick freshening up and we headed down the street to Lazaros Restaurant, a lovely, upscale establishment near Arsenis Taverna where we ate the night before. Again we shared appetizers and some entrees, including two different salads, saganaki cheese breaded in oats and served with fig jam, sausages with mushrooms and plums, stuffed cabbage, a boar steak (which tasted like a cross between beef steak and pork, tender and juicy), lamb shanks and pork filets with peppers. My personal favorites were the saganaki, salads and boar steak, but trust me, it was all good.

I’m thinking taking the three flights of stairs at the hotel multiple times a day is not going to even make a dent…