Highlights of Athens - Scene II

I've seen a fair few theatres over the past few days and the Greeks are famous fo r their plays.  The theatre used to be attended all day over several days.  You  would see several tragedies and a comedy for each of several playwrights and  at the end the winner was proclaimed based on the loudest applause.  For my 'theatre' experience, I went to an open air theatre and saw Expendables II - so bad it was good.

But I was going to tell you about the food.  I am a big fan of souvlaki, our first night's dinner, and we had a great tasting plate for lunch at a taverna right next to the Roman Agora on Monday.  The courgette balls, grilled capisicum tomato balls were divine and the cheese balls,  lamb balls, dolmades, little sausages and cheese were also very nice.  The tomatoes stuffed with rice I had for dinner on Tuesday night were a little bland, but very nice with the feta that Marcella recommended I have with them.  Greek salad is everywhere and is just like the kind Mum and Frances make (except the greeks add capsicum which is a nice addition).

The churches have been a nice surprise.  Little byzantine ones dotted over the place, the white church on Lykavittos hill, even the newer churches look interesting (no glass clad monstronsities for the Greeks).  The metropolis cathedral was beautiful with it's blue and green marble from brazil and white pentali marble.  They are going to remove the blue and green marble as it has only been there 20 years and they are restoring it to the original.  There are paintings of saints in all of the churches and when people make requests of the saints they make an offering of a gold or silver addition to the painting - the Madonna get a halo, some are 'dressed' almost entirely in silver, the poorer people have a small card size offering which is tied to the painting. 

The sauna, I mean Metro, in Athens is fantastic.  Not only are the trains on time and frequent, but the stations themselves are quite nice - artwork is in most of them, some have excavations as integral parts of their strutures, and Monstraki station itself is quite nice.  I have had to learn to be rude though in order to get on and off the trains.

Wednesday was for trips out of Athens central.  Marcella and  I caught the Metro out to Faliro (?) one stop before Pireaus where we passed the peace and friendship stadium and then had lunch by the sea  - right be the sea, it was one foot away from our table and people in the neighbouring table were feeding the fish.  I had cod and ouzo (which is apparently a traditional combination).  I liked the ouzo, the fish was a bit dry and the potato garlic that came with it was awful (very strong garlic).  The mountain herbs were very nice - Marcella described it as herbs with olive oil and lemon juice - it tasted like spinach.

Later that day we caught the bus out to Cape Sounio.  The coastal route is nearly two hours long and it wends its way past beaches full of umbrellas and bobbing heads in the water, and people scatter on the rocks by the water.  Houses and hotels line the shores just about all the way to Sounio.  We, with about 100 other people, watched the sun go down from the Temple of Posidon.  It was very peaceful with a gentle warm wind and the strangers from all over the world around.  One brave chick was doing yoga to the sunset on a precarious looking rock, there was a romantic looking greek couple next to us, and one family taking 1500 photos of themselves with the sunset behind them.

* Lowlights *

There are signs of the financial crisis if you are looking for them but they are not obvious.  Empty shop fronts where buildings have closed, the national gallery which I visited on Wednesday morning is closed except for one floor.  I was talking to a greek woman while browsing in the shop and she explained that they can't afford the staff to open the other floors - which is a shame as I didn't get to see the more modern art, but I did see some very nice late 19th/early 20th century paintings. 

Jetlag blows.  I thought I was doing so well on Monday.  We saw a lot of the archaeological sites and then caught the funicular (cable car) up to the top of Lykavittos hill to see the sunset.  We escaped the crowd and had the steps mostly to ourselves and then made our way back to the top again in time to see the flag being lowered for the day.  We walked from the bottom of the funicular through Kolonaki (where the rich people live) and were going to get dinner.  But I was so tired I almost burst into tears trying to decide what to eat so I went straight back to the hotel instead.

Wednesday: sleep in :) national gallery, pireaus, cape sounio