Greece Part 2

This post is Part Two of a series about my trip to Greece. Check out Part One first if you haven't already.

Before I jump right into specifics about my time at each destination, I want to cover a few general things that were true of everywhere we went.

The Cuisine

First, there are tavernas everywhere. They're these open-air traditional Greek restaurants with little tables and woven chairs spilling out into the streets, the tables covered in half a dozen mouth-watering mezze dishes being shared by families and friends. There's probably music playing, and maybe even a live band. No matter where you eat or what table you choose, the person next to you will be smoking. And when you manage to flag down the bill, they'll rush over a free dessert or free drinks that you forgot to factor in back when you were hungry and over-ordering seven dishes, but you're going to consume the freebies anyway. The restaurant options are endless, and I really liked that even in the busiest areas, there were enough tavernas in close proximity that there was never a long wait.

I've probably mentioned this before, but I love trying new foods and will eat just about anything. This trip I was accompanied by three fellow foodies, which means we ordered a variety of dishes for every meal, shared everything, and came pretty darn close to trying every food we laid eyes on. The more exotic or obscure, the better. Never heard of Porgy fish? Let's order it. Stingray salad as an appetizer? Score! I didn't even know they were edible. I don't like licorice or shots, but I didn't go all the way to Greece to turn down free ouzo. I can't read this label on the dessert aisle, but I'm intrigued by the picture on the package. (We later dubbed that one "furry jello" and did not go back for seconds). 

And then there were the standard Greek staples I already loved at home and couldn't wait to try on their native turf. Big juicy olives. Dozens of honey varieties indistinguishable to my untrained palate. Feta cheese on everything. I tried so many different dishes with feta that I felt like Bubba from Forrest Gump listing off the many ways to serve shrimp: Salad topped with feta. Spicy feta dip. Deep fried feta covered in honey. Pan fried feta topped with lemon. Poached eggs in tomato feta sauce. Breakfast crepes filled with feta. It was an endless journey of delicious cheesy goodness and all superior to the dry feta crumbles I thought I loved back home.

The Cats

Second, there are cats everywhere. By our fifth or sixth cat on day one, we started referring to Athens as "Cathens." I honestly feel lied to by such a big omission in mainstream information about Greek culture. I grew up associating Greece with blue domes, white buildings, beautiful water, donkeys, and feta cheese. Greece had all of these things, but there are far more cats than blue domes or donkeys. (There might be more cheese than cats, but even that is debatable). They were friendly and not a problem at all, just a total shock as not a single person or video prior to this trip alluded to the overwhelming cat presence.

They roamed the sidewalks freely and were staples in and around shops. It wasn't uncommon to see one curled up asleep in a basket of souvenirs or cozied up on top of a sweater display. We met one named "Simba" brushing against our ankles in a grocery store mini market in Crete. Most of all, they were at the tavernas. We joked about using the number of cats present to pre-judge the food quality when choosing a restaurant, but it was never clear to us if a higher concentration of cats meant the table scraps tasted better, or if it meant the food was worse and they showed up because people were more willing to part with it. The only clear fact was that the only restaurants void of cats were also void of patrons.

Athens

Of our several destinations, Athens was the most metropolitan city of the trip. One of the most fascinating things about Athens wasn't just seeing the ruins, it was seeing the ruins elevated on a hill above a bustling city full of people casually commuting past pieces of ancient history like it's no different than my own work commute past approximately twelve Dollar Generals (not one of which existed before the birth of Jesus). It's hard to imagine that beautiful architecture just becoming part of your daily routine.

We bought 8:00 am tickets to see the Acropolis--the earliest time slot of the day--and it felt like the right decision. Crowds were minimal, the way the sun rose through the columns of the Parthenon was gorgeous, and it began pouring almost immediately after we left, so we timed it just right. I know the Parthenon is the most iconic structure of the Acropolis, but my favorite part was looking down into the Theatre of Dionysus. As a former English major and avid concert goer, I can certainly appreciate the beauty of an ancient performance venue.

The Acropolis museum was also interesting and worth the entrance fee, and I took at least 50 photos before spotting a sign that said absolutely no photos. Oops! Opa! There wasn't enough time in the day to read every plaque explaining every piece, but I got an unexpected laugh out of what looked like a basic marble slab with messy writing scribbled on it. With so many other more impressive relics, I don't even know what made me stop to read this one.

The caption below it read:

Hekatompedos. Fragments of a metope
The love inscription Auoia, kalós meaning "Lysias is handsome" was added with red paint in the middle of the 5th cent. BC, when the metope had already been discarded.

In summary, it was a discarded piece of building that someone graffitied with "Lysias is handsome."

Modern Translation: Think "Taylor is hot" scrawled across a middle school locker, but make it ancient Greek. Our lovesick fangirl predecessors were alive and well in 530 B.C. 

Beyond the ticketed historic sites, we spent time just wandering through the streets and walking everywhere our feet would take us. We explored the Plaka, Monastiraki, Anafiotika, and Psyri neighborhoods, though where one ends and the other begins, I could hardly say after so much wandering. We saw local homes and playgrounds and infinite cats and souvenir shops. We got our first glimpse of the olive trees and bougainvillea that we would continue to see all over Greece. We window shopped and made mental and physical notes about where to return if we didn't find better by the time we were back in Athens after visiting the rest of the islands.

I took a photo of a dress I liked in Plaka for 50 euros knowing that I might find one I liked better later, or hopefully a better price. When we made our way back to Athens on the back half of the trip, I was still dressless and prepared to go back for it, but on our final day, a quest for fish soup took us off the beaten path and down a side street past an Indian Bazaar full of dresses (the same styles that were 50-70 elsewhere) that were 10 euros each. I bought two and patted myself on the back for waiting.

Athens also  held a couple of my favorite food stops of the trip: Stani, a dairy shop that opened in 1931, and Diporto, a literal hole in the wall basement with no sign and no menu. I ordered a big bowl of "cream" for breakfast at Stani based solely on the fact that it looked like it was topped with cinnamon. It ended up being sweet, not tart like yogurt, and it was the consistency of an airy pudding. My only regret is not having time to go back and try the chocolate version.

Diporto is a place we came across while researching restaurants online before the trip. It was tiny and we knew we might not be able to get in, but we got lucky and found only two groups ahead of us when we stopped by for lunch. We camped out on the basement stairs for maybe 15 minutes before a table cleared, which seemed like nothing when we saw the line up the staircase and out the doors as we left.

There were maybe nine tables total in the basement, and when three of us sat down to eat, they began to seat a random solo Greek man with us. We were ready to let it be part of the experience, unaware that space was so limited that they would seat strangers together, but at the last moment the server pulled him away and directed him to a different table full of men. There were no menus or questions asked, no prices to be found, simply sheets of wax paper at each place setting and random dishes brought to us throughout the meal. At Diporto, you're served whatever the single chef/owner cooked for the day, and that's that. It's not a place for the picky or the special requesters, which can lead to mixed reviews.

We were told what each dish was, but with the thick Greek accent and a moderate level of ambient noise, I was eating blindly. And I didn't care, because all of it was delicious. Once we realized we were only being given shared dishes (as in no individual plates, so we all ate directly out of every dish on the table), I was grateful that our potential table guest had been relocated. I was prepared to welcome a stranger to our table, but I don't think I was ready to welcome him into my bowl of mystery beans. I also wasn't ready to down two glasses of wine at lunch, but when that's all they serve you to drink, you roll with it. At least I certainly wasn't drinking on an empty stomach. 

The yellow pureed...split peas? Soup?--I feel like I should have coined the term UFO for "Unidentified Food Object" during this trip--Whatever it was was the best of the bunch, but garnishing anything with olives and a lime wedge will give it an unfair advantage. At the end of the meal, I headed outside while one of my friends paid because there wasn't room to stand around. The next thing I knew, they were calling my name and telling me to come back. I had clearly missed something, because when I got to the bottom of the stairs, other Holly was holding a metal pitcher with an amused look on her face, and the owner was corralling us all in for a photo. Since I was wearing my handy dandy phone lanyard and not carrying unexpected kitchenware, I caught on to whatever was happening just enough to extend my arm for a group selfie. A nearby tourist got up from her table and offered to take it, only to receive a brusque "no" and shooing motion from the owner.

I'm still a little unclear about how we wound up with a group photo initiated by the chef when I've seen comments suggesting that they frown on photos being taken period, but I kind of love the accidental M&G. 

Our final meal at the rooftop restaurant atop the Neoma hotel deserves an honorable mention. It had an amazing view of the Parthenon illuminated at night, and an even better beef tartare.

This post has been more food talk than I ever intended, but hunting the best foods ended up being a bigger part of this trip than I expected, and there were so many more great dishes that I didn't mention. "Cathens" might have been the more obvious wordplay, but looking back on the highlights I chose to share, perhaps the more fitting joke is you can't spell "Athens" without "Ate."

To quote a vendor sign I read in the Athens airport, "I'll be back when I'm back," aka Part 3 will be ready when it's ready.