I've been absent from the blog. I feel like I'm on a summer holiday from routine. No yoga, zumba, or blogging. Part of the problem is my addiction to My Kitchen Rules Australia. Its on the Living Channel for an hour every weeknight. I love the format, its such a change to the snoresville that is Normal person/celebrity/professional/*insert type of person Masterchef. BUT its eating into my blogging time.
Anyway, I still have loads of Athens photos that I have been looking at to prepare my commentary of them for the benefit of boyf's parents tomorrow.
I absolutely loved Greek food. It is very budget friendly and the fruit and veg were amazing - I miss their tomatoes.
Hello Greek beer. Having the World Cup invade my holiday is made acceptable by outdoor TVs, beers on the patio and other nationalities getting patriotic for 90 minutes.
Hello Greek wine. Its very sweet. 1 glass was enough for me. Please note the generous slab of feta in the greek salad. This meal was at a restaurant called Kotili that is on the pedestrian walkway called Adrianou Street, its near the end of Monastiraki metro station and Hadrian's library. We ate there twice it was so good and I recommend it as they have live Greek music, which I found both soothing and romantic and the garden has beautiful lighting.
This meze selection was more than enough for two people after having our veg quotient via the greek salad. It had chicken, cheese, pork, spicy pork sausage, chicken wings and some nice dips: potato salad, tzatziki . The meat was cooked perfectly. You can see its not fine dining but it was succulent.
So this is alpha beer and some hydrating water enjoyed at a bar on the promenade on the island of Aegina. Its the closest island to Athens and an hour away by ferry. Our intention was to swim on this day but you can see the sky was overcast so we chilled in the bar instead after having a wander around the Aegina ruins and small museum. They like their pottery in that museum.
Aegina pistachio nuts. They are apparently particularly good from this island. That bag cost me 3euro which must be only half the price of the UK supermarkets? And I didn't have to share them cause boyf doesn't like them. Little piggy here stuffed herself to the point of sickness on the ferry back to Athens.
I love ice-cream but normally avoid it like the plague as I have some kind of IBS-type reaction to it and I regret eating it. It was worth running the risk of pain for a scoop of rose ice-cream. Yes, turkish delight flavour ice cream. Heaven in a bowl. The other pot contains cookie ice cream which was only half as good.
Our hotel was in the neighbourhood called Exarchia. On arrival, we walked uphill along a long single lane traffic road. There was litter everywhere, dirty cars (not that I can talk), a lot of shuttered shops (it was Sunday so can't really make anything of that), a mixture of buildings and a lot of graffiti or murals. I was wondering where I had brought us...I needn't have worried.
We only ended up staying in Exarchia because we booked our hotels so last minute.
I am very glad that we did stay there, despite initial impressions. It has a high student population and according to the guidebook and the web its home to the Left which perhaps accounts for the creative outpouring on the streets.
Its better because its not a tourist focussed area with guys trying to hustle you into their restos like in the Plaka area. There were loads of small bars and cafes, restaurants. It particularly came alive after 10pm. Platia Exarchion is a real hub of the area and we enjoyed eating and drinking there. Everyone was very friendly too, the hotel workers, the people in the supermarket, the bar and cafe workers.
And this was the view from the hotel rooftop. Impressive.
Exarchia is not so leftfield really, the Lonely Planet have a chapter on the neighbourhood. For us, it was the perfect base from which to explore Athens.
Sunny x
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