Athens, First Two Days

 
Thursday, September 23


I won’t describe the journey. We left Pender Monday on the 3:30ish through-fare, spent the night  in a hotel near YVR, then flew via Toronto to Athens. We arrived in Athens Wednesday just after 11 am local time. I think that’s around 35 hours in total, but I’m not sure. Do I have to subtract the YVR hotel night in which I barely slept? Doesn’t matter, the trip was long, mostly miserable, and once again I wondered if I actually enjoyed travel. But then we arrived.

We picked up a sim card for Carol, whose luddite of a phone doesn’t do e-sim, then walked a narrow, heavily-trafficked street 10 minutes to our accommodations. I’d found this, called “A Painter’s House in Plaka,” right in the centre of action in the most picturesque (and also most tourist-heavy) neighbourhood of the city, steps from the Acropolis. We were able to let ourselves in to a spacious, somewhat funky 2-bedroom apartment in a courtyard of apartments. It’s perfect.

Simple, clean, functional, and two minutes from everything you want to be close to.

Well, there was a visitor upon our arrival, wee slug on the ceiling (how??) but we took him out to the garden right away.

Having eaten nothing but the minuscule “meals” served on Air Canada, we went for a Greek Salad lunch before a quick nap that would carry us through to the end of the day. We then forced ourselves out and about, because that’s the only way to adjust to the time change. We circled the base of the Acropolis, pinching ourselves. It’s real!. We arrived at Areopagus Hill, adjacent to the Acropolis, in time for the lowering sun to shine golden on the Parthenon. Sunset watching is a thing for tourists in Athens. We were there with the throngs, but one can’t get too disturbed about these things. It was good. We walked back towards home along a boulevard where as soon as the sound of one busker faded, the sound of another took its place. Busker after busker. One of them was actually good, you know, in tune. Oh, and the puppet lady, she was clever.

He's really into it, but he needs practice, actually.

This wee puppet had all kinds of cheeky moves. 

Having planned Athens largely by Google Maps, I didn’t really have a sense of distance here. This is a tiny area, packed with important sites. Nearly all of the most interesting sites are within 10 minutes of our accommodations. On our way home from our walk, we happened upon To Kafeneio, a restaurant that was high on my list, and got a table right away on their little side street. It turned out to be less than two minutes from our place. We went home around 10 pm and, well, passed out.

Streetside small bites

Friday the 24th

I knew last night that our 10 am booked time slot for the Archeological Museum was probably too early. And sure enough, I slept in until 9 am. Luckily, the timed tickets allow a one-hour window, so we didn’t actually have to be there, a 30-minute walk away, until 11. 

The museum was incredible. We used a Rick Steves Audio Guide, and that made all the difference. For anyone planning to travel, download the app “Rick Steves Audio Europe” and navigate to the city or site you plan to visit. Download his audio tours before you leave home. Everything is free. There are also interviews and radio shows in there, if you want more. His audio tours are word-for-word what appear in his guidebooks. So informative, and so engaging!

Kouros from the Archaic period, some 2500 years old

 

The main big deal for me was to see the mask of Agamemnon, a photo of which adorned the cover of the old Grade 7 Textbook, which was hanging around the school I taught in for years. This is a gold funerary mask from the 16th Century BCE, older than I can really imagine. Who it really was (or whether Agamemnon actually existed) is a matter of debate. I thought I would weep at the sight, but I didn’t. He was smaller than I expected, and in a display case with other masks. In my mind, he should be in a room of his own, like the Mona Lisa. Oh well.

Agamemnon, not unlike Mona Lisa, more crowds than Agamemnon

If you wait long enough, you can get him alone

We spent time and a bit of money in the gift shop, you know, book marks and a fridge magnet, the necessary souvenirs.

After the museum, we wandered back down to the Plaka via long pedestrian, touristic streets, through Monaseraki square. I bought a couple of cotton/linen dresses for €10 and €12, and Carol bought some €10 cotton pants. How could we resist?

After a lunch of leftovers and a good rest, we visited the Ancient Agora. This is a few minutes from our place, but the location of the entrance was not obvious — no signs and not on the map. We circumnavigated the site, backtracking several times, before we finally found it. Good thing the timed entry allows an hour’s leeway. 

Anyhow, again we used Rick Steves to guide us through the site. It’s largely rubble, like many ancient sites, but with Rick’s help and a lot of imagination, it was an amazing experience to be in the very place where the ancient philosophers walked, the birthplace of western democracy. There is a reconstruction of a Stoa (a pillared market place,) a small museum, and the Temple of Hephaestus, the best-preserved ancient temple in Greece, constructed in the 5th century BCE. Much of the bigger and more famous Parthenon is a reconstruction, and that this one is intact is remarkable, after 2500 years. 

The Stoa, a marketplace

Agora with Acropolis above

The Temple of Hephaestus

Three warriors. Hadrian stands above us

One unexpected sight at the Agora was an encounter with three turtles. Two were beating up on the third, smaller one, attacking it’s shell. We soon realized it was some kind of mating ritual. Enough said.

Fucking Turtles!

I haven’t mentioned cats yet. One of my granddaughters wants to visit Greece because she’s heard there are lots of cats here. She wouldn’t be disappointed. These are healthy, friendly cats, unlike many in other countries, and they are abundant. 

We closed the Agora down at 7 pm, and wandered around the side of the Acropolis to another sidewalk restaurant I’d been hoping to eat at. We lingered over a Greek-style spritzer, had the fish of the day, and made our way home at around 10, grabbing the mandatory gelato on the way. 

 

The definition of heaven, our dinner spot

Looking out over the city from our perch at dinner, I said to Carol, "I'm in heaven." She said, "Me too."

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking Back and Looking Forward to Greece

Carol and I are heading to Greece on September 22. We'll be renting a car and driving around the Peloponnese for a couple of weeks, then joining up with a Boat-and-Bike tour out of Corfu.

The last time I was in Greece was in 1971/72, mostly hitchhiking my way with my friend-who-remains-a-friend, Anne, and sometimes hooking up with other “hippie” travellers who swarmed the youth hostels of Europe at the time. The memories seem fresh, but I know they’re not. I always say you can’t go back. But I’m going back. 

Things will have changed. We were in Greece during Papadopolous’ junta, Yugoslavia under Tito, Spain during the the Franco regime. We didn’t think much about that at the time, being 19 and naive, though I remember Yugoslavia having a distinctly Soviet flavour. 

With a travel buddy, Harold, on Crete, 1972. I've changed almost as much as the map of Europe.

First stop will be Athens, and I remember Elias’s place, the Pension Diana, where we stayed (and met Cathy), and the Poste Restante. I remember a little street with stairs where I bought my cheap imitation goatherd bag, or whatever that was, made of red wool. I remember sitting on the Acropolis waiting for a shot of the Parthenon with no people in it — and I got one, which I’m pretty sure can’t be done anymore. That’s about all I remember. In my mind, Poste Restante was on Syntagma Square, but it actually wasn’t, it was near Omonia Square, which I don’t recognize at all when I look at it on Google street view. (This is how deep I look when I’m “researching.”) I remember it being right on the square, that we could look across the square to see it. But that’s not possible, because it was on a side street, according to the records. Memory is a trickster.

Elias and Cathy at the Pension Diana, Athens, January 1972. Cathy was an "older woman" at 22 (or 24?), who rode that bike to Athens from Amsterdam, by herself. Here she's about to ride back.

So, considering it’s been 54 years (jeez), I don’t think I’ll recognize much of anything in Athens. The other places we’ll be that Anne and I visited are Delphi and Corfu. What I remember about Delphi is hitchhiking with Cathy and being picked up by a trucker who then picked up his friend and then stopped in the middle of nowhere so his friend could proclaim his love for each of us in turn. Cathy warded him off with an umbrella. I remember huddling around a little potbelly stove in a kind of general store in Delphi, trying to get warm. I remember looking down a hillside onto the ruins. But I don’t remember a town at all, and it most certainly was there when we were.

All I remember about Corfu is renting scooters and me blasting out “Born to Be Wild” at the top of my lungs as the wind whipped my hair around. Because helmets weren’t invented yet, or something. I don’t remember the town, but I remember breaking down, because scooters always did, and I think someone stopped to help us. I don't have any photos from Corfu, but I have another one from Crete:

Exploring Crete via Volkswagen van, January 1972. Left to right: Unknown, Paul, Harold, Fred, Cathy, Anne, Unknown, and myself. I think maybe we met the unknown people in Heraklion and decided to travel in tandem for a bit. 

Returning to Greece now, it will be as if I was never there. Oh, except that I still remember “efharisto" and “parakalo", thank you and you’re welcome. I remember bougatsa, and the little pots of yogurt with the skin on the top, and pastitsio. Papadopolous cookies? Two drachma souvlaki? I’d get mine for one drachma because I didn’t want the meat. Oh…I remember selling blood there. Sheesh. 

Visiting Marrakech recently, the big square is still much the same as it was in 1972, though there are a few dozen semi-permanent juice trucks parked in one corner now. But I went looking for a particular gate we’d use back then, inside which there was a “street” covered in lath that made striped shadows on everything below. No lath now — of course, it would have rotted away in 54 years. The covering now is fancy grillwork. Not the same. And Fez was nothing like I remembered. The shops that used to be cool now sell fridge magnets.

I looked up Elias’s and there’s no record of it. AI guesses at it, saying there were lots of unofficial pensions at the time (during the Junta!), especially in the university district, which seems about right from what I remember. I remember walking to it one day and seeing a man in a doorway jerking off. The important stuff, right? I tried to look up the bag I bought, but “traditional” bags don’t look anything like it. Ticky-tacky now is not what ticky-tacky was back then. The jerk-off has got to be long dead.

 

 

A note about the photos: I had a little camera with me and had a budget of one photo per day, because film and developing was expensive. I ended up with ten boxes of slides which I stored with my Mom until she threw them away, bless her heart. Fortunately, Anne had made prints of some of the highlights. These are obviously deteriorating, but Dave (her husband) has kindly scanned them. 

 

 

Wrapping Up Morocco

 Sunday March 22

Who We are

Mariam has been our leader, our mother, our sometimes-admonisher, and our guiding light. Born Indigenous (Amazigh) in Imlil in the Atlas Mountains, she had an in that few guides would have,  and could relate to the people that seem to make up most of the population outside the urban areas, and they could relate to her. Being a guide is a 24/7 job. Even on the long drives, she would be on the phone most of the time, making arrangements, ensuring our bookings were good, ordering our meals to be ready as we arrived, sorting out our rooms, and just generally making sure we had as smooth and as enriching a trip as could be had. 

Amal has been our amazing driver. She can manipulate that big vehicle in lanes I wouldn’t take a mini into. And no wonder — she used to be a long-distance truck driver, the only woman truck driver in Morocco, we’re told. And now she’s one of very few woman drivers in the Moroccan tourism industry. She doesn’t speak English, but she’s our friend. More than that, she’s our hero.

The maximum number of guests on Wild Women Expeditions is twelve. When we saw that the tour was full, we thought that meant there would be twelve of us. Why were we only five? We’re guessing that it’s because they have to book accommodations months in advance, so there’s a cutoff date, which they don’t seem to advertise. This may not be true of all of their tours, because I’ve seen “space available” just before a tour is set to embark. 

To travel with only five (mostly) strangers might not be a good thing in all cases. If there’s a grump in the group, you can’t really get away. In our case, we bonded like sisters. While we were five very different personalities, I think the overriding characteristic of all of us was a positive, adventurous attitude. Oh, we were not without complaints — that would have been annoying — but even in our complaints we stood together, a group support. 

I will miss my new sisters. We agreed that if we were to find a good adventure to share, we’d try to sign up together. 


Sue

Sue is the lone American in our group, but she does not fit the stereotype we Canadians tend to attribute to Americans. She’s quiet but strong, and she will assert herself when she needs to. (Response to a squatter: “That’s not going to happen!”)  I often catch her with a little smile on her face, which could be contemplative, or wise, or maybe she’s just smirking at our antics, I don’t know. She has eyes like Joni Mitchell’s, and sometimes I catch a glance that just slays me. She is a goddess.

Sue was a key participant in a community project that wrapped the Art Center in Sioux City, Iowa, in quilted fabric. Find Sue here.


Vicki

Vicki’s a straight shooter. I mean, if she needs something, she lets it be known in no uncertain terms. She drinks coffee like no one I’ve ever met (and I thought John was the consummate coffee drinker!) She could write her own blog just about all the coffee she had on this trip, and I’ll never forget her exclamations: “DeLICIous!”  Vicki has a way of making you feel good about yourself, by paying attention, by caring for you, and by laughing her big belly laugh at all your jokes, the good ones and the bad.

Milica

Milica is our spark plug. Vibrant, curious, open. My first encounter with her was when Bettyanne and I were having a salad in the hotel in Casablanca. Not knowing who we were, she exclaimed, “Look at you two, having your salad!” and I thought she must be a rich, famous person by her demeanor. Her voice — that voice! — is so expressive and so exuberant, everyone we met was drawn to her; she was the one the nomads took to; she was the one the hotel people would light up for. All of Morocco fell in love with her. 

Bettyanne

Well. Bettyanne is one of the most patient, kind, and giving people I’ve ever met. She has energy and enthusiasm for everything that comes her way. Being with someone all day, every day for three weeks in a foreign and challenging environment is a true test of friendship, and we aced it. I could not ask for a better travel partner, and I’m grateful that I don’t have to say goodbye to her.

Travel Day

This morning, after our last high-carb Moroccan breakfast, we began the outward journey. We all had different departure times, of course. Vicki had booked an extra day, and was now questioning that decision, not willing to venture into the medina on her own (and who can blame her?) But Vicki, with time to kill, was there to see us off, to make sure we all got the right pre-arranged car (after some confusion). 

Breakfast. Since there's no longer pressure to get going, a couple of us didn't show up

Near the airport: dismal trees and barriers. A standing joke: several times during the trip, we'd drive by high walls topped by barbed wire. Marian would ask if we knew what that was, and we'd guess it was a prison. No, it was always an airport.

Marrakech airport was easy. The flight to Paris was easy. Arriving at Charles de Gaul Airport, not so easy. It should have been: catch the RER from the lower level of CDG and ride directly to a stop a ten-minute walk from our apartment in the Marais. 

But the RER airport line was not running. It took a while to figure out that there would be buses to take us into Paris. Asking directions to the bus, we were given a variety of indecipherable answers, most of them something about Gate 4, which to us meant a departure gate, and that made no sense. Turn left, then straight, then down, then left, then…. Even Ms Google, bless her, must have been trained by CDG staff to give confusing directions. “Take the escalator down,” she’d say, with no escalator in sight. By now it was getting dark. And I was quietly losing my cool. I almost never lose my cool! Anyhow, we finally realized that “Gate 4” meant “Door 4” of a particular terminal, and we found the bus, bought Navigo passes (the new way of getting around public transit in Paris), boarded with a hoard of other inconvenienced travellers, and rode to Saint Denis, where we followed the crowd down dark streets, hoping they knew what they were doing, to a Metro station. Having navigated the Metro before, I found us the right train, and we got off at Les Halles. In that shopping mall, we added another few thousand steps to our daily count before we found the exit, then made our way to our 6th floor apartment, where our patient host met us, thanks to communicating with him through WhatsApp. It had taken us three hours to get from the plane to our abode. 

We went for dinner in a dead-quiet nearby restaurant I’d found online, then walked down to Isle de la Cité, where I was excited to see Bettyanne’s reaction to Notre Dame, lit up at night. Turned out I was too excited, and mislabelled a smaller church, and she got highly excited — until I realized we hadn’t crossed the water, and this wasn’t Notre Dame. Damn! 

We're in Paris!!

Oh wow! Oh wow! But it's not Notre Dame

This! is Notre Dame

Anyhow, we were in Paris, and being in Paris is being in Paris! Paris!! Notre Dame square was all but deserted, about the only time we’d see it that way. We took the obligatory selfies and walked the ten minutes home to bed. 

 

 

Tagines and Sunsets

 Saturday, March 21

 

This morning, we were picked up by Amal and dropped off near Riad al Riad, where we were given a cooking lesson. Our original itinerary listed a cooking class at a training center, but it being Eid holiday, the center was not open. Resourceful Mariam found an alternative for us, and we were not disappointed. 

Hennaed hands, ready to cook. Our teacher on the left.

We made chicken tagine and two side dishes, the eggplant dish and the green pepper dish we’d eaten many times during the trip. What impressed me was how simple it was, and how casual the amounts used of each ingredient. I know the reader wants to know the recipe, so here goes, more or less:

• Soak a pinch of saffron threads in a couple of tablespoons of water, ready for the step to come
• Put about ¼ of a chopped onion in the bottom of a tagine. 
• Add a piece or two of skinless chicken. 
• Finely chop a clove of garlic and dump it on top of the chicken. 
• Finely slice ¼ of a preserved lemon (peel only) and place the slices on the chicken/garlic
• Pour the saffron water over the lemon peel/garlic/chicken. 
• Sprinkle on a small amount (less than ¼ t) each of ginger, turmeric, and cumin. 
• Drizzle a couple of tablespoons of olive oil over the lot.
• Cover and cook for an hour.
 

Almost ready

 

Olive oil to finish

Note that Moroccan tagines are always cooked over a gas flame. At home, with my Costco tagines and my electric stove, I would put them in the oven at maybe 350°.

 

Ready for cooking. We each put a different spice in the hollow of the lid, so we'd know which was ours after cooking.

 

Cooking is exhausting

While our tagines were cooking, we wandered about the Riad, exploring the rooftop and peaking in rooms. This would be another great stay in Marrakech, a step up, maybe, from Riad Naya (our first Marrakech riad) and a step down, maybe, from La Clé d’Or. Riad Naya and this Riad al Riad are a few minutes walk apart, in the heart of the medina. Perfect location. 

Rooftop lounge with mirrors

Conserving rain water. Our Riad Naya had this system too; catch rain in a plastic sheet above the courtyard and let it run down a pipe into the fountain below.

Decoration idea: old djellaba fabric in embroidery hoops

Our meals were delicious of course, and we're all planning to make preserved lemons when we get home. We were each given small tubs of spices — the above plus black pepper and paprika — to take with us. 

Finished dishes

Moroccan dessert: orange slices with cinnamon

We had the rest of the afternoon to explore on our own. I returned to Riad Naya to pick up the hat and sleep mask I’d somehow left there. Mustafa was warm and welcoming.

We waited out a sudden rainstorm in a café above Jemaa el Fna, then some of us wandered deep into the medina, past the tourist rows and into places locals might shop. One of the beauties of Google Maps is that you can go “off-map” freely, knowing Ms Google will guide you back when you need her.

Jemaa el Fna after the rain

I don't know what this is, but it's pretty

Spices, herbs, oils, lotions

Spices in barrels and cones

Not so dressed-up neighbourhood

Palm leaf market

We went back to our riad briefly, then set off for our last dinner together, in a big, bustling rooftop restaurant above the square. Tonight, we had a tangia, a change (somewhat) from a tagine, a stew slow-cooked in an earthenware pot, traditionally in the ashes of a hammam fire. From the roof, we had a magical view of a stunning sunset over the roofs of Marrakech.

 

Elevator up, mirrored ceiling

Sundown over Marrakech

Great minds?

Mariam said goodbye tonight. She led us through the crowds, then returned to her Marrakech home, while we returned to our riad for our last night in Morocco