Thursday, December 20
We signed up for a free tour for this morning and were told to meet at a small church on the other side of Town near the Temple of Hephaestus at 11:00 am. Unlike all of the other free tours we’ve taken this company meets in different places and different times. They don’t actually post their schedule on the Internet. You have to sign up for a specific day and then you receive an email telling you the place and time to meet. It seems very odd to us.
We were at the appointed place at 10:50 am but could not find any signs of our group. We walked around the church and the nearby square looking for the usual accoutrements: an umbrella, a brightly colored vest, a sign or even just a small crowd. We found nothing. We sent them an email and waited about 15 minutes before leaving in disgust. We eventually got an email saying that the group was there and left on time. They said that they don’t have any umbrellas, vests or even any signs but that the guide is pretty good at finding people. This one wasn’t.
Deborah had been curious about many of the things I’d seen on the day I had the camera cleaned so we went back to many of those same places together. One of the things that neither of us had seen were the agoras, more commonly known to most of us as forums. There was the smaller, Roman agora, the library of Hardrian and the very large Greek agora that included the temple of Hephaestus. We walked around the outside of all these places. We plan to come back on another day and see them all because we can get a combination ticket that will allow us entry to all these places (and more) on a single day.
Deborah really wanted to visit the TOMS Flagship Store. When we arrived we discovered that it was both a store and a cafe. It seems that, in addition to shoes, TOMS also produces coffee, sunglasses and bags and their flagship stores sell all of these. TOMS’ motto is, “With every product you purchase, TOMS will help a person in need. One for One.” It’s a great feeling knowing that your purchases help the economy and a person in need all at the same time. Unfortunately they had a limited selection of shoe sizes so we left empty handed. They said that they should be fully stocked in a few weeks so we may try back before we leave Town or before we leave for London because the prices were the best we’ve seen in Europe.
In the evening we took a taxi back in the direction we came from the airport to Christina’s home. Her apartment was just 1.6 miles from our apartment but since we’d been invited for dinner we thought it might be better to show up looking fresh instead of tired.
Christina has a lovely two-bedroom, second floor apartment in a very residential part of Town with a balcony that runs the entire length of her place. Soon after we got there her friend, Eleni, showed up with a couple of bottles of wine and stories to tell. It was going to be a fun night.
Christina had prepared enough food for ten people. We started off eating some appetizers and sampling the wine. We had small cheese pies and a dish of sautéed vegetables with shrimp. We can’t remember the names of these dishes but they were freshly prepared and quite tasty.
Christina and Eleni have known each other for many years and are great friends. They were even in New York at the same time for several years. We enjoyed hearing stories about their families and their travels. It was all so entertaining that we almost felt that we should have purchased tickets.
After all of the preliminaries we sat down to dinner. Christina was worried about what to make; she wasn’t sure about what types of things we ate. We quickly put her at ease – we eat anything and everything. We like to think of ourselves as the ideal guests. 😇
Dinner consisted of whole porgies, greek salad, zucchini flowers, mixed greens, a potato dish and more. We can’t remember the names of many of these things because with dinner we had even more wine. It was all so good. The last time we had a home cooked meal like that was over a year ago when we were back in the United States. I particularly enjoyed the zucchini flowers. I’d never had them before and thought that they were simply incredible.
(Porgies and Veggies)
Dessert didn’t disappoint. We had baklava, orange cake soaked in honey syrup, kourabiedes cookies and sesame seed wafers. We particularly enjoyed the orange cake. It was different from anything we’ve ever had.
(Dessert was Great Too!)
After dinner we got some great advice about places to see and things to do in Greece. It’s not clear that we have time for all of these places but we added them to our list. Greece is a large and varied place and three months is just not enough time to do it justice. It seems like a good excuse to come back some day.
(Eleni, Christina and Us, a Happy Dinner Party)
After lots of food, conversation and wine the evening came to an end. We enjoyed Christina’s hospitality for over five hours but it was finally time to leave. She sent us home with a large chuck of orange cake and some baklava. It had been a great evening.
Distance walked: 6.9 miles