September 8-9
On the way to get to the apartment, we passed a piece of public sculpture on the main drag. It is appears to be assembled from slabs of glass, or maybe plastic, to suggest the blur of a figure in rapid motion.
Joanna said it reminded her of the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota. As it stands now, the only recognizable parts of Crazy Horse are the face and the outstretched arm, pointing in much the same way as the wings of the figure in Athens.
We’re starting to get a feel for our Athens neighborhood. There’s a coffee shop on every block. We have at least two bakeries to choose from. We’ve been to the supermarket. There are at least two, maybe three, pharmacies, in case we get sick.
Larry even found a top wine shop up the block and around the corner from us.
There are numerous eateries, too. Cue is part of our building. When we first got here and had trouble getting into the apartment, it was raining heavily. We could step from the alcove with the stairs and pass right under Cue’s awning without getting wet.
We go there at least once a day. Joanna and I had eggs fried in a very flavorful olive oil for breakfast on Wednesday morning. I had a couple of cups of Greek coffee. My second came with a warning from Vangeli that it should be my limit.
I was drinking doubles, and the stuff has so much sediment that it left a quarter inch of sludge in the bottom of the cup. Very good indeed.
We go to Vangeli for directions, of course, and for all kinds of advice. We said we were going to the bakery. There’s one close by.
He said, “Don’t go there,” and told us where to find another tucked around a corner a block or two in the other direction.
Larry has been ducking out and coming back with bags that have contained sausages, grilled octopus, cheeses, eggs, and varieties of bread. I don’t know where he gets it all.
Larry directed us up the street to a place called Psomi kai Elia, which translates to Bread and Olive. Remembering Charles Lamb’s pen name, Elia, I thought it was a reference to the lamb in a gyro.
Oho, clever Yankee, fooled again.
The problem is in transliteration. The word for lamb in Greek begins with eta, the vowel whose cap form looks like a Roman H. In the store name Elia starts with epsilon, a shorter vowel that usually looks like the Roman E.
What’s more, I learned that not only does Bread and Olive not have any lamb, but gyros in the homeland are not made with lamb at all. They are either chicken or pork.
I opted for a pork version that was the best gyro I’ve ever tasted. Joanna had chicken souvlaki.
They came wrapped in pitas, which as far as we’ve seen here, are not pockets but more like soft, slightly leavened tortillas. The wraps were dressed with onion, tomato, lettuce, and French fries, wrapped together in the bread and flavored with tzatziki sauce and a dash of paprika.
Saturday we finally got to the Acropolis. We took a cab that brought us partway up the big hill.
There was still a lot of climbing to do. I can see why they call it the High Town. After all, it was a citadel as well as a holy place closer to the sky.
Even though it was a weekend, the ticket line wasn’t too bad—probably less than a half hour. We’re coming in after the high season, when the lines can be taxing.
Then we climbed to the ticket gate and climbed some more to the stops leading through the Propylaia, the monumental gateway to the hilltop itself.
We came out into the wind. The only place higher above Athens is a conical hill about a kilometer or so away.
You can see the Erechtheion, the temple with the Caryatids, far off to the left. The Parthenon—what’s left of it—stands close on the right, covered in scaffolding.
Joanna was excited to see the Caryatids. If these aren’t the first ever built, they are the most famous. The photo of the day is Joanna’s view of them.
The six under the portico are replicas. Five of the originals are in the Acropolis Museum. One was taken by Lord Elgin and sent to the British Museum.
Meanwhile, people were losing hats right and left. Which Joanna was taking the photo a fedora rolled across the hillside out of reach.
Later, a lady stood taking snaps of her family or friends. She had both hands on the camera, when her hat blew off and hit the ground in front of my feet. I was able to pin the hat in place with the tip of my cane.
She put the hat back on her head, and it came off again. This time she had a hand free to catch it.
Every once in a while, we had to pass single-file through tour groups that managed to block the road.
Holding our hats, we walked all around the Parthenon. The far side is where they store the restoration work in progress—sections of columns, for instance, and equipment for moving the pieces.
There is also a rail track that looks very old. Not Classical, I know, and it could still be in use for all I could tell. But maybe it’s old enough that Lord Elgin could have used it to start his Marbles and the Caryatid on their trip to London.
There is not much left of the Parthenon besides the columns and some lintels and the pediments where the Elgin Marbles once stood.
The hilltop is largely bare. There is not as much to see as there is in the Roman Forum.
Both have been looted: the Forum primarily by Renaissance architects who used it as a marble quarry, and the Acropolis by Ottomans who blew up the Parthenon and by the Brits who looted everywhere.
I feel privileged that I have walked through both of places in this life.
We took an Uber ride back to the ranch. We sat in the Cue with a bottle of white and plotted were to go for dinner. The food is varied and fantastic here.
Larry, as expected, had some solid suggestions. We opted for grilled lamb at O Petros (the Stone) on a street called Persefonis.
The place was mostly empty but they sat us at a table next to an extended family gathering.
The people were friendly enough, greeting us warmly when we sat down. The man sitting closest to Joanna’s elbow told us he was Albanian. I tried to tell him about our encounter with the Albanian language at the Globe Theater in London. As if he could care, right?
His wife introduced herself and called herself a Gypsy. The guy’s mother was there. His brother showed up a little later. There were at least five kids, who started to grow restless.
Before the parents cracked down on them, they were running up and down the sidewalk outside the restaurant, chasing each other around the tables inside, and generally raising hell.
They were clearly miffed when they found themselves forcibly seated by the grown-ups.
We ordered half a liter of red wine, which came chilled. We poured out glasses and let them sit to warm up. Knowing it would be half bone, we opted for a kilo of grilled lamb, along with a plate of salad, and some fries.
The salad had greens, grated carrot, grated cabbage, olives, tomato.
The food came all at once. It was terrific fun. The whole bill, even with an additional quarter liter of red, came to less than 60 bucks U.S.
Be well, everyone, and stay happy. Remember: when you’re high, hold onto your hat.
Love to all.
Joanna and Harry
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