Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Athens

  • Athens – McDonald’s – Greek Mac

    I thought I’d pop in McDonald’s once during my time in Athens, since it’s the first time that I’ve been to Greece. It wasn’t very well presented, but this is the Greek Mac, one of the items on the permanent national menu. This is one of the McDonald’s which doesn’t yet have panels from which to order and the queue was quite long, but the crew member was efficient in trying to keep everything together.

    The Greek Mac comprises of two burgers in pita bread, with a yoghurt sauce, onions, lettuce and tomato. It tasted of lamb, which I try to avoid eating (I like seeing fluffy lambs in fields and feel guilty otherwise, a rather inconsistent thought process given what else I eat, but there we go) but was beef. I’ve had similar before in other countries, and it tasted fine and as I expected. Nothing exceptional, but perfectly acceptable.

  • Athens – Zampano

    Zampano is a  bistro and wine bar which opened in the centre of Athens in 2017. There were several people sitting outside but it was empty inside when I entered, but fortunately it got busier with people coming in for lunch.

    Freshly squeezed orange juice, which is usually an expensive drink to order. But not in Athens, where there is no shortage of oranges, so this was an affordable and tasty start to the meal.

    The interior was simple, but yet stylish, and it felt comfortable.

    The menu advertised this as a Greek salad with barley rusks, capers, sea fennel. The feta cheese was creamy and beautiful, it’s my preferred cheese and this one was no disappointment. The other ingredients all tasted fresh and the barley rusks and cucumber added texture to the meal, with a substantial number of tomatoes which were full of flavour. And the capers added texture, taste and elegance, they’re one of my favourite ingredients. This cost the equivalent of under £5, very reasonable. Indeed, writing this, I could quite fancy eating this now.

    It seemed rude to leave without having a dessert, or at least, I felt greedy so I had a dessert anyway. The waiter recommended the pumpkin cheesecake and this sounded a perfectly good suggestion, which was borne out. The base had some texture to it and the top was creamy and the caramel sauce added positively to the dish.

    The service was exceptional throughout, attentive, polite, jovial and always professional. The environment felt welcoming and this proved to be my favourite restaurant of the week. The food was simple but had clean flavours and the prices were very reasonable given that quality.

  • Athens – TGI Fridays

    Having had a rather lovely Greek salad for lunch, I went for a more generic American option in the evening. Located in the city’s embassy area, this restaurant was busier inside that I had anticipated. The restaurant was inevitably pretty similar to other TGI Fridays around the world and it had a modern and informal feel to it.

    The soft drinks are refillable, so the otherwise high volume of ice is acceptable. The service was passable, although perhaps some of the less engaging of any of the restaurants I visited in Athens during the week, which isn’t really the brand standard for a chain like this. However, the service was never rude and it wasn’t too difficult to get drinks refills and I was in no rush anyway.

    The chicken burger and chips which wasn’t particularly well presented. The chicken tasted fine, tender and the coating was crispy, but there was nothing exceptional about it. The meal and drink (well, drinks, since I had three refills) came to around £10, so the pricing wasn’t unreasonable.

    Overall, there wasn’t a great deal of uniqueness to anything about the operation, but it did have a vibrant atmosphere and it seemed efficiently run. I’ll be glad though when the UK outlets of this chain start their unlimited appetisers promotion again, I rather liked that.

  • Athens – Airport (Pepper)

    Sadly, I didn’t get to see Pepper on my visit to Athens Airport, but I remember reading about this a few months ago in the media. It’s a robot which meanders around the airport, along with its human supervisor, offering help to travellers by using the tablet which is built into it.

    It seems that it’s particularly useful for those visitors from China as this technology has been aimed at offering them assistance, although Pepper can also interact in English. Unfortunately there has apparently already been an attack on Pepper by a traveller who wasn’t satisfied with the service which was offered.

  • Flights – Athens to Katowice (Wizz Air)

    A morning flight from Athens in Greece to Katowice in Poland, costing slightly more than my usual Wizzair flights and coming in at around £13. I was marginally disappointed that the flights were going from the airport’s satellite terminal, rather than the main terminal, as it precludes any access to the lounges.

    The seating area at the gate, which actually had enough seats for every customer. And the satellite terminal was clean, well maintained and very comfortable, some considerable money must have been spent here. There were also plenty of power points available, which saved me having to rely on my power bank.

    I had been automatically allocated an aisle seat, which is my preferred choice anyway, so that was a bonus. Although the flight was nearly full, the two seats next to me weren’t filled, so I had a row to myself.

    Flying over the Tatras mountains.

    And arriving into Katowice airport. Without making any political comment on the whole Schengen Project, it is an amazing benefit for passengers. My passport was only checked by Wizzair staff at the gate and not by border agents at either country, saving the tedious process of queueing for ages for a passport check.

    I still prefer Wizzair to Ryanair, although they’re similar operations, but the Wizzair service feels just a little more relaxed. The cabin crew, who were all Polish, were helpful and efficient, although I  noticed they were sitting in the galley reading books for a portion of the flight. This is perhaps better than the Ryanair solution of having the cabin crew walking up and down to perform almost endless sweeps of the cabin selling food, drink, duty free, lottery tickets and so on.

    Overall, given the relatively cheap cost of the flight, this was another comfortable flight with Wizzair. Katowice is a little bit of a hub airport for Wizzair, as they serve over forty different locations from here, with a fair number of Italian and Spanish airports.

  • Athens – National Park (Tortoises)

    Spot the wildlife….

    Here he is. These tortoises roam free in the national park and I’m sure that they’d like to get further but I can’t imagine that they’d negotiate the traffic and urban life of Athens city centre very well. He did though move across the park at quite some speed, so they must be able to cover some reasonable distances.

    There is a story that Aeschylus, an author from Athens, was killed by a tortoise. This sounds a little far fetched, but the story goes that an eagle dropped the tortoise on his bald head, confusing it for a rock on which to smash the tortoise’s shell. It’s no doubt apocryphal, but it’d be a rather unfortunate way to die….

  • Athens – Toms Shoes (and coffee)

    There are a few of these locations around the world, although I must admit that I hadn’t heard of the company name, just the concept. In short, it’s a shoe shop and coffee shop where for every product purchased the company give another free to charity.

    Initially established in the United States, there are a handful across in the world, a few in the US, one in London, one in Greece and several in the Middle East.

    First time I think that I’ve had coffee in a shoe shop.

    Attractive coffee and the server was professional and rather smooth in his entire service. I’m not sure how he made the image on the coffee this clear and the image stayed like that until I had nearly finished the drink. As for the taste of the coffee, it was the best I’ve had all week, rich and creamy, all excellent value for €3. They serve all the drinks in takeaway cups, regardless if customers are eating in (or drinking in) which is a little unusual.

  • Athens – National Archaeological Museum

    I’ll limit myself in this post to just a brief few comments about the National Museum of Archaeology, as I have lots of photos of various exhibits I’ll post later on. The frontage of this museum looks spectacular and it has been in this building since 1889, although the museum has been in operation since 1829.

    The staff member at the desk was welcoming, although visitors are given precisely no information such as a map. This museum is substantial and so an orientation map would have been useful, or just a guide to the main key items in the collection. I wasn’t even sure where I was going to get into the museum after I had obtained my ticket, so I followed some Germans. They seemed equally unsure, but they were more decisive than me, and they made a good judgement on where to go.

    There is no set path around the museum, which again might have been at least partly useful, as everything seemed rather random. However, the size of the museum was something else, and it’s the largest museum of its type in Greece and it’s also of international importance.

    I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen so many statues, but I suppose that if anywhere is going to have a substantial collection of Greek statues then it’d be here. There are also a large number of damaged statues with various parts having fallen off over the centuries, but that simply adds to their charm. Well, sometimes… There’s also a Roman collection as well though, and numerous other collections from the ancient period, as well as a prehistoric collection.

    I walked around for nearly three hours until I decided that I’d had enough of statues and sculptures. There were elements of the museum that I didn’t really discover despite visiting for that length of time, and apparently the museum is planning an expansion in the future.

    Some reviews indicated that the museum randomly closes part of their collections when they’re short staffed, but I didn’t notice that being a problem during my visit. Although given how much there was to see I’m not sure that I would have really noticed if they had closed some of it.

    I was again fortunate to be visiting in late March, as the museums become more expensive from the beginning of April. The usual admission charge for this museum is €10, but for the winter period it was just €5. Given how much there was to see, I considered that more than satisfactory value for money.

  • Athens – Parthenon South Slope – Odeon of Herodes Atticus

    This theatre is built into the side of the Acropolis and was funded by Senator Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. A nice gift to give…. It was completed in 161AD and remained in use until 267AD when the Heruli (a Germanic tribe) came and destroyed it.

    The remains of the theatre survived in relatively good condition over the centuries, but it was decided to renovate the site in 1950 to bring it back into use. It seems a shame that the historic elements of the seating area have been lost, although the former facade is still standing, at least in part. Although it’s an open-air theatre today it wasn’t originally, there used to be a grand (and no doubt expensive) cedar wooden roof.

    Numerous big names (as in well known people, not those with lots of letters in their surnames) have since performed here, including Pavarotti, Elton John, Sting, Placido Domingo and Jethro Tull. When the sun is shining this must make for a spectacular site for a performance, with the performer looking straight up at the Acropolis. John Cleese is also performing there later this year, I’m sure that will sell out quickly if it hasn’t already.

  • Athens – Parthenon South Slope – Danger

    Coming back down from my Parthenon visit I was merrily reading every sign that I could find. This one looked moderately interesting and I realised I hadn’t seen much wildlife.

    And then I saw this. The Balkan whip snake. The Acropolis could have been riddled with these….. Glad I saw this at the end of the visit.