Tag: Athens

We returned to Athens, after puncturegate, and it was still slightly simmering (the city, not the tyre) after the protests that had taken place during the day. There had been a little rioting and a lot of restaurants had closed, with parts of the city having something of an edgy feel to them so it wasn’t the usual pleasant evening atmosphere in Athens.

Fortunately, the Golden Indian Haveli was open and it is impeccably well reviewed on-line, so they’re evidently doing a lot right. It looked closed at first from one side, but there was signage indicating where to go. We were welcomed promptly and they checked if we had a reservation, but they had plenty of space available to accommodate us. The restaurant is on the left in the above photo, but the staff were standing outside and I didn’t want it to look like I was taking photos of them.

The poppadoms were crunchy and rich in flavour, although the two sauces with them weren’t of any great note. The beer was the Kingfisher lager and it is what it is, it went well with the food so that was handy. As an irrelevant aside, I’m the only person ever to have checked a beer into this venue on Untappd, there’s always usually someone before me, but not here.

The main event was though much better. I went for a chicken madras, lemon rice and a Peshwari naan. I have a common issue in finding that curries are lacking in more spice in some European countries, especially northern European countries. However, this arrangement was much better with the sauce having some spice and heat to it, which is what I would expect from a madras. The chicken was tender, the sauce was rice and the coconut cooled matters down a little. The ginger added taste, the onion added texture and the flavours worked well together. The lemon rice had a full flavour of lemon, which is something not always delivered, with pieces of lemon visible throughout. The naan was crispy and had the expected almond taste to it, with everything at the appropriate hot temperature. I did finish everything, but it was only at a push and the portions sizes were generous.

The prices here were reasonable, the service was attentive and the surroundings were clean and comfortable. There was a bottle of water placed on the table that we hadn’t asked for, but they checked at the end of the meal if we’d had any of it and they pro-actively removed it from the bill. I’d merrily come back here, it’s centrally located, there’s a friendly welcome and the food is above average.

One handy thing about travelling with Richard anywhere is that there’s always drama. And I was delivered drama once again on this trip, which was all rather exciting. As we were driving along the motorway, or more specifically as Richard was driving, there was a little bangy noise which I correctly identified as something was broken. We were just before a toll booth and so we stopped off to investigate the matter, with the timing being quite fortunate.

The rather helpful guy at the reception desk at the toll station, which I don’t think is a generally onerous role and so needs extra excitement, came over to help. He we are with two experts looking at the tyre, which I had already identified as broken so I didn’t see what more work needed doing on the investigation.

Richard remembered that there was a spare tyre in the boot. It seemed that we might be able to put this on and manage the situation ourselves. Richard is a man of action and his engineering background, specialising in keyboards, would inevitably come in handy.

And here he is athletically putting the tyre into the right place, rolling it like a professional. This plan didn’t work as we couldn’t get the existing tyre off (I say we, but I was basically just the photographer) and so Richard phoned the car hire company. The lady spoke English, but the toll guy (as I’m now calling him) dealt with the entire conversation in rapid-fire Greek and we had no clue what was going on. Richard had been hoping to speak to the lady at the end of the call to gain a better understanding of the situation, but I imagine that the toll guy was trying to make life easier. I wanted to sit in the car, but Richard reminded me it was jacked up and he hadn’t remembered to bring any chairs to sit on which I thought was poor planning on his part. If he is to be a true traveller, he needs to bring a mobile lounge with him.

I think this next photo tells something of a story, as it’s now dark. The toll gates looked rather lovely as the sun set over the broken car. The toll guy, who really was doing a marvellous job at helping us, came over to say that the repair man was around fifteen minutes away. At least we had a solution coming now.

There was some thinking about the situation whilst we waited. The toll guy spoke sufficient English to let us know what was going on and helpfully queried if I was cold as I didn’t have a coat on. He also asked Richard why we’d come to Greece when it was cold, although I think the toll guy and I have a different understanding of what the word hot means.

Then the repair man turned up with a proper jack. No selection of canapes or anything though for us to nibble on. I had expected Richard to have some sort of lounge option for car hire so that we received some treats, but it transpired that he hadn’t. But, here is the car all successfully repaired and we were ready to roll with the temporary tyre in place, with the whole arrangement taking 90 minutes to have got sorted out.

Thanks mostly to me for recording the incident for posterity, the toll man for being so helpful, the repair guy for fixing it and to Richard for the excitement. After investigating the broken tyre, it seems that there had been a nail in it which must have fallen out, hence the quick deflation. Richard noted, after the event, that he did think there was the sound of something as we had been driving around all day, but as it was a hire car a random noise would have been hard to investigate. And with Richard at the helm, what could possibly go wrong? He remains very fortunate that I’m often around to take photos and be the voice of calm reason. As for the good news, Richard had taken out insurance to cover this sort of incident, so the €400 he would have been charged was reduced to €0.

I found driving in Athens quite cathartic, but I was a passenger and I suppose that this does impact matters somewhat.

Richard might have found it less relaxing and peaceful.

And just some photos of Athens at night from last week….

This is what Richard identified as the Temple of Poseidon.

This is the actual one. It’s an easy mistake to make though and I didn’t say anything. The ruins are from a temple dating to around 444 to 440 BC, replacing an early temple that the Persians had constructed in 480 BC that was sort of knocked down during the Persian Wars. It was an important religious site as sailors used it to seek Poseidon’s favour for safe voyages and it was also more practically used as a visible landmark for shipping. I’m no expert in Greek architecture, nor indeed an expert in any architecture, but apparently it’s built in the Doric style which was similar to the Euston Arch before they pulled it down. They used local white marble to construct the temple, using the stone from the nearby Laureotic Mount.

There were quite a lot of people around when we arrived in the late morning, but the site itself was closed off due to the national strike. It’s located around a one hour drive from Athens although there are some coach services which operate out there.

And as it was closed, that meant this was the closest that we got to the temple. I had been hoping to see the graffiti made by Lord Byron who visited here and decided to carve his name into one of the pillars in the early nineteenth century. It is moderately odd (although entirely correct) that this is an interesting thing to look at when it’s historic graffiti, but rather less approved of when it’s modern day graffiti. In 1825, two of the columns collapsed and the bits have ended up in Venice and London. I mean, it survives for thousands of years and then some bits fall off just at that moment, but I’m not making any allegations.

Here’s the bit of the column that is in the British Museum.

This is the drawing commissioned by Lord Elgin of the site, drawn by Sebastiano Ittar in 1802.

As some things in the local area were re-opening in the afternoon, we came back later in the day to see if they had opened the site up, but unfortunately not. The views were well worth stopping for though and the cafe had opened up, to serve coffee and light snacks to the disappointed visitors who had come to experience history. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t get closer to the temple, but it was still an impressive thing to see perched on the edge of the clifftop.

I’m not sure how healing this water is, but apparently there are minerally rich thermal springs around here and it was also a rather impressive viewpoint. We didn’t know that they were healing waters at the time, otherwise perhaps we might have had a little paddle.

NB, the use of the word minerally is apparently a modern concept, although has now reached the OED and so is acceptable. I didn’t know it wasn’t a word until spell check queried it. Here’s an Ngram graph of how the word has been used over the last 200 years and I accept that I probably should have just written mineral rich…. Anyway, I’ve digressed.

Decent views.

A hole which Richard refused to investigate. In many ways, I was quite pleased with that as I have no idea how I would have helped him back out without the support of the Greek coastguard.

I was worried that there might be snakes in there, so I didn’t rush in. This is when you need Liam as he would have jumped down there.

There’s likely a whole caving complex down there.

And Richard jogging back up to the car.

We were on the road from Athens to the Temple of Poseidon and it is a beautiful drive.

Although it didn’t look like the most vibrant part of Athens, the area just to the north of the Agora has plenty of food and drink options.

The one that we headed for was Tapfield, as it was Untappd verified and it appeared to have some interesting beer options.

There was a friendly welcome from the team member and the beer list is clearly visible, although it’s also listed on Untappd as well. The team member was willing to give recommendations and I liked the mix of Greek and international beers, with most major beer styles represented here. We seated ourselves indoors at the end of the bar, although there’s more outside seating for those who like sitting in a fog of cigarette smoke. Although it didn’t have many tables inside, that did give it a cosier and more comfortable atmosphere.

My flight of beers, it seemed the easiest way to try several beers. For anyone interested, from left to right:

(i) West Coast IPA from Kykao, with a deep hop flavour, it was punchy, piney and stonefruity.

(ii) Craft IPA from Craft Microbrewery, which was smooth and hoppy but didn’t have any intense and decadent flavours to it.

(iii) Coconut Sky CocoStout from Athens Noctua Microbrewery, this was a little thin but the depth of coconut was intense and I love that. A Bounty bar delight…

(iv) Red Ale from Retimi, there was a bit of caramel, quite malty but again a little thin.

There was a modern bar and dispense, it all felt suitably on-trend. The reviews for this bar are very positive on-line and there are surprisingly few other venues similar to this.

Part of the decor, some considerable effort has gone into all of this.

We got a few cans between Richard and I and I’d better note that as I didn’t get through all of these on my own. This was the Stone Imperial Stout from Stone Brewing, which was pleasant but I had hoped for something more complex. There was a bit of chocolate, a bit of smokiness, it was OK.

This is the Umibozu from Funky Fluid, perhaps my favourite brewery in the world, and Richard loved this beer and gave it his 5 star seal of approval. I liked it, but it was bloody sweet although hugely punchy. There were massive hits of maple syrup and some coffee as well.

The Star People from Elmeleven and this was beautiful, with blueberry all over this. A lovely pastry sour with some end notes of banana. Delicious and much punchier than the ABV and it was aided by the professional pouring from the team member who rolled the fruited sour cans for us to ensure we didn’t get a lump of fruit residue at the end.

And another winner from Elmeleven, the I Want to Leave beer, with caramel undertones, lots of berries, decadent and again way more punchy than the ABV suggested. It was time for us to leave after this beer and we timed it well as some rather noisy customers then entered and we’re too old for that sort of environment (well, more specifically, Richard is too old for that sort of environment).

We very much enjoyed this bar, it was a clean and comfortable environment although it occurred to me afterwards it was the only one that didn’t do a free snacks option with the alcohol, although I’ll forgive them for that. Lots of interesting beer choices, a knowledgeable team member and the pricing was also reasonable. I’d merrily come again and this was one of my favourite bars in Athens. For craft beer people, this is definitely recommended.

It’s not immediately obvious from the photo, but I rather liked how the cat (of which there are quite a lot in Athens) was sitting in a little cat basket outside Pet City, that felt very appropriate…. I’m easily amused.