Hello Everyone, Thank you for your concern regarding the fires in Athens. A terrible tragedy, but we are very far removed from the horrible disaster. We did happen to be in Athens last week, just before the fires started, but were there for only 1 night, a quick trip to renew the kids passports.
Here are some pictures to show you what we did while there, mostly all about the food!
We immediately stopped at KFC, Arthur's favorite fast food place, Nik gives it a thumbs up as well.
Katerina was bummed she wanted McDonalds
SO 5 minutes later we walked across the street and ate at McD's!! Now everybody is happy but mama(me). It really is fantastic that they have both KFC and McDonald's in such a local location of
Syntagma Square, the main metro station stops here just across the road. It's an easy walk to all of the ancient sites. We are what I would call expats, so I can understand why we were eating at all of the American fast food places, but what I find disgusting is seeing all the Americans that are just off of the plane from America eating at these places. I mean come on people, you cross half the world to eat this *&%* ????
What I have been craving is some Mexican food, so we looked on-line before leaving the house and found a Mexican restaurant just down 2 blocks and around the corner from these American fast food places, woohoo, so excited and it was so good!
Oh but wait we did take a food break first and walked around the
National Gardens just across from Syntagma Square and next to the Parliament building, which is worth seeing the changing of the guard if you haven't been to Athens before. The gardens are huge and we got a little lost, and never did find the playground, not sure if there really is one?
On our way out we saw the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
Inside the park the greenery was amazing, different plants from around the world, check out this huge cactus, I can't even imagine when it was planted, it was next to a pond filled with lots of Koi fish.
They also had a Zoo, now I will use this term loosely because well it was not very impressive, haha. They had some goats and rabbits and several different kinds of birds.
A lot of it was abandoned and perhaps at one time it was so much grander,
but now it was more like a forgotten part of history the most populated area was a pond filled with turtles, a lot of turtles, I mean a lot, no photographs of that, because it was kind of disgusting.
I really liked these flowers, very cottage garden style and they were growing in abundance, does anyone know the name of them?
It's back to eating time!! Let's do Mexican food, we found this place called
Mamacita's, the art work on the walls was fantastic and it had the most authentic Mexican food I have had since living in Greece (I will have to tell you some of my horror stories another time).
Pina Colada anyone? I haven't had one of these in years, decades! It was kind of a tie, this or a margarita, but the margarita glasses were super tiny, so I went with the bigger glass, wink wink.
We ordered nachos and soft tacos and I had fajitas, so so good. The guacamole dip was fresh and not brown, like other restaurants I have been to.
In typical Greek style it was a little too much food, I would have preferred a cheaper price with a little less food, I am guessing there was 2 maybe 3 chicken breast on my plate, so much food. But really good!
Also for my fabric loving friends I finally found a fabric store that had cotton fabrics, it is right across from Starbucks, just down and a little off of Ermou street, a very popular street for shopping.
I was really impressed with their selection and wish my husband wasn't with me, cause that meant I didn't get to buy anything, boohoo. But a great selection of linen and cotton and in so many beautiful colors and at great prices the one piece I had my hands on was only 7.50 euro's a meter, sigh, such a beautiful blue. I will definitely be returning here when we need to decorate our new B&B. There are several other fabric stores, up and down in this area, but most are old style fabrics, not in my style and the husband wouldn't let me explore the interiors, but I would suggest visiting
Natural Greek Fabrics if you are in Athens. Also who could ask for a better view, just looking down the street and I could see the Parthenon!
So that was our day in Athens, we also enjoyed some Ice-Cream and the next day we went to the Embassy to renew the kids passports, we ate KFC and McDonald's one last time. We also purchased enough to take home for the 5 hour train ride.
We love to travel to see historical sites, but our favorite thing to do when we leave our house and explore new areas is to eat. While normally not in Athens or Thessoloniki we enjoy great Greek food and if you are traveling here, please eat Greek food, start with Tzatiki a greek yogurt dip, then have a Greek salad, then enjoy a dish specifically Greek, Pastitsio (greek lasagna), Greek lamb, Calamari, or even if you want fast food, eat a Gyro, please don't come all the way to Greece to eat at KFC or McDonald's, please.
