Greek food and culture

Tuesday, 27 March

We woke up and just relaxed in the apartment (I blogged) Mom and Dad went to the bakery to buy a loaf of fresh bread. When they came back we ate some cereal (Greek Coco-pops) and then the bread. It was really fresh- warm and soft on the inside with a crispy crust. Yum! We polished off the whole loaf.

Afterwards we got dressed and then we walked to the Monastiraki Metro Station. We bought tickets at a ticket machine (had to change the language to English!) Then we got on the train and sped off towards Symtagma Square. We had to find the Fantasy Travel office and collect our tickets for the cruise. We managed to find it and we met Patra, the travel agent.

Then we walked beck towards the Parliment Buildings. When we got there, an old Greek man who was holding packets of bird seed came up to us. All the pigeons in the square were waddling or flying after him. He convinced Dad, Ash and me to let him pour bird seed into our hands and so the birds flocked towards us. Their feet and beaks were very sharp! Ash and I managed to get away, but dad was swamped. The man was trying to pour more bird seed onto dad's shoulder and his head! That was the funniest moment of the day. The next funniest moment was when we saw 2 Evzone soldiers marching in front of the Parliment Buildings. I know that sounds very serious, but their outfits were hilarious: a short pleated skirt, white tights, red tasseled hats and shoes with pom-poms on the end! Their marching was also very funny, they had to kick their legs up really high as they walked :) Then they stood stock still and you got to take pictures next to them. Mom went to stand next to one of the guys (he was really tall) At 11 o clock we even saw the changing of the guards!

Killer pigeons!

Evzone soldiers :)

We came back to the apartment and had a small snack to keep us going. At 12:30 Kostos arrived. We were going on a Greek food tour- I was looking forward to it and it really exceeded my expectations. It was amazing! We first went to Monastiraki Square to buy a Koulouri snack (Greek pretzel with sesame seeds- eaten for breakfast) He told us that the square was also known as the square of 5 civilizations, because standing in that square you could see 5 types buildings, all from different time periods. Then we carried on walking and even went inside a Greek Orthadox church.

Kostos

Greek Orthodox church

We then went to a (sort of) cafe called Krivos, which was established in 1923 and they are still making everything in the same method as they did back then. We ate loukoumades, which are small Greek donuts, covered in a thyme honey and cinnamon. That was my favourite! We also had bougatsa, which is layers of filo pastry filled with a rose water custard. At the back of the shop, we saw how they made the loukoumades with their hands.

Bougatsa and loukoumades

Let me at 'em!

Handmade loukoumades

The Greeks love their coffee, and he told us (and let mom and dad taste) the 3 types of coffee you find in Greece:
Greek coffee- very strong and thick, almost like mud
Frappe- Nescafé shaken with cold water and ice
Freddo cappachino- cold cappachino (because Greece is so hot, they often drink cold coffee)

Coffee tasting

After that, we went to the market area. We went inside a cheese store and tasted Greek feta as well as flower cheese, which is made with rose water. That was really delicious! We walked through the meat market (that was very fresh meat, often with heads and all- practically made me want to become a vegetarian!) We also walked through the fish market. We went to a shop where we tasted different olive oils and balsamic vinegars (we also bought dinner there- but more about that later) He took us to the Mirah ham store, where we tasted Pastourma ham (salty and delicious!) as well as Kartourma buffalo meat (unusual but also very nice).

At the cheese store

Fish market

Mirah ham store

Olives!

Then it was time for lunch! (The tour was meant to start at 10:00, but we needed to collect our cruise tickets at Syntagma square so we only started at 12:30 and lunch was at about 4:00) He told us he could either take us to a traditional place or a more "normal" place. We decided on the traditional because we thought it would be more memorable and we were right! It was in a tiny courtyard off from a little street (the name actually meant courtyard) He told us that the owners didn't really like tourists coming there, cuz it would get rid of their regular customers. But because we were taken there with a Greek guy, it was ok. Your first impression of the place was "dingy" but it was really authentic. There was a cooker set up outside and they prepared all your food on there. We ordered a platter and I could not believe that they could produce such amazing food there! On the platter there was fried cheese, pieces of sausage, bread, sauces, olives, tamatoes, an eggplant omelet, red pepper and (the best) potatoes. Woah!

'Courtyard'

Making food outside on the gas cooker

Platter

After that we went for pudding (yes, really) We had Kataifi, which had 2 layers: the bottom was almost like thin noodles in syrup and on top of that there was cream. Mmmmm :) While we were sitting there eating our pudding we found out that Kostos had once been a Evzone soldier (like we saw marching in front of the Parliment buildings) He demonstrated a bit of the march for us and we were really amused. We walked around a bit longer and then it was time to say goodbye. I was sad that it was over, but by then I was quite tired. He was a very good guide and he was fun. We really enjoyed it. The amazing thing was that the 3 hour tour actually lasted for more than 5! He was very relaxed about it though and seemed to enjoy showing us around.

We got back to our apartment and I read a bit more. Then we had dinner which we had bought at on of the shops. It was handmade Greek Casarecce pasta (tamato, basil and garlic flavored) with feta cheese, tamatoes and olives. All in all it was a fantastic day full of food and Greek culture!