Day 2 in Athens

 

We did wake up earlier and I sent Dale and Zaya down to the bakeries to get something good. There is a small bakery right across the street and one about 20 feet away from our apartment building. It takes longer to walk down the stairs then it does to walk next door or across the street. Unfortunately, there is nothing gluten free for me, but fortunately, they don’t have anything gluten free since it doesn’t look good on my butt. Zaya did buy a pastry that was filled with chocolate ganache. I took a taste of the ganache and it was chocolate heaven!

We started earlier today for a walk to the Central Market. This is a place where the locals shop. There is one huge building that is just meat and fish, laid out in a cross shape. I didn’t shoot photos in the meat side, except for 1. I will have to shoot a couple more when we return. But the smell of meat was overwhelming. The same can be said for the fish section. There was every kind of fish for sale. Most I wouldn’t touch, but then I don’t touch anything but stuff already filleted from the store. Even as a young girl I would not touch a whole fish, even when offered money from my dad.

The fish portion of the Central Market

Possibly a sheep head for dinner?

We did then look at the Rick Steves map and realized that the rest of the market was across the street. We bought 3 different kinds of olives, including the seller’s favorite. These we will have for dinner tonight and tomorrow.

I’d forgotten that the better Rick Steves write up was in the larger book so we wondered around. Then we saw a little coffee shop, Mokka, with lots of people sitting outside mostly speaking Greek. We stopped, found a table and saw that the people at the little table beside us were drinking what appeared to be Turkish Coffee. We told the waiter that we wanted what they were having, which turned out to be Greek Coffee. When I went inside to pay, I noticed that the little pots were in what looked to be sand. After we got back home, I read that they put cold water, ground coffee and sugar in the pot then heat the coffee in hot sand, that is the traditional way. And, as it turns out, this is the coffee spot recommended in the guide book. This was the best coffee!

Greek Coffee at Mokka

We walked around, then went down into the remains of Hadrian’s Library. I shot photos and we looked around. The site was relatively empty of people so we could take our time and shoot photos without problems.

The Library was along the rear wall

On our way back to the apartment we were tired so stopped for a Greek coffee at another square. It wasn’t good at all. We have made it our goal to find the best Greek coffee while we are here.

After a short nap we decided that we really needed to view the Acropolis at night. Last year lights were installed in different areas so that from different areas of the city one can see it lit up on top of the hill. A good view is a short walk from where we are staying, so we took a stroll down to Hadrian’s Library to view it. On the way down we stopped for a pre-dinner gelato and it was perfect on a warm summer night.

Hadrian's Library to the left and the Acropolis in the background

The Acropolis is so amazingly beautiful in the night, so moving to see something that is so ancient like this.