En mars il faisait beau. It was warm and sunny and it has been glorious since my return to l'Ile de Beauté. I LOVE IT HERE.
I have even got slightly sunburned (well it was quite a lot actually) but that's meant to be a bad thing because it means I wasn't looking after my skin in the hot sunshine, but actually it's quite a good thing because it means that the weather was nice in MARCH.
I wore a dress to school today and I got a lot of comments: 'T'as pas froid??!' 'NOOOON!! J'ai pas froid, pas du tout. En fait, si on a une journée comme celle-ci en aout en Angleterre, on a de la chance!'
Merveilleuse.
On an aside, my kids were asking me how old I am today. I told them cinquante-cinq. They said:
'No Miss, you can't be 55, you're YOUNG!'
'Yes, she's young. 34?'
Haha. The Corsicans' perception of young is, I have to say, very different from the English perception. Parfois I like it, parfois it annoys me that I'm still seen as a kid.
Bref.
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Saturday, 7 March 2009
Pictures Continued
A few more pictures (as was probably, or at least hopefully) deduced from the name of the post!
My back side always feels as though it's missing out by not getting a good view. This restaurant understands the plights of backsides across the world and aims to improve their condition.
"The guidebook says...."
TOURIST ALERT!!
Oh ok then, I'll triable the food with accountability, if you insist. But only if I can have the goat cooked in grease-proof paper, or that well known Greek specialty of spag bol.
Apollo's temple in Ancient Corinth.
And below, the headless brigade in the museum at Ancient Corinth. I think this is where JK got her idea for dementors from.
Dionysus' Theatre (I think I like this God the best - he is the God of wine and drama) built in the 4th century BC could hold 17,000 spectators who came here to see plays by Sophocles and Euripides amongst others who are still studied today!
On the left side of the centre of this picture is a building that is taller than the others, a cuboid shaped thing, the bottom half of which is black, the top
is a light brown. It looks like a great big battery. In my opinion, this is where all the electricity in Athens comes from: it is all battery run from that thing, which is why only one shower in 4 gets hot water!!!
My back side always feels as though it's missing out by not getting a good view. This restaurant understands the plights of backsides across the world and aims to improve their condition.
"The guidebook says...."
TOURIST ALERT!!
Oh ok then, I'll triable the food with accountability, if you insist. But only if I can have the goat cooked in grease-proof paper, or that well known Greek specialty of spag bol.
Apollo's temple in Ancient Corinth.
And below, the headless brigade in the museum at Ancient Corinth. I think this is where JK got her idea for dementors from.
Dionysus' Theatre (I think I like this God the best - he is the God of wine and drama) built in the 4th century BC could hold 17,000 spectators who came here to see plays by Sophocles and Euripides amongst others who are still studied today!
On the left side of the centre of this picture is a building that is taller than the others, a cuboid shaped thing, the bottom half of which is black, the top
is a light brown. It looks like a great big battery. In my opinion, this is where all the electricity in Athens comes from: it is all battery run from that thing, which is why only one shower in 4 gets hot water!!!
Athens in pictures
The follow up from my post 'Athens in words'... here's a selection of the week's piccies!
This is the view from the street below, up to the (closed) Acropolis. Well, this bit is the Parthenon and for those of you who know a bit of Greek history / religiony things/ general stuff, should know that this was a temple dedicated to the Goddess Athena, the name-sake of the city.
Unfortunately I can't work out how to flip this picture around. I love it. I found it at Bastia airport, and what an idea! I need to go up/down, or just I need some general entertainment, and I need the toilet. Result: combine them! Fantastic.
Malheureusement they actually meant that you had to use the lift to get to the toilets, how dull.
Hmm, Athens. Industrial city of grime. Even on the brightest and 'clearest' day there was a layer of smog hanging around.
Oh, the relief when we found this sign. We'd been searching all day and no car park would take him, or they charged us a fortune.
Hmm, Athena! Once we had finally been allowed into the Acropolis and the Greeks decided that striking gets the French nowhere and would probably not get them very far either.
Our balcony, with our beautiful potted nettle.
The kites in the sky on Clean Monday. These are the ones that were too far away to be of immediate danger!!
Me trying to ruin Martin's photo of Hadrian's Arch, but in my opinion, greatly improving it.
Pyromaniac Noddy attempts to look as good as me.
This is the view from the street below, up to the (closed) Acropolis. Well, this bit is the Parthenon and for those of you who know a bit of Greek history / religiony things/ general stuff, should know that this was a temple dedicated to the Goddess Athena, the name-sake of the city.
Unfortunately I can't work out how to flip this picture around. I love it. I found it at Bastia airport, and what an idea! I need to go up/down, or just I need some general entertainment, and I need the toilet. Result: combine them! Fantastic.
Malheureusement they actually meant that you had to use the lift to get to the toilets, how dull.
Hmm, Athens. Industrial city of grime. Even on the brightest and 'clearest' day there was a layer of smog hanging around.
Oh, the relief when we found this sign. We'd been searching all day and no car park would take him, or they charged us a fortune.
Hmm, Athena! Once we had finally been allowed into the Acropolis and the Greeks decided that striking gets the French nowhere and would probably not get them very far either.
Our balcony, with our beautiful potted nettle.
The kites in the sky on Clean Monday. These are the ones that were too far away to be of immediate danger!!
Me trying to ruin Martin's photo of Hadrian's Arch, but in my opinion, greatly improving it.
Pyromaniac Noddy attempts to look as good as me.
Friday, 6 March 2009
Athens in words
Well, I can't say that Athens was an enticing sight when we first arrived.
It was raining and dull, and as the bus moved through slums and shanty towns towards high rise grey buildings, we thought it was going to get better, to get prettier, to get well...more ancient. It didn't. I was expecting a town like Sofia or Budapest: yes, modern parts, ugly parts, functional parts, but side by side with its ancient bits, well preserved and standing proud. No.
We got off the bus at Syntagma square (pronounced Syndagghhhhma) and got the metro from there to Omonoia (sometimes written Omonia or Omonio, pronounced Ammonia) which was where our hostel was. The metro station smelled like old fish and feet and tramps. As we emerged onto the street there were immigrants selling the sort of things they sell in Florence and Paris and Pisa and London, and beggars thrusting their hands into your face. The streets were dirty and smelled. If someone told me that I had got on the wrong flight and I was actually in a third world (sorry LED) country, I would have believed them.
We found our way to the hostel building (Athens House Hostel), rang the bell and the door was opened for us. The first thing I noticed was an overwhelming smell of petrol from 3 motorbikes parked in the foyer of the building. The hostel was on the 5th floor, so we called the lift and got in. As we did, the floor trembled. It did not feel stable, in fact it felt as though it was being powered by a hamster. We arrived on the 5th floor and opened the door to the hostel. At first I thought we had entered someone's living room. It was all decorated in red, with a TV blaring out CNN news in the corner, and a powerful smell of cooking - perhaps Chinese, perhaps something else, perhaps just old. Not a pleasant smell: like old cooking oil. We were shown to our room.
It had 2 beds, a wardrobe without hangers, an electric heater and a sink. The balcony that we were proudly shown by the owner (who kept rambling about spaghetti) had a potted plant in the corner. A potted stinging nettle.
The room was freezing cold. We asked for another heater, which we were given, and stole blankets from the room next door. We slept for most of the afternoon. I tried to have a shower that evening, but we had no hot water. The prospect of a week without a hot shower, and having to put all toilet paper in the bin was looking really grim. I missed France.
With hindsight my fist judgment of Athens was probably down to the cold and the reason that I had been travelling for 32 hours with hardly any sleep. Some things did not become any more charming, but some things definitely grew on me.
We arrived on Thursday 26th Feb. On the Friday we decided to check out the Acropolis, to find it closed. The staff were striking because they hadn't been paid for 4 months. I agreed with their cause, but I did want to see the Acropolis!! Following the guidebook's recommendation, we went to the district of Plaka, where apparently all tourists should start their stay in Athens. It was nice to see that Athens wasn't all a third world dump. We spent the rest of Friday there, and then on Saturday when we found out that the Acropolis was once again closed, we spent Saturday there too, eating delicious salads at a friendly restaurant with excellent service where we got a little shot of a digestif at the end, which tasted like cucumber cologne, but was quite nice despite that!
On Sunday the Acropolis was opened again! We were slightly concerned by the sheer quantity of other tourists who would be there, knowing that the ancient monuments had been inaccessible for 4 days but Ben, the hostellier had mentioned something about the Acropolis having free entry on Sunday (amongst his ramblings about getting spaghetti for €1) so we thought we'd give it a go. We did get in free, saving ourselves a neat little €12: dinner. It was one of the last days of their month long festival leading up to the start of Lent and there were people everywhere dressed in entertaining outfits (- mostly children being tortured by their parents !) and all the restaurants were packed. We found a table at one that looked ok and sat down. The waiter left half way through taking our order to do something else, and came back 2-3 minutes later to finish. We should have realised then that this was perhaps not a great choice. The service was terrible. Stupidly we'd also ordered starters, which came half way through our main courses and we waited 20 minutes to even be given the bill, and then another 5 for someone to come to take our money. And then we were given the wrong change. It was a relief to get out of there and back into the streets of Athens.
On Monday, we decided to go to the beach. The guidebook said that the beaches south of the city were beautiful and where the real Greece could be found. It was 'Clean Monday': the day before Lent starts. (Lent starts a week later for Greek Orthodox than for other types of Christianity, and Easter is also, naturally, a week later) From Shrove Tuesday, Orthodox Greeks can no longer eat meat, until Easter, so Clean Monday is spent in a huge festival, eating what they can and for some reason, flying kites on the beach. It was a beautiful day, the sky was crystal blue and the sun was warm - more like June than March. There was a slight breeze - it was a perfect day for flying a kite. At eh beach there were hundreds of people, all with their octopus or otherwise floaty, lacy looking kites, and some managed to get them really high. Those who hadn't however, were quite a risk to us! We lay on the beach for a couple of hours, dozing in the sun, dodging lines from falling kites (those that the children had been entrusted with, before a father or older brother grabbed the strings to 'help' the child!). At one point a 'kite' fell on Martin's face. It was a furry kite which licked his face, startling him slightly! The look on his face was priceless as a small Greek girl dragged the dog away muttering coyly 'lupamai, lupamai!' (sorry, sorry!)
Tuesday I got Martin up early (like most mornings, at about 9am! Too early for the slug who'd happily stay in bed until after midday!) and we headed first to the tourist office to get some travel information, and then to the National Archaeological Museum. As an EU student, entry was FREE! Wahey. The first few rooms were very interesting: full of ancient Greek ruined statues and columns and things that they'd found. It was incredible to think that these things were made (mostly) about 2600 years ago and that the majority of it had survived. Also, to think that people found these things and 1- knew how old they were/when they were made and 2-knew their function or what temple they belonged to, and who the temple was in honour of! Incredible.
After the third or fourth room of bits of old rock though, it started to get a bit dull. We moved quickly through some rooms, looking for something else, and found 2 rooms full of vases and more with statues. You were actually able to touch most of the display pieces, there was no rope around or glass case.
After the museum, we went back to Plaka to try and find our nice saladerie. We wandered around the labyrinth streets trying to find it (probably walked past it 2 or 3 times) and couldn't find it! Eventually we did though, and sat down for another gooooood salad. Unfortunately our nice waiter was off that day and we were deprived of our free cucumber cologne shots, but the salads were great anyway so we weren't too upset.
On Wednesday we got up at about 7h30 (far too early for Boy!) and made our way to the metro. We got the train to Larissa and from there we intended to get the Suburban railway to Korinthos (or Corinth) - the ancient capital of Greece. The train we had intended to get had been cancelled however, so we had to wait an hour. Eventually we got on the train, and an hour later, we arrived at the station of Korinthos and got the bus into the modern city. From there we got another bus to Ancient Korinthos and went into the site. It was incredible. You could walk between and over all of the ancient site - the streets were still clear from thousands of years ago, and a lot of it, though rubble, was clear what its purpose had been.
After wondering at the ancient city, we played in the playground for a while and then got the bus back to the modern city. I stopped quickly at a pharmacy to pick up eyedrops cause my eye was very red and sticky (I got a bit worried it might be iritis, but luckily it was just a very nasty bout of conjunctivitis) and then we made our way back to Athens.
Athens is a strange city of total contrast. Her history is one of the most rich in the world and yet she doesn't seem very proud of it, and hardly preserves it. The ancient sites are few and far between, and the majority of the city has been taken over by modern high rise functional office blocks and ugly apartment buildings. Like most modern cities, Athens is full of immigrants from Africa and Asia who sell fake Gucci bags and sunglasses in the streets, and who all are forced back to the same, stinking area of the city at nights. The slums are just outside the city and though I only saw one, I would not be surprised if more existed. It's perhaps wrong that I assumed that people live in places like that in Greece. I had, in my mind, put Greece alongside Britain (well not far anyway), France, Spain, Germany and other western European countries. I know that terrible housing exists for the poor in these countries, but I have always associated slums and shanty towns with India or war-torn, poor countries and didn't expect to see one just outside of a city such as Athens.
With regards to her culture, Athens like most capital cities, doesn't really have much. Aside from certain buildings and architectural styles, Athens could have been any other city, in any other country. Like the places we visited in Spain, it felt as though Greece had sold her soul in order to become richer, more western, more Anglophone. It was sad. I have been told that to see real Greece - the image of the white washed villa by the sea, and the tavernas selling fresh fish and sea food- it is necessary to visit the islands. I didn't go: I can't judge. I won't judge Greece on her capital city, but I will say that Athens is not particularly charming or attractive as a city!!
It was raining and dull, and as the bus moved through slums and shanty towns towards high rise grey buildings, we thought it was going to get better, to get prettier, to get well...more ancient. It didn't. I was expecting a town like Sofia or Budapest: yes, modern parts, ugly parts, functional parts, but side by side with its ancient bits, well preserved and standing proud. No.
We got off the bus at Syntagma square (pronounced Syndagghhhhma) and got the metro from there to Omonoia (sometimes written Omonia or Omonio, pronounced Ammonia) which was where our hostel was. The metro station smelled like old fish and feet and tramps. As we emerged onto the street there were immigrants selling the sort of things they sell in Florence and Paris and Pisa and London, and beggars thrusting their hands into your face. The streets were dirty and smelled. If someone told me that I had got on the wrong flight and I was actually in a third world (sorry LED) country, I would have believed them.
We found our way to the hostel building (Athens House Hostel), rang the bell and the door was opened for us. The first thing I noticed was an overwhelming smell of petrol from 3 motorbikes parked in the foyer of the building. The hostel was on the 5th floor, so we called the lift and got in. As we did, the floor trembled. It did not feel stable, in fact it felt as though it was being powered by a hamster. We arrived on the 5th floor and opened the door to the hostel. At first I thought we had entered someone's living room. It was all decorated in red, with a TV blaring out CNN news in the corner, and a powerful smell of cooking - perhaps Chinese, perhaps something else, perhaps just old. Not a pleasant smell: like old cooking oil. We were shown to our room.
It had 2 beds, a wardrobe without hangers, an electric heater and a sink. The balcony that we were proudly shown by the owner (who kept rambling about spaghetti) had a potted plant in the corner. A potted stinging nettle.
The room was freezing cold. We asked for another heater, which we were given, and stole blankets from the room next door. We slept for most of the afternoon. I tried to have a shower that evening, but we had no hot water. The prospect of a week without a hot shower, and having to put all toilet paper in the bin was looking really grim. I missed France.
With hindsight my fist judgment of Athens was probably down to the cold and the reason that I had been travelling for 32 hours with hardly any sleep. Some things did not become any more charming, but some things definitely grew on me.
We arrived on Thursday 26th Feb. On the Friday we decided to check out the Acropolis, to find it closed. The staff were striking because they hadn't been paid for 4 months. I agreed with their cause, but I did want to see the Acropolis!! Following the guidebook's recommendation, we went to the district of Plaka, where apparently all tourists should start their stay in Athens. It was nice to see that Athens wasn't all a third world dump. We spent the rest of Friday there, and then on Saturday when we found out that the Acropolis was once again closed, we spent Saturday there too, eating delicious salads at a friendly restaurant with excellent service where we got a little shot of a digestif at the end, which tasted like cucumber cologne, but was quite nice despite that!
On Sunday the Acropolis was opened again! We were slightly concerned by the sheer quantity of other tourists who would be there, knowing that the ancient monuments had been inaccessible for 4 days but Ben, the hostellier had mentioned something about the Acropolis having free entry on Sunday (amongst his ramblings about getting spaghetti for €1) so we thought we'd give it a go. We did get in free, saving ourselves a neat little €12: dinner. It was one of the last days of their month long festival leading up to the start of Lent and there were people everywhere dressed in entertaining outfits (- mostly children being tortured by their parents !) and all the restaurants were packed. We found a table at one that looked ok and sat down. The waiter left half way through taking our order to do something else, and came back 2-3 minutes later to finish. We should have realised then that this was perhaps not a great choice. The service was terrible. Stupidly we'd also ordered starters, which came half way through our main courses and we waited 20 minutes to even be given the bill, and then another 5 for someone to come to take our money. And then we were given the wrong change. It was a relief to get out of there and back into the streets of Athens.
On Monday, we decided to go to the beach. The guidebook said that the beaches south of the city were beautiful and where the real Greece could be found. It was 'Clean Monday': the day before Lent starts. (Lent starts a week later for Greek Orthodox than for other types of Christianity, and Easter is also, naturally, a week later) From Shrove Tuesday, Orthodox Greeks can no longer eat meat, until Easter, so Clean Monday is spent in a huge festival, eating what they can and for some reason, flying kites on the beach. It was a beautiful day, the sky was crystal blue and the sun was warm - more like June than March. There was a slight breeze - it was a perfect day for flying a kite. At eh beach there were hundreds of people, all with their octopus or otherwise floaty, lacy looking kites, and some managed to get them really high. Those who hadn't however, were quite a risk to us! We lay on the beach for a couple of hours, dozing in the sun, dodging lines from falling kites (those that the children had been entrusted with, before a father or older brother grabbed the strings to 'help' the child!). At one point a 'kite' fell on Martin's face. It was a furry kite which licked his face, startling him slightly! The look on his face was priceless as a small Greek girl dragged the dog away muttering coyly 'lupamai, lupamai!' (sorry, sorry!)
Tuesday I got Martin up early (like most mornings, at about 9am! Too early for the slug who'd happily stay in bed until after midday!) and we headed first to the tourist office to get some travel information, and then to the National Archaeological Museum. As an EU student, entry was FREE! Wahey. The first few rooms were very interesting: full of ancient Greek ruined statues and columns and things that they'd found. It was incredible to think that these things were made (mostly) about 2600 years ago and that the majority of it had survived. Also, to think that people found these things and 1- knew how old they were/when they were made and 2-knew their function or what temple they belonged to, and who the temple was in honour of! Incredible.
After the third or fourth room of bits of old rock though, it started to get a bit dull. We moved quickly through some rooms, looking for something else, and found 2 rooms full of vases and more with statues. You were actually able to touch most of the display pieces, there was no rope around or glass case.
After the museum, we went back to Plaka to try and find our nice saladerie. We wandered around the labyrinth streets trying to find it (probably walked past it 2 or 3 times) and couldn't find it! Eventually we did though, and sat down for another gooooood salad. Unfortunately our nice waiter was off that day and we were deprived of our free cucumber cologne shots, but the salads were great anyway so we weren't too upset.
On Wednesday we got up at about 7h30 (far too early for Boy!) and made our way to the metro. We got the train to Larissa and from there we intended to get the Suburban railway to Korinthos (or Corinth) - the ancient capital of Greece. The train we had intended to get had been cancelled however, so we had to wait an hour. Eventually we got on the train, and an hour later, we arrived at the station of Korinthos and got the bus into the modern city. From there we got another bus to Ancient Korinthos and went into the site. It was incredible. You could walk between and over all of the ancient site - the streets were still clear from thousands of years ago, and a lot of it, though rubble, was clear what its purpose had been.
After wondering at the ancient city, we played in the playground for a while and then got the bus back to the modern city. I stopped quickly at a pharmacy to pick up eyedrops cause my eye was very red and sticky (I got a bit worried it might be iritis, but luckily it was just a very nasty bout of conjunctivitis) and then we made our way back to Athens.
Athens is a strange city of total contrast. Her history is one of the most rich in the world and yet she doesn't seem very proud of it, and hardly preserves it. The ancient sites are few and far between, and the majority of the city has been taken over by modern high rise functional office blocks and ugly apartment buildings. Like most modern cities, Athens is full of immigrants from Africa and Asia who sell fake Gucci bags and sunglasses in the streets, and who all are forced back to the same, stinking area of the city at nights. The slums are just outside the city and though I only saw one, I would not be surprised if more existed. It's perhaps wrong that I assumed that people live in places like that in Greece. I had, in my mind, put Greece alongside Britain (well not far anyway), France, Spain, Germany and other western European countries. I know that terrible housing exists for the poor in these countries, but I have always associated slums and shanty towns with India or war-torn, poor countries and didn't expect to see one just outside of a city such as Athens.
With regards to her culture, Athens like most capital cities, doesn't really have much. Aside from certain buildings and architectural styles, Athens could have been any other city, in any other country. Like the places we visited in Spain, it felt as though Greece had sold her soul in order to become richer, more western, more Anglophone. It was sad. I have been told that to see real Greece - the image of the white washed villa by the sea, and the tavernas selling fresh fish and sea food- it is necessary to visit the islands. I didn't go: I can't judge. I won't judge Greece on her capital city, but I will say that Athens is not particularly charming or attractive as a city!!
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