That's a Big Dog!

Barcelona really is a terrific city. I write this from Madrid several days (and several paradors) later. Madrid has a totally different vibe, more people, more stuff, yet so far I don't have the same happy vibe. Perhaps it will come later when we have left. We had a day to bimble in Barcelona ahead of the tennis so went on the hop on hop off bus, both routes, one after the other. Absolutely fascinating. Very easy way to get a handle on a city. Also the history bits are interesting, if very abbreviated. The books may have it differently but it seems that up until the 1950s, Barcelona was still a bit of a run down, provincial town of no great importance. It was and remains a left wing city. In the Civil War, which is a huge event in the transformation of the country, Barcelona being Catalonia, was socialist, communist, anarchist, you name it, but 100% opposed to the Nationalists under Franco. Barcelona was the last place to fall, and Franco didn't forget. Madrid incidentally was a Nationalist city. Its football club, Real, was royalty, Barcelona was an upstart. The city was transformed in the 1950s with new buildings, new roads so other than in the old sections, the city has an organised grid structure with diagonal boulevards leading into and out of the city, all meeting in central piazzas. The club where we were staying was on one such diagonal very close to one of these central piazzas. Also consequently the buildings are relatively new. The city is not medieval at all. Another huge step up was the 1992 Olympic Games. This sparked huge new buildings and development of the remaining yuckier bits of the city, particularly the port area. The athletes' village is today a bringht new quarter of the city, the port and surrounding beaches jewels. Almost unbelievable, an Olympic games that actually worked for the host city. Usually they are massive financial drains, with today countries vying for not having to stage them. We figured out the bus system well enough to get to and from the tennis... again sited in the middle of a residential area, very up market one too. This is the home of the Royal Tennis Club of Barcelona. It reminded me of Coral Beach Club in Bermuda! Maybe not as swanky as Monte Carlo, for that really is the club of the royal family with only the uber wealthy able to breathe the same saintly air, except for that week when the public are allowed in. No royal family in left wing Barcelona of course, but tons of well to do families who are everywhere in that tennis week. It seemed that most of the tournament volunteers were members or children of members and that large numbers of the crowd too were members. People were wandering up to people all over kissing one another on the cheeks, changing seats and genrally behaving like the most important things were happening off the courts, rather than on them. The thing that finally summed it up for me was that someone brought their dog with them to tennis. Not one of those handbag dogs, but a very very big dog. One of those blue eyed, very hairy dogs that look like huskies. It was about my size. The owner brought it up the stairs into the stands and it flopped down in the middle of the public axis ways. This was very much a reminder that this tournament is MINE, not yours. Classic. The tournament itself was a 500 point, 64 draw, men only event. Not all the big guys would be playing. Djokovich for example skipped it. On the courts, Nadal was knocked out early and Alcaraz pulled out injured, so with a host of lesser ranked names present much depended on the two finalists from Monte Carlo: Tsitsipas and Ruud. Otherwise the final would have been between lesser players. Good for them, bad for the tournament organisers. But boy did those guys make a meal of things. Tsitsipas in particular should have been beaten in the two successive matches we watched, yet somehow his opponents managed to give it back to him in the most unlikely way. Ruud was a little more efficient, but not much. Somehow they managed to make it through to the finals. Ruud won this week, but we didnt stay to watch. We were on our way to our parador trail.

The Road to Barcelona

Packing up in Monte Carlo was tough but we had a car to collect and some roads to drive. I'd organised a rental/leasing contract through Renault similar to what I'd done with my son some years before, whereby you notionally 'buy' a car and appoint a dedicated time to 'sell it back', any time longer than two weeks. This tour would be five or so weeks on the road for Viv and I, so I returned to the well. Very slick operation and all of a sudden we had a brand new Renault Arkana with 19 kms on the clock. It all took less time to do the paperwork and take it away than it took to find the office in Nice Airport. Viv took the honour of christening the car by taking the wheel first and gassed up (they only provide 15 litres in the tank to start), we headed for Cannes which was to be our first stop. Why Cannes? It was only 30 minutes away for sure but I have had a hankering to stay at the very swanky hotel on the seafront that ejected me when I was a scruffy 18 year old, back in 1972. Back then, things were much different; no money, we were living fairly rough on camp sites, and were traveling in a 10+ year old mini that had had its passenger seat door slammed backwards on day 1 of the trip (which meant I couldn't get out of the car that side). This was a trip I took with my school friend Dave the Rave (his car, so he drove). We slept in many public car parks in the south of France, including Monte Carlo and Cannes as both had car parks on the beach and next to public toilets. Very important. Wandering about in Cannes, I figured I'd like to take a look at this very smart looking hotel, The Carlton, and ambled inside. Very opulent and pretty much immediately I was ever so politely escorted to the entrance again by the uniforms. Many years later, Viv and I stopped for a drink there with friends who had a holiday home nearby, and were not ejected. This time I wanted to go whole hog and stay there. Very nice it was too. But only for one night as we had other things to do and the Barcelona tennis was starting in only a couple of days, so we couldnt dawdle as much as we could later on in the trip. On that very long trip back in 1972 and again later, I had driven all over Provence but had never visited Pont du Gard, the iconic Roman Aqueduct outside of Nimes. This time we would put that right, so I found a boutique hotel in Uzes nearby. Uzes itself is a lovely little medieval town... actually there are tons of lovely little medieval towns in Europe. Europe does lovely little medieval towns really, really well. Maybe its me and being here in Spain (currently) but I do wonder why Britain doesn't do medieval towns as well. In Britain, the medieval bits are somehow just swamped by new ugly stuff and there's traffic everywhere, whereas the ones we have ended up staying in both in France and Spain haven't appeared to modernise at all. Just a coat of paint, new electrics and plumbing and (I write this in a parador in Spain) some smart refinishing and tidying up. The structure is now new, but they retain their undeniable medieval appearance. Perhaps its because most medieval towns in Europe are on top of hills (for better defensive reasons) that they have both survived and retained their charm. Being on top of a hill does rather limit the ability to sprawl and spread out, so the old bits remain on top of the hill and the newer bits are down below. Certainly the history of southern Europe is littered with wars, invasions, occupations, massacres and repression from time to time, and that has been the case pretty much since the end of Pax Romana in the 5th century, so being high on a hill however made complete sense. There have been a few such events in Britain since the Romans left of course, but not as many. There are far fewer high hills for one thing! The collision of the African tetonic plates with those of Europe did not happen in Britain. I hadn't realised when I booked the hotel that Uzes in addition to being a cute medieval town was also the place where the spring used by the Romans for their 50 km long aqueduct into Nimes sprang from the ground. If others are like me in thinking that the actual Pont itself (actually a bridge over the river Gard these days, hence the name) is the be all and end all of things is of course totally wrong. The 50 kms were all channelled with many, many more ponts along the way. The big one was the only one that survived in plain sight. All the others were covered up over the years or have been plundered for building materials for other structures, mainly churches as it turns out. The attached museum is a superb place for engineers and those keen to find out just how these huge projects could take place 2,000 years ago with what today we would consider primitive means. Well of course this is one of those 'what did the Romans ever do fo us?' factoids. Simple answer as it turns out: they had built dozens of aqueducts, so the expertise and technology was there. This one of 50 kms with a drop of less than 13 metres from start to end point in Nimes was actually very easy for them. No major drops to contend with, crossing the river being probably the biggest issue. They had slaves a-plenty to do the donkey work of course, but also hundreds if not thousands of skilled artisans (non-slaves) to do the quality work together with hundreds of engineers managing the project. Ancient Rome is portrayed pretty much as being all about the emperors and legionnaires in films and on TV, but there were also carpenters, masons, engineers (mathematicians), trash collecters, and all the other mundane occupations that are never depicted but which are essential to normal life. Moreover, the provincial governors and other big wigs didn't spend all their time in banquets, having orgies and plotting against the Emperor, again as suggested in the movies, they also had a job to do; fixing the roads, making sure the water supply was both enough and of a decent quality, and all the rest. So good were the Romans at aqueducts that the people of Nimes had access to more and better quality water than they do today. By the way, this is also the case in Rome itself. So yes aqueducts. The Romans did those very well indeed. We learned a lot about aqueducts that day, and it did give a greater appreciation for what human endeavour can do if it puts its collective mind to it. Today the Pont du Gard is a mecca for tourists. Lots of canoes on the river on the day we visited. School groups too. Next stop was a tiny village in the Pyrenees, Bezieres. You cannot find it on many maps but thankfully Mr. Google came through. I'd been looking for interesting places to stay and right now as I write I cannot for the life of me remember why I chose this village. Getting there is fine up to about Narbonne, but after this you drive on progressively smaller roads that wind ever higher up into the foothills of the Pyrenees. All around interestingly are vines growing in the steep fields. This is clearly wine country, something I hadn't known. The village itself appreared all of a sudden and the place we were staying in (another boutique hotel) turned out much to my surprise to actually be a winery. The hotel itself was inside the reconfigured winery, so had a sort of industrial layout, but very nicely done. I admitted none of this of course, simply took the praise for finding this real jewel in the middle of nowhere. The attached restaurant had a Michelin starred chef, again something I either hadn't known or didn't remember, but he was not working that day. In fact he wouldn't start up anything fancy until June. This is still April and probably I haven't mentioned before but think it best I should do so now, on this mountain the wind was howling and it was very, very cold indeed. The hotel pool below our window looked inviting, glistening in the sun's last rays of the day, but empty of people. We would not be visiting. The hotel described itself as an eco-lodge. Not sure how. We rather thought it was because they didn't turn the heaters on. The chef du jour however was a charming lady whose assistant asked us if we had any dietary concerns (we do not) and then if we'd like to sample some of their wares (yes please). He knew as much about these wines as us for he had only just been hired a few days before, but the wines turned out to be very nice as was the plat du jour. Heading out the following morning, our first action was disappointment for Rafa Nadal had already been knocked out of the Barcelona tournament we would be attending. The big draw for us at this tournment (and indeed on the entire tour) was Rafa, but he and Carlos Alcaraz were already out (Alcraz had pulled out through injury). Barcelona was 3 hours away so we took a side trip to the northern most seaside resort in Spain on the Mediterranean coast, Cataques. It is very popular for people from Barcelona due to proximity, but apparently also artists and Spanish celebs. It certainly is a cute looking little town set in a horseshoe shaped bay lined with bars, cafes and restaurants... but no parking anywhere near that we could find. However we did find a spot which led to a walkway out to the cliffs which was very pleasant for a short stroll. I had booked to stay at a private member's club in Barcelona, Circulo Ecuestre, affiliated with our club in Toronto. On previous visits to clubs such as this, we knew they would be in wonderful central downtown locations and so it proved again. The club was just off the Avenida Diagonal no more than 10 minutes walk away from the Plaza Catalonya, the centre of Barcdelona. Parking wasn't too bad either. Off to a good start.

Red Clay

It has been some little while since my last blog post due, I think, to some disillusionment with social media generally but more to my not wanting to make this a travelogue. Sort of been there, done that kind of thing. That's why the Greek Odyssey petered out early on. Sorry about that. It was a great trip. An abiding memory for us.

So, onto this one. And yes it is a tale of a trip but one that Viv and I have planned out in our minds for quite some time. Going to the European red clay tennis tournaments, but not the culminating French Open as we have been to that already and were a little disappointed overall with the event. Organisers and media may say look how well done this event was. So many more people attended this year. And so on. What they tend to forget is that they jack up prices to even more egregious levels each year and crowd people together even worse than before. The French Open for example is a great location of course, but probably maxed out in terms of the numbers of people it could properly hold 20 years ago. Today it is just a zoo. Endless crowds, lines everywhere. Ridiculous prices. It was not a great experience. Incidentally I feel the same about Wimbledon (and have done so for years). The US and Aussie Opens size wise can take the crowds as the venues are enormous, but there you have another issue. The enormous size of the venues. On balance I tend towards the Aussie Open as my favourite. Below the major level of tournament are the second tier, so-called 1,000 point events. In the red clay season, these are Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome. I have been going to Rome since it was a men only event in 2003, today it is a mixed event lasting 10 days like Madrid. This is a way I believe to make the women's events actually commercially viable as the big draws in the last 20 years certainly have been on the men's side with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic being the huge draws. Only Monte Carlo remains a men only event today. Below this level are the 500 point events, third tier events that the lesser ranked players compete in more readily but which attract some of the top names as well. In the red clay season, this includes Barcelona and maybe I think Estoril in Portugal (but that may be a 250 point event). As the red clay calendar goes Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome and then finally Paris, Viv and I thought why the hell not? So here we are.

Monte Carlo has just finished for us. We watched the semi-finals yesterday and are moving on today. Finals have a tendency to not be great matches and for the extortionate prices are not really worth it. We have watched a few and that has been the case for most. The most notable exception being the Nadal/Federer final in Rome we skipped which turned out to 5 1/2 hours long and ended the tradition of 5-set finals in those 1000 point events as neither player was able to play the following week and pulled out of those events. Money won as usual with organisers cutting the length of matches down to 3 sets but of course keeping the ticket price the same.

Monte Carlo has been great though and could easily become my most favourite tennis tournament going forward. The location is small, venue is tiny really although on the side of the mountains so very hilly. Quality is outstanding and for us this year the weather has been brilliant. Expensive, of course but that is Monte Carlo. The tennis prices were no more expensive than at other places so if you like tennis, this really is a great place to come. For me though, this year is tempered with a little sadness. Federer has gone. This will be Nadal's last year (and a good part of why we wanted to do this trip this year). Djokovic is clinging on. His ego says he can still do it, but let me tell you that that from watching seems to be the only part of him that says he can. Viv pointed out that it is far easier to say you're keen to carry on and play (and do all the back breaking training, traveling, etc) than actually do it when you've won as much as Djokovic has. One game he played against a guy he'd never played before, probably didn't know his name. It was awful to watch. Clearly he wished he was anywhere than on the court and his play showed it. Had his opponent been less overawed at the chance of playing him, he would surely have lost. Yet somehow Djokovic prevailed in as ugly a manner as there could be. This did not do him much good for he lost the following day (last night as I write) again in agonising circumstances. Great as he was, he no longer is and I think these matches this year may be the final actions of a wonderful career. I do not think Djokovic's ego wants to give up yet, but I do not think that will be enough when he loses week after week to players he doesn't know. In addition, he is getting grumpier and grumpier too. Never a fan favourite, he's fast becoming a grumpy curmudgeon. Perhaps this will be the final year of the Big Three. I am not sure I will be as interested in the newest batch of very tall guys that hit the ball incredibly hard time after time after time after time after time. The older guys seemed to have a bit more nuance to them. Perhaps this is an extension of the old T-shirt logo: the older I get, the better I was. The venue itself is something out of a fairy tale... except for the new tennis club bits of course. Not sure if it started in 1897, 1927 or 1928 as there were signs up for all these dates. The VIP seats overlook the court below and have a fantastic view of the Med. Just gorgeous and it all rather left us wishing we were very, very wealthy indeed. I surely would drive my Lamborghini SUV here (I couldn't get into or out of the sports version any more!) and know I could park it anywhere I damn well chose.

Today we move on. Our tour next takes us to Barcelona. We will be driving and stopping off along the way at some interesting places. Very much looking forward to it.

Athens Day 3 -- Battlefields

This is the first battlefield day and the first step on our Greek road trip. Yannis picked us up to drive the 26 miles 285 yards to the Marathon battlefield which apparently is just a field and very little else. Nobody goes there these days and Yannis told us we were only the third group he’d ever had in 10 years!

It was just a field with a large burial mound in the middle. A tumulus it is called here. It holds the bodies of 192 dead Greeks whilst the Persians who were seriously routed lost 6,500 or so.

What brought the attack was simply the Persians who had a simply enormous Asian empire, were concerned about their noisy neighbours in Europe who they kept running into around the eastern Mediterranean. Diplomacy failed, so to war. The Persians sent 25,000 men by sea to the gradual sloping beaches at Marathon at the behest of a banished former Greek tyrant (there were many of those as the Greeks have a history of quarrelling over everything, still today) who promised to be a good neighbour next time if the Persians put him back in charge. The Bay of Marathon these days has been heavily silted up so is pretty much unrecognisable from what it was like 2500 years ago. Same for many of the coastal areas. The battlefield today is some 5 kms inland as a result. The Persians landed with a lot of cavalry to meet 10,000 Greeks, mostly Athenians, who stayed resolutely in the surrounding mountains. After 3 days the cavalry took off for the ships and more food so the Greeks launched a sudden attack on the remainder of the invading army. Taken by surprise the Persians formed up and the two armies met. The Greeks under Militiades were weakest in the centre but strong on both wings. The Persians pushed forward in the centre as the Greeks gave way, soon the Persians were surrounded and the killing began. The lack of cavalry lost the day for the Persians. History has it that one soldier ran back to Athens with the news….. apparently not. This man’s name was Pheidippides and in actuality a few days earlier he had run some 200 kms to Sparta to ask for help. Bad timing as it was a big religious festival (another one!) and the Spartans said we’ll come along after it’s over. He ran back to Athens and thence to the army at Marathon. After the battle, the Persians reboarded their ships and set sail for Athens proper. They still had a superior number to the Greeks so a direct assault on Athens was still viable. The victorious Greek army to a man ran the 26 miles and 285 yards back to Athens so as to be able to form up on the shoreline showing the Persians they were ready for them again. The Persians went home. Pheidippides ran back to Sparta again to say don’t bother, we won and it was there that he really dropped dead. The real road race therefore would have to be a mere 200 kms or so. The classic 26+ mile Marathon route is marked out still and it was that route taken in both the 1896 and 2004 Olympic Games. I’ll bet no Turks took part. We followed up with a tour of a nearby archaeological museum and went into a tumulus for the Plateans who had been killed in the battle at Marathon, another 12 of them.

After this we set out for Cape Sounion to the south of Athens with Yannis talking away about history and mythology. On the way from Marathon to Cape Sounion, we stopped at one of Yannis’ favourite rest stops near the airport for some Freddo cappuccinos (again)!! Very nice. He added to what Theodora said about the Athenians using the Parthenon rebuild to project Athenian power amongst the independent city states. Apparently it was the later war with the Persians, the one that was lost and when Athens was subsequently sacked, looted and destroyed. The Athenians demanded recompense from the other cities. If the city had sent troops, like Platea, that was OK. If they did not, like many others, they sent money instead. It was a lot of money and even with the early reversals, they found themselves at the end with a huge dollop of cash. So being democratic, the leaders asked the people if they’d like to spend the cash on a big glowing memorial to Athenian bravery, skill and honour. Not necessarily Greek, but Athenian. The people said yes and so the money was used to rebuild the Parthenon and a bunch of other destroyed buildings. So there you have it. On the road, Cape Sounion was at the very end of the promontory which led out from Athens. Today it is the beach area. Very affluent. Further along and out is the Cape where there is little other than a lovely bay with two beach hotels and the cliffs upon which stood the Temple to Poseidon. You may remember from yesterday that Poseidon and Athena competed for supremacy in Athens. Poseidon provided a miraculous spring of sea water, Athena provided the first ever olive tree. Athena won so the Athenians cautious about offending a major God like Poseidon decided to dedicate a temple to him on this spot. It is a spectacular spot.

Yiannis told the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. Part bull, part man this beast lived in caves in Crete and ate everyone that tried to kill it. Theseus son of the King of Athens, named Aegis, offered himself to try the next time. He told his dad that if he succeeded in killing the Minotaur he would return with white sails on his ship. Theseus went to Crete and first thing he did was meet the beautiful daughter of the King, Ariadne, who helped him first find the caves and then with a ball of twine helped him find the way out of the maze in which the Minotaur lived. Killing the Minotaur was pretty straightforward but getting out was tricky but the ball of twine helped. Theseus returned to Athens. All good so far but in all the excitement he’d forgotten quite what he’d promised his father about the colour of his sails. He used black ones. Standing on the peninsula of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, the entrance into Athens, all Aegis saw was black sails which meant his one and only son was dead. Aegis threw himself off the rocks in his grief. In response the Athenians called the body of water the Aegean Sea in his memory. Why would you ever have children? This was where Cape Sounion was and the temple is located. Utterly spectacular!

It was nearing 4 pm and Yiannis said there was a nice seafood restaurant nearby that would be great for a late lunch. It was! What a great spot too, right on the bay opposite the Temple of Poseidon. And if you think either of us was ready, willing and able to think about dinner after, think again.

When we returned to Athens no more than an hour or so later, we decided a meat feast was called for. First though we felt the need for a brief wander around the gardens nearby where stood the Temple of Zeus and the Arch of Hadrian. The Temple had been destroyed by the Persians centuries before and was a gift by the Emperor Hadrian to the people of Athens when he visited the city. In return the Athenians built a ceremonial arch to the emperor as thanks for the gift.

Nearby was the Parliament building where Yiannis had told us that on the hour there was a change of the guards that we really shouldn't miss. We queued up with maybe a couple of hundred other tourists and waited. First of all the guards dress in what is loosely termed 'traditional' fashion. I never 'knew' much about fashion as a youngster but one thing I did 'know' was that Greek men wore skirts. Quite how and why this was a 'known' fact when I was growing up is unclear to me but that was one of the things that I as a young person 'knew'. I imagine this was it. It is a thick tunic with what look like really thick stockings and those shoes with the bobble on top!

Of course there must be some basis for it in practicality measure. Greece can be very cold indeed so thick clothes would be a boon. As for those shoes though, we came across some in a museum a day or so later and they are very simply hob nailed boots with that bobble on top. Presumably they took the bobble off to fight. And of course OK, OK in England we have the guards at Buckingham Palace wearing those busbies. The changing of the guard ceremony itself took about 10 minutes and looks exhausting. Lots of stamping around and leg and arm swinging. The leg movements look like something out of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks. After it was all over and the guards had been changed, one of the senior officers presumably came around with a towel to dry off the sweat on their faces. It was really hot so those guys must have been suffering. After last night's faux pas with our dining choice, we'd asked Anthony at the travel agents for a recommendation where local people go. It was out in some suburb or other so we took a taxi there. It was a kebab shop called Kir Aristos. Talk about grumpy and useless! The waiters did virtually nothing so we waited and waited. But when the food came it was fantastic but enormous! We chose a mixed grill to share with another salad. Really stuffed.

We would go back to that place again. Grumpy or not!! This is the route we took today.

The Odyssey -- Athens Day 2

 Day 2 in Athens would be a humdinger. All about the Acropolis. The itinerary said:

'We will arrange a private walking tour of Athens for 5 to 6 hours if you are up to it to visit all the important sites including the Acropolis and the New Acropolis Museum.'

We met our guide Theodora at the hotel and walked the 5 minutes along the street to the entrance to the Acropolis. There were lots of people. Theodora said today would likely be the busiest day of the year as a number of cruise ships had arrived at Piraeus with passengers’ first stop likely to be the Acropolis. 

Viv and I wondered why we would visit today then, or rather this morning as we could easily have visited in the afternoon. Oh well. 

The Acropolis hill is big. And tall. It was tough going slowly dragging ourselves up hill in the heat. Theodora told us the story as we went along.

Nearly there! First selfie du jour at the Greek theatre on the south side of the Acropolis

This is what it looked liked during the Hellenistic Period

The Acropolis had been populated for possibly 4,000 years initially as a fortress for people in the surrounds to retreat to at times of trouble and war. It certainly was imposing yet Theodora advised us that the Acropolis had been attacked, sacked and destroyed many times. Huh?

Very true. 

The Acropolis and the temple on the top known as the Parthenon (there are several other temples on the top but smaller) are relatively recent creations. One may think it looks like something of a rocky ruin, but in fact it’s only about 1,000 years old.

After the Persians attacked Athens, defeated them (Thermopylae was lost if you remember) and occupied Athens, they destroyed everything they could before they left the following year of 480 BC. That included the buildings on the top of the Acropolis hill. These included a partially built Parthenon as well as several other temples. The entire site was ruined.

The Athenians together with a full compliment of Spartans this time (not just the famous 300), annihilated the Persians the following year in 479 BC at Plataea removing all threats to the independent Greek states. To show that they were now the big dogs on the block, the Athenians immediately embarked on rebuilding on an immense scale.

The building of the Parthenon was completed in only 9 years while the crafting of the wondrous sculptures took a further 6 years. Marble was brought from a mountain 17 Kms away and was laboriously lugged up the hill that we were now stumbling up. 

Theodora continued with gusto. 

She certainly had a huge passion about the subject and had definite views on things that had impacted the Acropolis over the years. 

First were the Romans. Of course it would be. For some reason, the Greeks thought they could beat the Romans in the first century BC but the Roman tyrant general Sulla in 87 BC routed them, captured the entire region which wasn’t yet a country including Athens, sacked it thoroughly and enslaved the population. That is the entire population including all those philosophers that were still around.

Greece remained a Roman possession until 1458. 

Huh? I hear you say. What about the Byzantines? There were never any Byzantines. That is the name historians gave the eastern Roman Empire looking backwards at some point. The Romans themselves always called themselves Romans, even until the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453. Byzantium was the name of the original Greek settlement that the Roman Emperor Constantine renamed in the 4th century AD when he moved the capital of the entire Roman Empire to Constantinople. So forget Byzantium. Actually you can't for every guide book says Byzantine this or that, mainly churches, so it is most confusing. Best to see Rome at the same time as you see Byzantium. 

When I was in Rome a couple of weeks ago I found a wonderful excerpt from a 2nd century AD travel book comparing the architecture of Greece and Rome. In typically patronising fashion, the writer said that the Greeks do build some pretty impressive structures but the stench, the disorganisation and the overall mess of Greek cities was something beyond the comprehension of a Roman. Happily Rome provided aqueducts so that every villa has its own water source for their fountains. Sewage for the endless ordure and stench. Plumbing so that buildings would remain well serviced during the wet season…. And so on. 

It was a Roman traveler from the 2nd century, one Pausanias, whom we all should thank for even the possibility of reconstruction and renovation. For it is only his writings and the earlier Herodotus (the Greek historian from centuries earlier) that give us the idea what these buildings and monuments look like. Fortunately both wrote at very great length and in Pausanias' case drew thousands of sketches and drawings, many of which survive.

The Romans in addition to their renowned organisation, also introduced a fully integrated taxation system that lasted until 1458 and beyond for the conquering Ottomans discovered they couldn’t do any better.

Specific to the Acropolis though were the changes wrought by the Romans to the amphitheater, the new theatre and performing arts centre that was built. Where the Greeks starting with Thespis, a comic writer of the golden age, wrote monologues, dialogues and drama, the Romans dug a big ditch, raised up a marble wall around the orchestra (aka stage) and staged mock naval battles and gladiatorial combat. The walls enabling the area to be filled with water for the first, and prevent blood spatters covering the 5,000 person audience in the second. Who needs monologues! 

Theodora was not impressed, then moved onto the Emperor Justinian (6th century emperor). She was even less impressed by Justinian. I couldn’t figure out exactly why but as he was the mover and shaker in rejigging the imperial tax policy for the final time, perhaps it was this. Certainly the Byzantines which Justinian was about to morph into (even I am falling into this Rome vs Byzantium thing), as opposed to the eastern Roman Empire, were not fans of the old pagan gods still widely revered in Greece. Under the ‘Christians’ (spoken with gritted teeth) they basically trashed everything to do with the old Gods. This is why most of the faces on statues have been disfigured. I didn't ask about why the male genitalia were also missing from most statues.

We hadn’t reached the entrance to the Acropolis at the top yet and Theodora wasn’t slowing down.

The British didn’t miss out either. Theodora was scathing about Elgin and his plundering of Greek antiquity in 1801 (this is the so called Elgin Marbles in the British Museum). Yet less so for the French who even before Elgin stole everything that was not nailed down (this in an instruction specifically written by the French ambassador in 1784 to an expedition in that year). And almost glossing over the Venetians who in their sack of Athens in 1687 had fired cannons at the defending Ottomans who’d retired to the Acropolis which they used as magazines. This cannon fire hit the magazines which exploded and destroyed about one third of the Parthenon. They then tried to take the remaining massive sculptures from the mantles which caused them to fall 30 feet and be irredeemably smashed. 

An even minded person may consider deliberate cannon fire, explosions and wanton destruction of rather more concern and remark than removing a few bits of marble that had been lying around anyway for centuries, a practice I should note that continues to this day.

We reached the entrance with some hundreds of other tourists and snaked past the temple to Nike and made it to the top of the Acropolis.

Athens' Acropolis is huge. About 3kms long by 1.5 kms wide. Lots of room for lots of temples, and there are lots of temples in varying levels of decay. Impressive. 

The Acropolis during Roman times

Theodora was a fantastic source of information and could talk on almost any related subject. She had artists' reconstructions of what the buildings may have looked like. They looked spectacular. Check out www.ancientathens3d.com to take a look. They may not be entirely accurate but are best guesses. 

The top temple is one to the goddess Athena who supposedly gave the gift of the first olive tree to the city, whilst the bottom temple is the Parthenon from the end where Elgin supposedly cut down all those marbles. Imagine the temple with a triangular shape on top of those flat bits. Inside that triangle were dozens of massive sculptures. It was these the Venetians and French could not cart off. It was Elgin's crew that devised the method of cutting the carved frontispiece off the monster 12 ton lump of marble that solved the logistics impasse. These statues we saw in the museum.

By now we were fading so decided to head for the Acropolis Museum which had A/C and a cafe to take a few minutes rest. There we had Freddo Capuccinos which are worthy of conversation in and of themselves.

The museum contained many of the remaining statues from the Acropolis where Theodora was able to demonstrate which were original and which were reconstruction due to either being plundered (yawn) or destroyed. It was all very interesting.

View from the museum coffee shop

What is not understood is the size of the statues. They are truly enormous and in marble which means every block weighs some 12.5 tons. The practicality of how the blocks were transported was fantastic. Each block was dragged 17 kms and when the oxen could go no further up the hill, the carts carrying the blocks would be attached to a pulley system and a herd of mules would be encouraged to pull ropes that were at the other end of the pulleys. As they descended, the cart ascended. Thousands upon thousands of blocks.

So the simple art of pillaging was also very difficult. Lord Elgin was ambassador to the Ottomans based in Constantinople in 1799, this during the Napoleonic Wars. He canvassed the Caliph to enable him to survey some Greek sites with a view to removing any interesting objects. Silver smoothed the way and the Caliph, very keen to stay out of the way of the war as the Ottoman Empire had begun to weaken irredeemably, agreed. Elgin sent in a crew to see what they could find. 

What they found were the debris from previous multiple lootings and occupations from over the centuries. Athens had been sacked by the Herulians in 267 AD, by the Huns in 396 AD, the Goths in the 5th century, by the Slavs in the 7th century and so on. Long list. The Franks occupied the city in 1204 during the 4th Crusade and fortified it whilst the later occupying Byzantines built over original Greek structures. As well the locals had simply taken building materials just lying around for their own home construction. No metal. This had already gone. So not much in perfect condition. (Not many people either. Athens had become depopulated over time and it wasn't until 1834 when it was named capital of a newly independent Greece that people began to return to the city. Many government buildings for example date from after this date. Not antiquity at all).

What Elgin's crew did find were portions of sculptures and depictions of events carved into the marble blocks. However each weighed tons. Literally. So they cut the front of the blocks to save weight and shipped what they could back to England. In the museum today, on display are the original part blocks with plaster casts of the bits Elgin's crew took stuck on top. From my uneducated perspective it does look like bits and pieces of rubble. Sort of 'Oh look, Hercules' left shoulder' that sort of thing.

Several years later in 1816, Elgin canvassed the British Government who paid 35,000 GBP for the items which were then immediately displayed in the British Museum.

View from the Museum

These are the friezes taken down from the side of the Parthenon. Restoration is slow for a decision was taken by the EU (if you can imagine) that restoration should only happen when over 70% of the original materials of say a column are found. If these are lying around nearby then the columns can be put back together which is what happened. If not they are left to lie around, which explains the endless piles of rocks everywhere. Very timely, costly and difficult. Greece is a poor country so often has other priorities. 

Statues taken from the ends of the Parthenon, in those triangular parts I described before. If the sculptures are white, that means they are recreations. Often plaster casts taken from the originals in what ever museum they are currently displayed. Yes that means the Elgin Marbles but also the French, Germans and Turks hold plenty. As for the Venetians, well half the city is decorated with Greek stuff looted from their various occupations. If the sculptures look old and yellow, that is because they are the originals. The museum hopes to get back all the other yellow and old bits.

Theodora says that attempts are being made to recover these items which the British Museum is resisting. The French are not being pressed to return their pillaged items. Nor are the Turks who took over the items already removed by the Byzantines and Ottomans in centuries past. Just the British. Probably think the British are the softest touch. Could be right.

Fantastic day. So much history to absorb. Very painful on the brain cells.

The flowers were gorgeous, particularly the Bougainvillaea. The colours were so intense and vibrant.

We's asked Yiannis and Anthony at the travel agent for recommendations for a good restaurant that locals would go to. Trying to avoid the tourist traps. Mistake actually as we discovered many of the tourist traps turned out mostly to be as good as the local spots. But anyway, Anthony suggested Dionysus as an option. We had a reservation at 9 pm.

Short walk near the Acropolis again and in a big car park this restaurant grew up the hill opposite to the Acropolis. It was rammed with people at a special event with many guards preventing the hoi pilloi getting in. It was a shipping company event obviously with some politicos or other big wigs. Armed guards at the front. Flunkies carried champagne on trays. Amazingly we were allowed entry, but turned away to the non event section. 

What a view of the Acropolis!! The menu was a typical fine dining menu from anywhere in the world but with a couple of local things. The 22 hour braised lamb was finished sadly. 

Fish soup and the other lamb option for me. Salad for Viv. Bottle of white wine, different grape for us. Chocolate soufflé to follow.

Very nice walk back along the ‘most beautiful street in Europe’ per Theodora. We decided we would not eat at such a place again. Bring on the tourist traps and grilled meat!

The Odyssey: Athens Day 1

We'd caught a latish flight from Heathrow to Athens where we were met by Yiannis, the guy who would be our driver up and down Greece for the next 19 days. He dropped us off at our hotel in central Athens where we'd had dinner in the roof top restaurant which had a great view of the Parthenon. 

My notes are from a diary kept at the time. This is what our itinerary for the day stated:

22 May 2022 -- Arrive in Athens at different times and meet and greet by our English-speaking driver and transfer to your hotel.

22 – 26 May -- 3 nights at Hotel Athens Gate (4 *) – 1 double superior room with a view to Temple of Zeus and breakfast.

***

Busy day today (23/5), our first in Athens and all unplanned. Early start too, straight after a really rather blah breakfast at the hotel. 

Nice location though. Opposite the Temple of Zeus and just turn left and left again and there is the Acropolis. We have a tour there tomorrow so today is for exploring the streets. 

The Temple of Zeus from our balcony. Almost everything is under restoration.

What's a Greek Urn? This is.

The Athens Gate Hotel is on the outskirts of the Plaka district. Very touristy but jammed full of ancient buildings and ruins. The whole city is full of them. Our general aim was to start at the Roman Agora or Forum and go from there.

Our fantastic tour hats that we bought immediately. We melded right into the local environment wearing our tour hats. It was only when we chose not to wear them that we got picked as tourists.

Typical touristy stuff!

Athens has 4 million people and the same number again in tourists, many from cruise ships. Ok that’s an exaggeration but it feels like it. This was Sunday so it wasn’t so bad just bimbling around. 

Athens and of course Greece has a very rich history. Birthplace of democracy, Alexander the Great and of course the Spartans!!!! But if I have my history about right, Greece hasn’t won a war since Alexander and was occupied by conquering nations between the late first century BC and 1821 when a coalition of western nations helped them gain independence from the Ottomans who had occupied the country for 400 years. That’s about 2,000 years of being occupied by someone or other. Not Greek. 

First it was the Romans. The great general Sulla sacked Athens in 87 BC and that was about it for the Greeks for some reason they thought they could slide out from under Roman rule in Augustus’ time and discovered rather rudely that that was not the case. 

First the western Roman empire, then the eastern empire after the split in 330 AD. They morphed seamlessly into the Byzantines until 1456 when the Ottomans overthrew the empire and that stayed the case until 1821. 

Since then I don’t believe that the new Greek republic has won any wars. They joined the Allies in WWI almost by accident. The king was pro-German, the PM Venizelos was pro-Allies. The British and French landed in Salonika anyway so the Greeks almost reluctantly joined in. That gave them a seat at the table in Versailles, but not an important one. 

They attacked the remnants of the collapsed Ottoman Empire in Turkey in 1919 seeking territory in Asia Minor and were resoundingly beaten by the new Young Turks of Kemal Attaturk. The loss of all the age old Greek cities in Asia must have been hard to take. 

The Italians invaded in 1941 but were resoundingly beaten back by the Greek army forcing Hitler to divert the Wehrmacht through the Balkans and into Greece fatally delaying the start of Operation Barbarossa for 6 weeks.

When the Germans withdrew in 1944, that was the signal to start the Greek Civil War which stretched on for several years. Greek fought Greek (again) but this time it was Communist versus Democrats. With much help from the USA and Britain, democracy won in the end. 

The king was voted out in the 1970s after an army coup, and the country is now a republic. Anyway back to Athens…

We walked nearby Plaka and passed by several monuments and Byzantine churches on the way. Streets are of course narrow and windy and hilly so it wasn’t all plain sailing. Then we reached the Roman Agora. Obviously not as big as in Rome but then again the Greeks had one already so all the Romans did was adapt what was there and make a few tweaks. 

The Roman Agora

The Greek version is huge. But then again they’d had a couple of millennia to get things in order of which the last 500 or so years related to their ‘golden age’. The age of democracy. The age of when the Greeks were the top dogs. This was the 500 or so years between 600 BC and the Roman conquest.

I really liked the Tholos, this is the small round building that held the 20 or so decision makers that ran the city state of Athens for 35 days before passing the job off to one of the other 10 tribes of Athens. This was the democracy that ruled. Everyone had a chance to be ruler for a day.  The building doesn’t exist any more but the foundations remain. The building is tiny yet so important.

The Greek Agora extends over a really huge area in the midst of which is a roadway that was used amongst other things for the annual processional during a religious festival all the way up to the Parthenon, where all the other temples were as well.

This temple is in much better condition than the Parthenon on top of the Acropolis (hill on top of the town) and is in the Agora

If you like ancient history, this is the place. Just like Rome except it is older and  as the Roman travel writer I’d read in Rome a week earlier said from a 2nd century travelogue the Romans did drains and sewers far better than the Greeks even though the buildings could be pretty impressive. As for the aqueducts….

In one of those did you know moments, we learned that statues of Roman Emperors like Hadrian here (in the Agora) often didn't have the correct head. This is because the sculptures were tricky to make so the heads were swapped once the Emperor died and the new one's head was affixed. The head was therefore simple to lift off. They know this is Hadrian because of the statue's armour and the fact that he loved Greece very much, or rather one particular Greek boy, and visited the province three times during his reign. He didn't build a wall though but did arrange for lots of aqueducts.

The Romans loved the Greeks and identified with them strongly even though they considered the Greeks to be wimps by the time they’d taken over. Every Greek God had a Roman equivalent. The mark of an educated Roman was the ability to speak Greek. Many if not most serious teachers of wealthy Romans was a Greek scholar, often slaves. Yet the Romans also knew they were superior and patronised the Greeks accordingly.

Almost everywhere in Greece had a statue of Hercules doing something or other, mainly in connection with his 12 labours. Statues always had a lion skin (one of his labours) somewhere assisting identification.

The Greek Agora is the place where all activities in Athens took place. Start to finish. Rich or poor. Noble or slave. Truly a unique place. The remains are very impressive yet modernity wasn’t far away as today the Metro goes right through the middle of it. 

We spent several hours in all this and felt the need for rest, recuperation and refreshment to be in order and selected a lovely looking cafe for the task. Antica.

Beer was cool. Moussaka was hot and satisfying. Greek salad was immense chunks of everything topped with a vast slab of feta. Just great!!

Viv discovered the delights of ‘Freddo’ Espresso. Essentially iced coffee but done differently with style. Simply but differently made. Two shots of espresso plus a few chunks of ice and a bit of sugar in a blender. Whizz a while and you get a coffee confection with a mass of foam at the top. Pour over ice into a Whisky tumbler and voila!! Really nice. 

We also visited the central market to check out the fresh fish and meat. Very interesting and the produce looked great! 

After this we bumbled back checking out various stores along the way as we had to meet one of the tour guides from the firm we’d used to arrange the trip. The message we had at the hotel when we got back said this meeting couldn’t take place at 5 pm but at 7 pm as something had come up. We couldn’t make this so rearranged till tomorrow and went out for dinner.

There is a central theme developing here centring around eating and drinking! We found a road side restaurant in Plaka nearby which provided Greek wine, ouzo and vast amounts of Greek meat. We couldn’t leave until we’d tried and tasted everything in the house…..

The reason for the blur. It is normal for Ouzo such as this to be served in 200 ml bottles as opposed by the glass. It doesn't travel so you have to finish it...

The rest of the day was a blur!

Great day.

Skate, the Korean Way

My last post left Viv and I departing Penang for London at the end of April. Our overall plan was to spend some time in the UK with Indy, Cat and Charlie and then for our paths to divide: Viv to Bermuda with her Mum Ann whilst I would go to Rome with my tennis buddies for the Italian Open, pasta and wine. I would then head to Bermuda to reconnect and then we would all troop back to England and thence on to Greece, our ultimate destination and realistically the reason we were doing all of this traveling in the first place.

Despite the raising of Covid restrictions, fair to say that travel is not yet back to its pre-Covid levels of seeming normality. Simply handling all that bloody paper work and getting those tests is a real pain in the neck. But at least we are able to travel. First comment is to say that British Airways is just about hanging on. Number of flights may be fewer but they are trying hard.

On the way from Bermuda to London I couldn’t watch any of the drivel shown on BA’s appallingly low standard in flight fare that was in English. I did find a cooking show concerning 2 Korean chefs who flew to Malaysia to eat seafood and in particular skate.

As they discovered Skate is not found in Malaysia but various rays are, so their quest began in a Kuala Lumpur street market eating sting ray mostly in various ways.

They loved them all. I do too even though I haven’t been to eat ray in KL, only Penang in the north. One such favorite was skate cooked in a creamy durian sauce.

Durian is a soft fruit indigenous to Malaysia. It is everywhere in Penang. It is something you either love or hate. This is because it has the same texture, smell and to me anyway the taste of shit. 

One of the chefs loves durian, the other does not. The non lover found the dish delicious whilst the lover waxed and waxed ever more lyrical about it. It looked slimy to me. Thankfully no smellovision.

The chefs then went to eat at big restaurants, Malay, Chinese and Indian which are the three main ethnic groups in Malaysia. Having savored the fare (non sting ray fare) and lapped it up, they then decided to do a big cook up for their new Malaysian friends and feature skate which they would import from Korea.

Koreans love fermented food. Kimchi for example is fermented cabbage based. Fermented for the unwary means aged in polite terms or nearly rotten if you want to put it plainly. 

The skate was 15 days old.

Thank goodness for no smellovision!

They cooked a dish each. One chef prepared a sort of kimchi appetizer featuring deep fried fermented skate. The other cooked a dish where the skate was first braised then mixed in with a sort of Mediterranean salad featuring avocados. They also did a together dish featuring a cream of durian sauce.

The three chefs sat at a table excitedly discussing what they might expect and then the appetizer appeared. The kimchi and fried skate dish. They took their first bites. 

Silence.

I know that sound from my own experiences with cooking something. Probably the first time was when I was on a boat on the Norfolk Broads in England with some work friends. We took turns cooking and one day was mine for breakfast and I pushed the boat out. We'd had quite a bit to drink the night before so I thought a nice greasy cook up was in order, including a favourite of mine; fried bread. My mum always fried the bread in lard so I'd bought some and added it to the rest of the delicately fried goodies. To me it was great if perhaps a little leaden both on the plate and in the tummy after. To the others, it was just plain silence. I never had to cook again that trip. 

Back to the story...

One chef took a drink of water and said the dish was very interesting and contained flavors she’d never had before. This was the Indian. The Malay chef said ‘yes it was interesting and very nice’ before taking a sip of water. The camera didn’t show what the Chinese guest chef said.

The braised skate came out next and the guest chefs took a bite.

No silence this time. The Chinese chef said it reminded her of stinky tofu, something often found in Chinese cooking. The Malay chef said yes and after a little while again said it was nice.

The final durian dish came out. The Indian chef had left by now and generous portions were heaped out with rice. The two remaining chefs took a bite.

Clearly both chefs love durian for they waded in with gusto. Both said the creamy durian flavor dominated the dish …. Aka they couldn’t taste the fermented Skate, thank goodness!!

As someone who likes fresh skate very much, I think I may have struggled with these dishes. Great fun to watch though.