Sand Castles and Sardines

On Sunday we left Greece after what has been an unexpected, fascinating and wonderful month. Ed’s sister Alex and Dad David have been out to visit and we have enjoyed showing them some of our favourite spots as well as visiting some new places.

Enjoying a Thess sunset...

...with a coffee

The day before Alex’s arrival we explored the old town up on the hill and decided to visit Thessaloniki’s zoo. We’re not quite sure what has happened to the zoo, but its population consisted of some deer, a flock of sheep, some rogue goats stood on top of a shed, and confusingly, pigeons in a cage. It was unclear whether they had broken in or had been put there by design. There was also a solitary pelican, living in a pond with a large number of ducks. Most of the enclosures were empty and it was a rather sad place, clearly the money had run out some time ago. We did pick up a stray kitten however, who followed us round the entire time and even to our car. It took a lot of will power not to take her with us and smuggle her back to England!

Cutest cat ever

Finding very little to excite us in the old town, we drove east and miraculously found a parking space near recommended restaurant Olive and Lemon and had an excellent lunch of meat skewers.

Postprandial tooth pick

The next day Al arrived and we took her straight to Perea for a slap up fish lunch at our favourite restaurant. Instead of sea bass we ordered three Dorades, along with the obligatory enormous Greek salad and some fried courgettes. These underwhelming vegetables are transformed (like most things) when encased in a delicious tempura batter and we proceeded to order them in virtually every restaurant we’ve visited since.

Several fishy on a dishy

Once Ed’s Dad had arrived, we all bundled into the car and spent one of the most enjoyable days of our trip on the beach at Halkidiki. The temperature was about 17 degrees, but the water was still clement so we all went for a swim (except Charlie, who though better of going any further than up to his waist). We played frisbee and did some underwater filming with the go pro, which will no doubt be cropping up on a film in December. 

It was beautifully sunny and we set up our camping table and had a picnic of cheese pastries, tzatsiki, aubergine dip and Greek salad. Sadly Ed was suffering from a bout of toothache and had an impressively swollen gum. Happily Greek pharmacies let you buy antibiotics over the counter so he dosed himself up on those and a load of painkillers (luckily Dr. Cross was with us). After we’d built an impressive sand castle complex with Charlie, the sun slipped behind the hills and the temperature seemed to drop about ten degrees. We suddenly found ourselves in wet swimming costumes on a freezing beach so we deployed our faithful thermos of coffee and made a hasty retreat to the car with the heating on full blast. 

Could be July frankly if it weren't for the Greek person in a bomber jacket and scarf out of shot.

We drove back to Thessaloniki and ate at a well-known fish restaurant in the eastern district of Kalamaria. We wouldn’t have got a table on a Saturday night, only we arrived at 7pm, which is at least two hours before any self-respecting Greek person would think of having dinner, so they squeezed us in. We all shared a delicious whole grilled Kingfish along with, guess what, another mountain of fried courgettes. Ed also realised that in terms of treating toothache, gargling with ouzo is by far the most effective medication and managed to get through about a bottle by himself in this pursuit. 

On Alex’s last day we ate at Estrella, a brunch place that had been recommended to us by our airbnb hosts as well as a random woman in the street, who took it upon herself to tell us to eat there apropos of nothing. Maybe she works for them?! It was actually a little like being in Hackney again – eating eggs on toast surrounded by people much younger and more beautiful than you. Katie ordered a dish that came with ’64 degree eggs’, presumably referring to the cooking temperature. These were a real misfire and were milky and cold. Blurgh. We found it a bit try hard and not a patch on some of the more authentic eateries the city has to offer. 

God these weird eggs are boring

For example, we have recently discovered a meze restaurant in the covered market, which is absolutely superb, so much so we visited it two nights running. Some of the dishes would not have been out of place in Barrafina or Jose’s (our two favourite tapas haunts in London). We paritcularly enjoyed the cod’s roe tarama, octopus cooked in squid ink and red wine (this was divine) and fried sardines served in the skillet. Service was fantastically friendly, a seafood bisque arrives on the table when you sit down, without being requested (or charged for) and the same goes for the raki after the meal is finished – they just leave the bottle on the table. When such a good meal with gallons of wine comes to just £30 you know you’re onto a good thing.

With Ed’s Dad here we have been visiting some of the archeological sites. Ed and Charlie took David to see the ruins at Dion and to visit Mount Olympus. Eerily, while they were there, someone set off a load of flares from Mount Olympus and it was as if Zeus himself was chucking down lightning bolts at us mere mortals. This has rather fuelled Charlie’s imagination and we are pretty sure he thinks the Greek Gods are real. David has been reading to him from an exhaustive, but incredibly dry treatise on the Greek myths by (the generally brilliant) Robert Graves, published in 1912, although we hope he skipped over the more unsavoury bits like Oedipus accidentally killing his father and marrying his mother. 

Actual proof that Greek Gods EXIST

The most impressive of all the sites was Vergina, the place where King Phillip II of Macedonia (or Val Kilmer to us) was buried, along with some other important people.

 

Macedonian royal family

Their tombs were uncovered in the 1970s and it has all now been developed into an impressive museum, containing the artifacts discovered within them (think blingy gold crowns). The whole place was beautifully done and up together. Most Greek archeological sites are presided over by at least five members of staff all chain-smoking next to the no smoking signs and doing absolutely nothing else other than following you around like you might be planning to rob the joint (not unreasonable after we pulled that trick with the Elgin Marbles). Not so at Vergina. The museum sits beneath the mound of earth containing the tombs and around the tombs themselves, so you walk into the hill. We also managed to piggy-back on an English speaking tour, which really illuminated the whole thing. Obviously Charlie was bored witless and all this visiting tombs brought up the Death Conversation again (while we were in Dion, Charlie saw a dead cat and we had to have an extensive conversation about death and explain that all people die and it’s the one thing we know will happen to us. Heavy).

Charlie thinking about serious stuff

Greece was brilliant. It could even be our favourite country so far. This month didn’t end up being quite what we expected, but that’s actually been a positive. The weather has been amazing (it’s rained once) and we have swum in the sea in November!

Good old Thess waterfront

Greek pirate ship

Greek people are lovely and Charlie has milked the situation for all it is worth. One evening we walked into what can only be described as a dessert emporium – row upon row of tiny beautiful cakes and pastries. We were hardly through the door and a waiter had performed the obligatory cheek-pinch and thrust a chocolate biscuit into Charlie’s little paw. We don’t know how he does it.

A cake young sir?

One of our most enduring memories of Greece will be the totally mad driving. You will never see hazard-warning lights deployed with such wanton abandon – they are literally a license to do whatever you want. We’re not sure what the Greek driving test consists of, but if you own a fluffy dice, you probably automatically pass.

We imagine a Greek driving handbook reads as follows:

- Fancy double or triple-parking on a dual carriage way while you saunter off for a coffee? Stick your hazard lights on and go for it!

- Don’t have time to wait at a red light? Flash your hazards and then creep through.

- Lorry driver in need of a wee or a kip? Just stop on the motorway’s slow lane (hazards on obvs.) Everyone will swerve around you.

- And motor cyclists – you don’t need to wear a helmet, just sling it over the handlebars.

However, the longest lasting memory of Greece will in fact be Katie’s hair. In a fit of madness and nostalgia, she decided it would be a good idea to go red again. She got a bit carried away with an over-enthusiastic hairdresser who was already sporting her own garish shade and was persuaded to go for a colour that could only be described as adventurous. At the final reveal, all the other hairdressers in the salon downed tools and gathered round saying things like ‘wow, new you!’ eagerly eying her to see if there would be tears. As Katie was leaving the hairdressers, a stray dog started barking at her. Ed gallantly said it looked nice, but nevertheless, walking past shop windows is now a deeply shocking experience. But it will really annoy Katie’s parents which probably makes it all worth it in the end.

On Sunday morning we began heading home, via a 2,700km drive through eight countries (Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Belgium and France). We planned to spend a couple of nights in Belgrade, a night in Ljubljana, a few nights in Sonthofen in Southern Germany, probably finishing with a night somewhere like Cologne, then making a mad dash for the coast, a ferry and a pork pie as soon as we hit the white cliffs of Dover. 

On Saturday, the day before we left, we had a quick chat about the journey by way of preparation. It suddenly dawned us that neither Macedonia or Serbia are in the EU (something we should frankly get used to). This means our car insurance didn't cover us, so we spent a panicked two hours researching alternative routes back through Italy or via Bulgaria and Romania (and although we were keen to meet Vlad the Impaler on a dark country road, it would have added serious mileage to our journey). 

Then after some internet sleuthing we discovered we might be able to buy a third party insurance 'green card' at the border to cover us while we drove through. Sounds dodgy and it probably is, but 50 euros and some very careful driving later, we made it through the lawless non-European hinterlands and are safely back in bona fide insurance zone. Mind you, we thought the game might be up at the Serbian border, when they requested our vehicle registration certificate, which is safely filed (at an unknown location) in the UK. We managed to bamboozle the border official by handing them a folder with all our MOT and service receipts for the last 13 years. After about 20 minutes they got bored and sent us on our way.   

We've visited Belgrade (probably the new Berlin - you heard it here first) and Ljubljana (chocolate box) and we're now in Sonthofen, Germany, looking forward to a couple of days R&R, eating wurst and drinking beer.

Myths and Moussaka

Many moons ago we drove from Abruzzo down the coast of Italy to Brindisi to catch our ferry to Greece. The weather was pretty grim by the time we arrived, so we were expecting a rough crossing. Happily this did not materialise and we grabbed five hours of sleep in our cosy cabin before the deafening tannoy woke us up a full 1.5 hours before we docked. 

Ahoy there cap'n

Bleary eyed, we gathered in the boat’s main cafeteria and watched quite an interesting Greek documentary about crocodiles featuring an evil pelican. Charlie is still talking about it. Then, with relatively little diesel in the car we drove through a mountain range with not a single service station for an hour and a half. We were just getting nervous when one appeared through the mist, complete with its own murky swimming pool and a gaggle of Greek coachers, all franticly vying for the pastries and loos.

Our flat in Thessaloniki is basic, although mostly importantly, not a tent. Internet is laughably slow and infrequent (Katie exists in a constant internet rage), the hot water tank lasts for two minutes and there is no washing machine. Nevertheless, our hosts are very friendly and in lieu of these basic services have provided us with fully annotated maps of the city’s best restaurants, filo pie shops and cafes.

Thessaloniki, while scruffy in parts, is a buzzy place and reportedly has the highest number of cafes and restaurants per capita in Europe. It has a lovely waterfront along which you can stroll or ride a bike for miles (we did – our trusty steeds are still with us), or pop into the many parks that lie alongside it. You can also buy pretzels and strange gloopy liquid that we thought was coffee but instead seemed to be corn flour, water and cinnamon. Not an experience to be repeated.

Pretzel C

Every Saturday we visit the local fruit and veg market to stock up for the week. The produce here is amazing and really cheap – for example you can buy a huge bag of spinach for 30 cents. We have been cooking meat-free all the time and getting through tons of aubergines, squashes, leeks and pomegranates.

Ed made this dish by roasting slices of butternut squash and beetroot, topping them with feta, walnuts and pomegranate seeds, with a healthy dash of our Italian olive oil and some Greek yoghurt.

It ain't a beauty but it tasted alright

Then Katie made moussaka (when in Greece…) with a ragu of onions, garlic, lentils, mushrooms, tomatoes and red wine, layered with roasted potato and aubergine and topped with béchamel, feta, parmesan and another unidentified halloumi-esque cheese we found in the supermarket.

Feeling smug about not eating baby lambs. This time.

Of course the reason we came here was to volunteer in a refugee camp – which we did for two weeks and which was a valuable experience. All the refugees in our camp were Syrians and we worked with a team of volunteers from the U.S., Germany, Ireland, the UK and Spain distributing clothes and food to supplement the rations they receive from the Greek government. Warm coats and jumpers were gratefully received now the weather is turning colder.

In the course of a busy day in camp, random moments are overwhelmingly sad. The cheeky smudged face of a child Charlie’s age peeking out of a tent. Watching a smart old couple choose warm clothes from those we have had donated, and wondering whether this is how they expected to spend their retirement. Chatting to a young woman who is three months pregnant with her first baby and thinking about how it must feel to start a family amid such uncertainty. Having been to Syria twelve years ago when it was still a peaceful country, each person in camp represents a familiar life brutally smashed apart.

A lone child in the playground on camp

Working in camp and looking after Charlie was much more challenging than we expected. Between us we covered six days a week, leaving just one day together as a family and very little time for Katie to do her work for PEAS (despite impressions, we are still working a bit this year, albeit ‘remotely'. How very modern). The person left in Thessaloniki probably had the harder deal, negotiating a busy Greek city with one of the most confusing bus systems ever, all with a toddler in tow, and it frequently became a bit much. So it’s much easier now we can spend our last two weeks in Greece with normal parenting capacity.

Charlie thinks Greece is brilliant (we think he likes being in a city again) and our flat is near the railway so one of our favourite activities is to stand on the bridge and wait for trains. Sometimes the train driver even waves and beeps the horn at us! We’ve also found a place where we can hire a bike for him and nearby is a mini road-complex for children to learn in, complete with road signs and pedestrian crossings! 

Police on patrol

Greek people seem to absolutely love Charlie and think nothing of pinching his cheek on the bus, or berating us for putting him in shorts in the ‘winter’ (hello – it’s like 20 degrees people and we are British) or giving him a free banana in the market.

We have been making the most of our extended summer, as only in the last couple of days has the weather turned properly autumnal. We spent a wonderful afternoon on a deserted beach in Halkidiki, and after Katie managed to throw the Frisbee into the sea rather than at Ed, he gamely stripped off and swam in to retrieve it! 

 

A bit like Baywatch

We lunched in the sunshine at Perea, which is jam-packed with fish restaurants. We ordered a whole sea bass to share, which came with the most enormous and delicious Greek salad of tomatoes, feta, olives, (very spicy) peppers, aubergine and onions. The fish was among the best we have ever tasted, and it goes without saying we shall be returning before we leave.  

Whitebait starter... pre sea bass

We also drove over to Pozar to visit the thermal baths, which were in a picturesque setting at the foot of a mountain. 

Steamy

A hot waterfall pours into the pool and you can stand under it and get an impromptu back massage and hair wash thrown in for free. In fact, the whole effect would be rather romantic, a bit like an ‘80s Timotei ad, if it weren’t for the numerous 20 stone Greek men with lustrous back body hair. After that we visited Edessa, a pretty town with some very impressive waterfalls, although we weren’t tempted to try and bathe in these ones. 

Wonky waterfall shot

And what it actually looked like

We’ve also been delving into some Greek myths and visited the archeological park at Dion, at the foot of Mount Olympus. Alexander the Great used to hang out there and in preparation for our visit we watched the first half of 'Alexander' starring a distractingly blonde Colin Farrell. It was pretty ridiculous and our favourite part was when Aristotle lectured the young Alexander and his friends while they lounged around in the ruins of a Greek temple. Oliver Stone did it not occur to you that they would not have been ruins at the actual time this purported historical scene took place?!? Also, everyone in it had Irish accents. There's nothing wrong with that, but we're not sure it was prevalent in pre-biblical Madedonia.

Anyway... Dion is quite an amazing place, somewhat overtaken by wildlife and vegetation, but in some parts, even the mosaic floors of houses and baths are visible.

Thinking of doing the bathroom floor the same when we get home

Ed used it as an opportunity to teach Charlie about the Greek myths but Charlie had a few questions we had trouble answering: ‘Is Zeus like Spiderman?’; ‘What car does he drive?’ and ‘Does the Cloud Palace have a door?’. We concluded that yes he is a bit like Spiderman (throwing lightning bolts, rather than webs), that he likely drives something flashy like a Ferrari and that no, the Cloud Palace probably doesn’t have a door. 

In other (important) news - Charlie has learned to raise one eyebrow. He's been practicing ready for the arrival of his Aunty Alex and Grandpa, who who are visiting for our last week here before we drive back to the UK.
 

Quizzical pirate