2016-12-01: ISTANBUL-ATHENS – Part One
'Fifteen years. Then economical
problems. Bye bye.'
Our shuttle driver slides the van with
oily ease through the narrow streets of the city’s historic district picking up
passengers for Ataturk Havalimani, Istanbul's airport. It’s dark and cold, like
the prospects for him and the many providers in Turkey’s once thriving tourist
industry. He drove vans for Grand Circle tours in central Turkey for 15 years. We
know that company. They have a social conscience and give back in all the
countries they work in. His boss 'was good man'. But, 'economical problems. Bye
bye.' American, European, and Asian tour
companies are avoiding Turkey, though individual travelers, like us, and the
young Seattle couple we chat with in the airport, ignore the hyped and dire
pictures fed by our fear-centered, bloviating media. But, we’re not enough.
We fly on Aegean Airlines' GoLite
option, no checked bag allowed, but up to 17 pounds in one carryon is OK, and
thus perfect for our 'go light’ evisceration of the backpacks. It’s cheap. We
don’t expect much beyond an engine, wings, a pilot. We’re relieved there are
seats. We get all of that, plus a hot snack, good coffee, and drinks, including
beer and wine. Try getting even a sniff of some of Napa Valley's worst for free
on a US full price airline.
Flight 991 drops over the Aegean Sea,
then makes landfall over the pseudopod coastline of Greece. I’ve seen the
postcards, Facebook postings, and the movies.
The country will be all as white and blue as its flag. And, there below,
is the blue…and yellow of IKEA. I suspect Greece will be just a teensy bit
different from our usual travel haunts. I'll know for sure if the theme from 'Zorba
the Greek' is playing as we land. It's not. There’s hope for adventure yet!
And, we find it after our long ride
from the airport on the excellent Metro system. We have a detailed street, every
street named clearly …in the Roman alphabet. Adventure lurks on every street
corner: the Greek alphabet, specifically the Greek alphabet on faded street
signs. Once we get past Alpha, Beta, Sigma, Delta, Pi, and Lambda, we’re stumbling
through only vaguely familiar territory, orthographically-speaking. And then
there is the difference between the upper case and lower case versions. It’s
inevitable that after a few minutes, one of us starts…”It's all Gree…..”. Guess
which one?
Our host sent us detailed directions
for walking to her place. She leaves out a crucial detail. There are TWO
streets named Kolokotroni. And hers is not the one on our map. Ah well, it's
Greece. So, do as the Greeks do: wander around so long that everyone thinks
you’re dead. Our personal, road company, B movie Odyssey only feels that long
and the budget does not run to 'sirenes’, or a one-eyed giant. We settle for a
young guy who points us back the way we came, with the imprecation 'walk, walk,
walk'. It’s all very Greek chorus, in jeans.
Our host, Marina, is siren-lovely. The
two-room apartment is cozy, comfy, and all ours. The kitchen is fully equipped.
There’s even a washing machine. We’re home, in Greece, in Athens, a hill away
from the Acropolis and the Parthenon. For $22 a night we will walk where Pericles
walked and where democracy was born.
2016-12-01: ISTANBUL-ATHENS, Part Two
'There are plenty of
restaurants up in the square', says Marina.
In theory, yes. In
practice, not so much. Make that one. But it has chicken souvlaki wrapped with
tzaziki sauce, fresh onions, tomatoes, and crisp French fries in a warm, soft
pita. Two of those and two BIG bottles of beer fill the sinkhole that has been
growing since we WentLITE with Aegean Airlines breakfast pastry hours ago, and
do so without emptying the wallet too much.
Fueled and tanked up, we
head off for the walk Marina describes as '15 minutes up the hill to the
historic district, with great views of Athens and the sea'.
Yes, she's right about the
hill, right about the up, solidly on about the view, not so much on the 15
minutes. It is a pretty wander through the woods, though there are no marked
trails. Below us is the white city and to the west the late afternoon sunlight
fires up the Aegean Sea. Rooftop swimming pools capture the light and bring it
closer.
The historic district is
nowhere on the horizon. With directions like these it’s no wonder it took
Odysseus ten years to get home from Troy to his Penelope.
But, we turn a corner and
there it is. Way across a deep valley, the Parthenon dominates its hill, the
Acropolis, the city, and the landscape. It is many times larger than we
imagined, heroic, even in its injured state, worthy of worship.
We climb higher above the
trees for an unobstructed view, decide we like seeing it through the olives and
cypress trees that anchor it in this landscape.
Atop the hill there are a
few climbers, all silenced by the genius of Pericles still glowing in the
fading light two thousand five hundred years after the first of those white
stones was placed on that hill.
Back in the US, the latest inheritor of Athenian
democracy lives his tasteless, ungracious life, pokes out his chest, barks that
he will be 'Yuuuge', and builds trump tower.
I turn from Pericles’
vision, ashamed.
2016-12-02: ATHENS – DAY 2
We walk carefully on the uneven stones
of the Acropolis. People have walked here for at least 3,000 years, their bare
feet, sandals, boots, shoes, now sneakers, and sandals again, steps of
homage--- to gods, or history, or beauty--- polishing the tops of the stones
smooth. The air is cool. After several cloudy days, the sky has opened,
brilliantly blue. The light is strong, sharp, etching these glorious buildings
against the sky.
The Parthenon is indeed beautiful.
Even draped with the metal paraphernalia of restoration it is beautiful. Its proportions have a sheer rightness. I
didn't remember that there are other marvels up here, at least a few considered
the Parthenon's equal in beauty. And, I
now know that the famous Karyatids are not women holding up part of the
Parthenon, but are doing their graceful duty on a much smaller building next
door.
There’s an aura here that runs deeper
than the beauty of human genius in these buildings. This is an ancient place.
It was sacred before humankind arrived. I feel it, undiluted still. I rub the
polished stones, proof that for millennia, others have felt it, too.
The Acropolis Museum is a thing of
genius. On the Acropolis we walk through and around history. Here we walk
suspended above it. The floors of the museum are transparent, suspended over
the excavation of the neighborhoods that surrounded the Acropolis. The building
is glass and brushed metal, all smooth and unobtrusive, a respectful setting
for the ceramic and stone it contains. In the afternoon, soft winter sun, the
gold of Greece, fills the space. Objects stand free. We walk around sculptures
of such purity only this natural light is worthy of them. Originally, bright colors covered the white
marble. The reconstructions of the original colors on models is a spectacular
achievement, stunning for science, perhaps, but not to my eyes. The colors
detract from the miracle of the sculptors' gift. The transformed stones soar
with life. The colors hide it.
The women are almost always clothed,
voluptuously, draped in folds so air-filled and soft they can’t be of stone,
but are. The men are almost always nude, certainly bare-torsoed, all muscled.
Such beauty is idealized of course. What does it matter? The sculptures are
novels, not journalism.
The Parthenon friezes were one of the
great artistic achievements of the ancient world. They ran along the top of the
Parthenon, high in that blue sky, close to the gods, telling the story of a
procession honoring Athena, patron god of Athens. What we see today are the few
pages of this story left after the others were ripped from the Parthenon novel
by the barbaric acts of invaders, Christians and Turks, who destroyed them, and
of one Lord Elgin who carted them off to the British Museum. At least he didn’t
destroy them. The Greeks request a return of their history. The Museum refuses.
Sic does not transit colonialism.
Ah, but the top floor of this museum
is a miracle. It is a glass box placed askew on the floors below, exactly
matching the orientation of the Parthenon visible through the walls high above
on the Acropolis. In the center of the glass box is another box, the same
dimensions as the Parthenon, walled with a full-size replica of as many pieces
of the Parthenon frieze as can be reconstructed. There are many blank panels,
but the beauty and exuberance created by those audacious sculptors 2,500 years
ago is there, a bit tattered, but there. Bravo!
We walk along the procession seeing it
at eye level, as Athenians never did. It was many neck-creaking meters overhead
to them. Modern Athenians may be able to appreciate it more than their
ancestors did.
Chick peas roasted in olive oil, lemon
juice, and rosemary nestle with smoked pork in an appropriately Mediterranean
lunch in the museum's excellent restaurant. There’s also beer, but we know to
order one bottle and split it. Maybe it’s the beer, but my mind wanders,
irreverently. I think about all those sculptures of draped women and nude men.
Either 1) men didn’t have clothes, or 2) they did have clothes and were just
forgetful, or 3) there was a chorus of fans screaming 'take it off, take it all
off', and they did. If I looked like those guys, I’d forget the clothes, too...
and wouldn’t need the chorus to encourage me. In fact…no, never mind. That was
a long time ago, a very, very long time ago. And that I can’t blame on beer.
We walk home skirting the hill we
climbed yesterday afternoon. In ’our’ souvlaki place we down cherry juice, then
mineral water, sitting by the window. The smell of souvlaki almost seduces a 'two,
please' out of us, but we leave un-pita-ed, pick up milk, butter, juice to go
with the savory, cheesy breakfast goodies on offer at the pastry shop. 2,500
years ago, people walking in the neighborhoods lying under the transparent
floors on the museum…and probably under the streets below our feet…drank and
ate, bought their next meal, and walked home, amazed at their day with the gods
on the Acropolis. We know they did…and were.
2016-12-03: ATHENS – DAY 3
I miss the generous, unsolicited smiles of
Africa, especially of Africa south of the Sahara.
This is not to criticize this neighborhood, or
Athens, or Greece, or Europe, or the Western world. If it’s a criticism at all,
it may be of urban life, our so-called ‘civilized' life. Most of our experience
in Africa has been in the countryside, or small towns, not in the cities, so,
in places where traditions of hospitality and welcome are not eroded by
crowding and indifference. Maybe the only cities where that welcome has been
true for us are the cities of Iran, in that most hospitable of all countries.
We don’t expect unsolicited smiles in Athens,
and don’t find them, except in the kind face of Pastry Lady on our daily visit
to her store of glorious goodies. Today she approves---with a smile--- of our
choices: a huge Michelin-sized donut and a slab of apple cake. They may make it
to breakfast, and disappear. Her smile will come with us. Thank you, Pastry
Lady.
Today, we wander on a walk thru the other 'must
sees' of Athens, including many of the megalomaniacal monsters of Emperor Hadrian.
They are just rocks. The Acropolis is, like Machu
Picchu, extraordinary, magical, touching something very deep, and very
true.
Tomorrow we climb again, pilgrims of a sort, to
beauty and to that something else. The entrance ticket is good for 4 days. The
tourist association folk must feel the draw, too, and sense that once is not
enough. We won’t need a ticket, though. On the first Sunday of every month,
it’s free. All of Athens may be there. Good.
It hits me that me, little Bobby F., aka bobinathens,
who used to live in Athens, New York, will be hobnobbing again with the ghost
of Pericles in the REAL Athens. Ain’t life grand!!!
2016-12 -04: ATHENS - Day 4, Part 1
The crowds climb the Acropolis, into
the sky. It’s Sunday, and the one day a month when the 30 Euro admission is
waived, so they come as their ancestors did, free.
We join them. It’s our second climb
since we saw it in the late afternoon light and from a great distance a few
days ago. As Mae West said: 'Too much of a good thing is…Wonderful!' And this
is a very good thing. We want more. This place, these exquisite buildings tell
us of the glories and light possible when imagination is free and soaring.
On our way, we take a new route
through the woods, into the shade.
Somewhere in the trees is 'Socrates
Prison'. We follow the signs, climb a short rise and face a cliff wall. There
are cave openings, bars. The plaque tells us that no one knows if this really
is where Socrates was imprisoned, but tradition has it so. It’s not important if
it is, or isn’t the actual place. It’s enough that it makes me remember
Socrates and how and why he died. He was
condemned to death, and drank hemlock, history's first recorded suicide. He was
accused of ‘corrupting’ the youth of Athens because he was teaching them how to
think and ask questions, He also questioned the government. Even in democracy, governments
fear facts, fear truth, fear the questioning mind.
Socrates' real prison is all around.
us. We’re in it.
2016-12-04: ATHENS - Day 4 – Part 2: Rudolf 's nose is red….
…even in Greece. That melody flies
over the crowded streets.
We’re walking through the area north
and east of the Acropolis, in what was the 'old agora', (market place) 3,000
years ago, and later, the 'Roman agora' (ditto). This is where Pericles, and Socrates, and
Plato, and Aristotle, and maybe even Homer centuries before them, shopped for
sandals and wine, and where Demosthenes carried his lantern, looking for an
honest man, and perhaps his misplaced clothes, though, as men, they clearly had no need for clothes
(see previous post for my analysis of the sartorial behavior of Greek men back
when).Today it is the Monostirakos flea market and a pedestrian-only shopping
street, Athens’s most vibrant modern agora, with lots of clothing stores
showcasing what the modern Athenian should buy, eat, and wear. There are no agoraphobics here. This is a
public place, a very crowded public place, prime territory for the voyeurism
travelers gussy up as 'people watching’.
Christmas spirit is everywhere, or at
least Christmas spirits are. There are people in Santa Claus outfits (old St.
Nick WAS Greek, after all) everywhere. Most are twenty-somethings, way too
young slim and beardless to be convincing as jolly St. Nicholas but they’re in
red flannel, wear funny hats, and seem on the verge of a rumbling 'Ho, ho, ho',
so I give them the benefit of my doubt. It’s Christmas, after all.
They’re the only colorful dressers in
the 'black is the new black' color palate of urban Greeks (and most other
Europeans we’ve seen in their native habitats). It’s probably not because
'black is slimming’. Most people are trim, damn them! They’d be rejected at the
door of any Walmart and never hear the chirpy 'Welcome to Walmart'. I doubt
they care. Not even omnivorous Starbucks
has a foothold here.
The shaved or darkly-stubbled head,
swarthy five o'clock shadow, and tight jeans look is in for the men. It works.
Some sprout ebony mini-Mohawks, tasteful, as practiced by one of the more
fashionable tribes. Many of the women extrude long tresses in various shades of
blonde. That marauding hunk, Alexander the (Not So) Great was rumored to be
blond. If so, he was a rarity. We see no blond Greek men. (Except for one guy
with truly yellow hair, of the kind sported equally unsuccessfully by snotty
waiters with affectations in third rate restaurants in Greenwich Village or
Provincetown.) This leads me to muse. Either Greek DNA for blondness is indeed
oddly dispersed only among the women, or Only Their Hairdressers Know For Sure.
Since we only see women with blond hair or shiny ebony tresses, and nothing
approaching grey, I suspect the hairdressers know---and do---a lot.
Young women sprout immense bouquets of
huge, colorful cartoony balloons, kidnip for the well-behaved toddlers. I see
no prone bodies flat on the pavement, kicking their feet, turning blue, and
screaming 'I wanna, I wanna, I wanna' and 'Buy me…., Buy me…., Buy me….’ Yep, no Walmarts here.
I tolerate an accordion rendition of
the theme from ’Never on Sunday' (even though it is Sunday and I agree with the
sentiment). Down the street another
musician in antique clothes is coaxing a lovely melody out of a wheeled
calliope.
The souvlaki place lip-smacked over by
the Lonely Planet Guide has disappeared, or, since this is LP, is probably on
another street entirely. No problem. Souvlaki is the national street food, and
shops are everywhere. Ours dishes up a gargantuan 12-inch diameter pita rolled
around tender chicken, veggies, sauce, the works.
And so the afternoon goes. We trade a
chance to view Greek culture nicely boxed and explained in the National Museum
for being jostled by the living version. It’s a good deal.
And gets better at dinner. Down the
street from our digs at Marina's is a small square ringed with family
restaurants. Marina recommends one called 'Rantevou' (Rendezvous). This is far
from the tourist-soaked parts of the city. Not much English is visible, and we
almost miss our rendezvous. Then, it clicks. The sign that I think is in
advertising 'PANTEBOY in our Roman alphabet is actually RANTEVOU in Greek.
GREEK LETTERS: P. A. N. T. E. B. O. Y
ROMAN LETTERS: R. A. N. D. E. V. O. U
The waitress helps us pick a tomato
salad with arugula, a cheese from the island of Timos, sausages from an ‘almost
island' north and east of Athens. It’s all delicious, enough food for 3 people.
We chat about food with the waitress as she lingers with us between courses.
Such food deserves a decent beer. We split one, then go independent with
glasses of licoricey ouzo. The clear liquid turns cloudy when she pours it over
ice, magic table-side. It’s delicious and strong. The clouds begin to fog our
tired brains. 'Now, I offer you a sweet, halvas' and brings us a crumbly
dessert we guess is semolina, honey, maybe ground nuts. It’s on the house and
out of this world. Maybe Greeks smile with their food????
2016-12-05: ATHENS-ISTANBUL
The whistle shrills through trees of
the ancient marketplace. Across the fallen columns and collapsed walls, the whistle
blower matches his notes with a wild-armed semaphore, in upper case, easy to
understand: CLOSED.GO. NOW. THAT WAY. We go, slightly disappointed that our
afternoon in Athens’ ‘Old Agora' has been cut short.
People have lived on this site for
5,000 years, and they've shopped and gossiped here for at least three thousand
of those years. Socrates held forth at one end of the agora. Only the
foundations of that place remain.
Destroyed, rebuilt, again and again,
the current reincarnation of the agora has completely restored the two story
'stoa’, aka shopping mall, that was the center of the agora. In the places
where market stalls stood, the stoa now houses a small museum of artifacts
found on the site. My favorites are a saucy goddess, a drinking cup with wild
and flaring handles, a pair of jugs covered in swirls, free and happy, a
perfume container in the shape of a buff and in the buff male athlete (and the
perfume is dispensed through…oh, never mind), and a child’s potty chair. (I
don’t think my email will handle that many photos, so I posted them on
Facebook.)
Figures of humans created by other
cultures are reminders of life and cry to be brought to life, even if only in
my imagination. The goddess, hand on hips, leg thrust forward, torso bent, has
attitude to spare and does not need a face to get her message across: ' Say
WHAAAT???' In the movie, she'd be played
by Bette Davis. The buff athlete looks a bit dim, but I doubt the lady who
doused herself with him was looking for conversation. Think one of those
Olympic swimmers, godling offspring of Poseidon, who can stitch a relay
together but not a coherent sentence. And who would choose to replace them?
Our last meal in Greece is a
carnivore's special at a small table in the sun, overlooking the now off-limits
agora. There is accordion music. It’s not a bad sendoff.
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