Athens, Istanbul & Notes on Hydration

What happened was this.

We had Bonnie Raitt tickets for San Diego and planned to spend a few days soaking up good tunes and Vitamin D, while partaking of the perfecto teas at The Tea Pavilion in Balboa Park. Then, Turkish Airlines went crazy let’s-break-into-the-U.S.-market fire sale, offered ridiculous roundtrip prices, and I was given a choice of lazy days in Southern Cali or three days in Athens with a stopover in Istanbul.

And I’ve been to SoCal.

So, we sold our second set of Bonnie Raitt tickets in less than a year due to a more alluring opportunity and quick-tripped across the ocean.

Don’t worry, Bonnie Raitt fans, she’s at the Chesapeake Blues Festival in May with Mavis Staples, and we are ticketed up for the third time.

Traveling

The downer part of many trips is the getting to and fro. Train travel, sometimes even long drives, can be as much a pleasure as the final destination, but flying has become a miserable damn experience. Am I right about it?

Turkish Airlines has been named Best Airline in Europe two years running, and I guess they kinda, sorta have it coming to them. Flights were shorter than advertised and semi-pleasant, the pilots seemed especially adroit at handling turbulence (not as much at landing), and the food was decent for airline food. It was hardly what I would call “restaurant quality” as they advertise, though, and those flight attendants are mad stingy with their water.

You can’t take a bunch of people to 30,000 feet and ration the water supply. You just can’t.

I did appreciate the warm towelettes distributed after take-off on the long flights and the to and fro freshen-up kits, though.

Fro

 

Three Days in Athens

Before I go into detail, I think it’s fair to say I won Athens.

Day One, I won the Olympics.

Day Two, I went on a pilgrimage.

Day Three, I gained an effusive admirer. He gave me a slow-motion wink that was comical in its sincerity. For some reason, I seem to be a real catch for those a decade my junior with non-preferred equipment. It’s kind of like being a magnet for ballpoint pens. I could work with it, circumstances demanding, but I’d really rather hold out for felt tip.

Day One

It rained.

I thought it was a pretty good rain, until I got home and Athens got flooded. In light of that news, we’ll call it a moderate sprinkle at best, and I should say that I am incredibly grateful (and amazed) that I somehow got from D.C. to Athens and back in the lull between D.C.’s snowstorms and Athens rains.

On that rainy morning, we walked through the muddy National Garden right across from our hotel, happening upon our first small ruins, and continued to the Panathenaic Stadium. Rain kept everyone indoors, so there were, literally, two other people there when we arrived. Paying our tiny sum of 3 euro, we went inside, where we braved the massive, slippery steps of the stadium seats, traipsed past the built-in thrones, walked the path of Olympians, gazed at the Olympic torches on display and circled the track.

With no one else there, it had a genuinely hallowed feel.

That’s when I won the Olympics

Rain coming and going, we popped into the Temple of Zeus, stopped by Hadrian’s Arch, and landed in the Acropolis Museum, where the lattes were good and it was dry the entire time.

After that, a tasty dinner in Plaka, with an inescapable free shot of wine, which, even trying to do as the Greeks did, I still couldn’t stomach. A warming nap later, we returned to Plaka for more lattes and baklava so good, it may have been made by the gods themselves.

Day Two

People who give advice on visiting Athens on the TripAdvisor forums, they say to get to the Acropolis when the gates open to avoid the crowds. This is solid advice… that every tour group in the city apparently heeds. I have no idea what time is the best time to visit the Acropolis, but I do know, if you get there when it opens, you contend with dozens of tour guides with little octagonal number signs standing everywhere you want to be.

On the way to the top, we traipsed by the Theatre of Dionysus and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, and then onto the main event.

Thoughts were as thus. Wow, this is pretty amazing, and, damn, they let too many people up here at the same time. I get money-making and all that, but when people are crawling all over a sacred place, it just doesn’t feel sacred. I would have totes sacrificed an orange for five minutes alone to soak up the mystique.

But, alas, there was no public altar.

Next, we walked through the Ancient Agora, where, unfortunately, I was neither seized by the spirit of a great philosopher nor infused with the meaning of life.

From there began what would unknowingly become an artistic pilgrimage. First, to the Hill of Nymphs, where, sadly, as in the Ancient Agora, there was no seizing or infusing, and then onto Philopappos Hill, aka The Hill of the Muses.

Misled by the map, I took us up the most difficult possible path, rewarded by incredible views of both the Acropolis and the sea.

Will I be rewarded with renewed artistic fervor?

Time shall tell.

That night, we dined on traditional Greek food, including moussaka, which we were told was “very Greek”. And I can honestly say I’ve had nothing like it anywhere else. Except for Ohio. You see, Skyline Chili was started with a traditional Greek recipe and that moussaka tasted exactly like Skyline on a potato and eggplant bed.

That’s not a complaint. I like Skyline. I make my own home-version. Plus, we got a whole plate of sliced oranges after our meal.

Day Three

We had only a morning before we had to be at the airport, where the bottled water runs half a euro. That’s right, two good-sized bottles of water at the Athens airport costs one euro. Apparently, Greeks realize hydration shouldn’t cost half your annual salary.

Or be withheld.

Are you seeing this, Turkish Airlines?

First, came the painful goodbye with the morning breakfast buffet at the lovely Amalia Hotel, which sported over-easy eggs with just the right yolk consistency, spinach pastries, olives, feta, sweets, fresh-squeezed grapefruit and orange juices, and a $10,000 espresso machine I’m still not over.

It decided to rain again, despite the rain-free forecast, but we did get a good look at the Roman Bath being excavated right off the street. Right off the street! Right off the fucking street! Holy baklava, I love old cities.

We also did a little shopping for ourselves and other peoples, as the man at the store kept insisting I take more of his free candy.

So I did.

It wasn’t a euphemism.

Istanbul

This time, Istanbul was a stopover, not a destination, I’m sorry to say.

There was just time to walk past the walls of Topkapi Palace, to see Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque set against both nighttime and daytime skies, to discover sahlep, to have an amazing meal so bizarre it deserves its own post, to enjoy the unbelievable service of Hotel Sultania, and to walk the steep, storybook streets of Sultanahmet.

I am not going to try to describe Istanbul, other than to say I have been a few places and I have never had such a visceral reaction to a place. From the moment the car left the airport, I felt dumbstruck, just overwhelmingly awed by everything. I have often been impressed, amazed, intrigued, and enamored with places I’ve been, but never before have I gotten teary-eyed watching a city reveal itself, because every kilometer was just a little more special than the last.

That was Istanbul. If only for a night and a morning.