Greece - June 2013 - Part 3

At 4 pm we were standing in front of the Museum where we met three others from Chicago who would do the walking tour with us and our guide Dimitrius. Dimitrius is a local native born Greek whose family originally came from Thessaloniki. His English which was quite good, was learned in school in Greece. He works full time as a guide for this company, Athens Free Walking Tours. 

The guides give free three hour long walking tours and "donations are accepted" at the end of the tour. The route which was well over 6 km long ( I simply had to check at the end just how far we had walked, so I google mapped the route!!! ), took us on a long circle around the Acropolis Hill and it covered most of the important routes in Athens. It was an excellent tour and gave us a great overview of this ancient and fascinating city.

We covered:

*Hadrian's Arch (which i covered in part one of the Day One Report); 

* The Temple of Zeus

*The Zappeion (the "convention centre" and first building in  to be erected specifically for the revival of the Olympic Games in the modern world, built in and named for its two benfactors Evangelis and Konstantinos Zappas);

*The Panathenaic or Kallimarmaro (meaning the "beautifully marbled") stadium is an athletic stadium that hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Reconstructed from the remains of an ancient Greek Stadium, the Panathenaic is the only major stadium in the world built entirely of white marble, seats 45,000 and is one of the oldest in the world.

*The street that house the residences of the President and Prime Minister of Greece and is some of the most expensive real estate in the city; we watched the very colourful changing of the guards there (watch the short video below the picture...it is quite interesting)

* through the beautiful and shaded National Gardens

* on to Parliament where we posed with the colourfully dressed and skirted soldiers

* we walked the length of the pedestrian shopping street, Ermou Street (most of which was closed, as it was Sunday...we will likely revisit this street when we return to Athens in 12 days);

* we continued to Monastiraki Square, it's colourful market and the quaint walking streets of the Plaka district; 

 

* and then up a very steep hill till almost the top of the Acropolis for an amazing panoramic view of the entire city of Athens.

It was a very informative and interesting tour and well worth the time and the long walk. We would highly recommend this walk.

As we were now relatively close to Chabad and it was close to sunset, we headed through the narrow winding streets and found Chabad and its Gostijo restaurant. 

We were all pleasantly surprised. It is a modern looking restaurant in the midst of an area that is a weird mix of graffiti and gentrification. It is housed in the Chabad House which was formerly a nightclub. The service was excellent, the food was plentiful and very tasty and the prices were reasonable. Here is what we had....

Starters of spicy tuna salad and Moroccan potato salad....each enough for a meal!

Mains were souvlaki (grilled chicken with marinated lemon and oregano) and stuffed eggplant with meat in tomato sauce.

Delicious freshly baked buns

We had one white and one red wine.

Both couples ordered the same mix of meals and the total bill for the four of us including tax and tip was about $100. Tons of food...all fresh...all delicious....great service. We would highly recommend this restaurant.

We met Rabbi Mendel Hendel who is the Chabad Rav and his rebbetzin Nechama. They have been here for 13 years. 

Rabbi Hendel showed us the text of the song Maoz Tzur that we sing on Chanukah in a Greek siddur. The verse that begins with "Yevanim Nikbetzu Alay" (literally "the Greeks gathered up against us") and has been replaced with the word "Hasurim" (the Syrians, rather than the Greeks) so as to keep the peace in the country. Self censorship.

There are very few dati Jews in Athens. Both the rabbi and his wife speak Greek, which they learned on arrival. He is from Migdal HaEmek and is part of a famous Chabad family from Montreal. She is from just outside Paris. We met their son Levi who is 5 years old and is very precocious. He speaks fluent Greek and Hebrew and also dabbles in French and English. Imagine how many he will speak when he is 10 years old!!!!

The Menu - a highly rated (on Trip Advisor) and highly recommended restaurant!!!
In fact, Rabbi Hendel told us that if you go to Trip Advisor, Gostijo is one of the highest rated restaurants listed for Athens. And because many people rely on Trip Advisor, he gets a lot of customers who are not Jewish. There was another table there of three people and they were not Jewish. We asked them how the food was and we got three thumbs up.

They have two other children that they sent off to school in Israel at ages 11 and 13!

Once again we are amazed at the mesiras nefesh of Chabad families who come to far flung Jewish communities and provide services for locals and one timers like us. They have a beautiful restaurant and a fully stocked kosher store.....you really can come here with little food, make a stop at Chabad of Athens and you are good to go!!!

The other thing that I wanted to add was that according to Rabbi Hendel, there is little anti semitism in Athens. When we mentioned the fact that we had read about an extreme right party that had gained significant seats in the recent election, he explained that they had gained seats mainly because of the poor economic conditions in Greece. They have large numbers of volunteers who help the poor and aged and therefore had gained favor in the eyes of the public.

He did not discount the fact that their philosophy and views are not those that would make us feel all warm and fuzzy but he said that he walks around all the time with a kippah and had not experienced any issues. He felt that other than pickpockets, you were safe in Athens. Therefore like in any other large metro area, it is important to always be aware and vigilant.

As far as the local community is concerned, he said that he has financial support from some local families although because of the financial crisis in Greece some of the families have reduced their support. He remains very optimistic.

Needless to say that by now (9 PM), after a long day that began at 4 AM and had covered many walked kilometres, we were exhausted. We caught a cab and had a great night's sleep at the Sofitel.

We are now in the Aegean Lounge waiting our flight to Mykonos....this awaits us...have a great day,

All the best

Fran and David

Next....Mykonos