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Published: January 14th 2023
The unexamined life is not worth living… ~ Socrates, Greek Philosopher
HE SAID... Today we were travelling northeast from Kardamyli to
Athens.
We woke early and headed down to Kardamyli Beach Hotel’s breakfast area, only to find the electric roller doors locked and the lights off. At precisely 8am, following the flick of a switch from the hotel’s grumpy manager, the doors slowly began to open. This hotel was run with military precision, and we had become used to its idiosyncratic ways. We cautiously entered the breakfast area and lined up in an orderly queue to receive our breakfast items. There were no self-serve options here. The grumpy manager stood behind a glassed-in buffet and placed whatever items we asked for onto a plate. Only the very brave asked for multiple items. It was imperative to consume everything you requested. I’m sure there was a penalty (of some kind) for wasted food. In hindsight, this wasn’t such a bad thing. It made you think about what you really needed at this hour of the day.
I opted for some slightly stale bread with honey, a pot of tea and some juice. It was all I needed, and it was all I had the courage to ask for. What
I loved about our hotel’s breakfast area was its location. We were sitting in the early morning sun, overlooking the Messinian Gulf, with waves lapping at the rocks just over the road. It was a quintessential Greek setting.
Having triple-checked my plate for any residual crumbs of stale bread, we bid farewell to the hotel manager (from a safe distance) and loaded our packs into the waiting minibus. We had a four-hour road trip back to Athens, and we needed an early start.
We left Kardamyli at 8:30am. We’d loved our time in this peaceful seaside village. The blue waters of the Messenian Gulf on our doorstep; the stark surrounding hills; the warm sun; the incredible food; the friendly people (sans the hotel manager). We were reluctant to leave, yet at the same time, we were looking forward to returning to the bustling city of Athens.
As we climbed the steep winding road out of Kardamyli, we looked back on the rooftops of the tiny houses beneath us, and our eyes were continually drawn to the distant blue-grey landmass of the Messenian peninsula on the western side of the gulf. Olive groves and pencil pines dotted the
steep arid hills on either side of the road, while crumbling brick structures stood as stark reminders to the transience of life. Everything we build will eventually lose its relevance.
Having descended to sea level just outside Kalamata, we sped through towns and villages with their white buildings reflecting in the still blue waters of the Messenian Gulf. It wasn’t long before we left the narrow winding roads and found ourselves on a two-lane highway. Giant wind towers on distant hills looked over us as we retraced our path back to the capital, while olive groves continued to dominate the landscape.
It’s an understatement to say we enjoyed our travels in the Peloponnese. This enormous peninsula in western Greece is a truly beautiful part of the world, and we absolutely loved the place. Before we leave the peninsula, I’d like to share a few poignant insights we discovered through one of our travel companions. He’d purchased an artist-designed t-shirt in Nafplio a few days earlier, and it came with a small booklet of local proverbs. Each was accompanied with a brief summative interpretation, and when he shared a few of these on our road trip back to Athens,
I was taken by the following two:
Here ships are lost, (and) small boats are sailing.
When great importance is given to non-essential issues, and key issues are left to their fate.
Where many roosters are crowing, the morning is delayed.
When many points of view are heard without coherence or logic, no solution will be found.
I love the insightful power of local proverbs, especially those emanating from this part of the world. They are informed by an extraordinary lineage of communal wisdom.
Anyway, when we turned into an exit lane marked ‘Athens’, I knew our time on the Peloponnese was coming to an end. We’d been on the road for about two hours, and the only thing between us and the central Greek mainland was the Corinth Canal. Fortuitously, we stopped at Box 3 Coffee for a cold drink and toilet stop on the Isthmus of Corinth, and the place was only a minutes’ walk from a busy bridge spanning the man-made canal.
It was incredible standing on this old steel bridge and peering down into the aqua green water of the narrow channel below us. Completed in 1893, this 6km canal is
an incredible feat of engineering, but I was surprised by the lack of safety barriers along the top of the canal. Apart from a small section of waist-high wire fencing that has seen better days, the edges are completely exposed. It would be so easy to slip down the steep 90m banks into the water below.
Having traversed the old bridge on both sides (and soaked up the panoramic vista it offered), we walked back to Box 3 Coffee, jumped into the minibus and sped off on our final leg to Athens. We were now on a three-lane highway, and the view of the Saronic Gulf’s still blue water to our right was majestic. We passed industrial shipping yards and docks, and before long we were speeding towards our destination on a busy four-lane highway.
Our room at Hotel Attalos wasn’t ready when we arrived at midday, so we dropped our packs in the hotel’s storage area and headed out into the bustle of Psyrri – our favourite precinct in Athens. After exploring a few familiar haunts (including olive shops and delicatessens), we headed underground to Diporto Agoras, a basement taverna close to our hotel. The mid-afternoon sun
was searing, so it was a welcome relief to escape the heat in the cool surrounds of this subterranean eatery.
I’ll endeavour to describe our experience at Diporto Agoras, but I know it will be difficult (for a number of reasons). I want to capture the spirit of the place. The smell, noise and atmosphere of the place. The looks on the faces of other people. The looks on our faces. I’m not sure words are enough, but I’ll try. As we descended the steep steps into the taverna and our eyes adjusted to the dim light, I’m pretty sure my face resembled that of a stunned mullet. I’d never been in a place like this.
The place was popular. Very much so. Every table was taken, and I soon realised there were only two people running the place. One cooking; one serving. We stood at the bottom of the stairs and waited for a table. When a table became available, we sat and waited (for quite some time) before the dirty plates were removed by the sole waiter. As he rushed past, he grabbed the large sheet of butcher’s paper covering our table and screwed it up
with the fish bones and bread crusts from the previous customer’s meal. He then threw a clean sheet of butchers’ paper across the table and disappeared. We weren’t sure what to do, so we sat quietly and waited…
I need to describe the two people running the place. Firstly, the waiter. He was absolutely flat out. His work ethic was extraordinary, and he seemed to have a clear sense of everyone in the taverna. It was just a matter of getting to everyone in the order they arrived. His boss – the owner and cook – was a brash old man with a stern temperament. He too was flat out in his tiny kitchen area, and he was also very popular among the locals.
We kept trying to catch the waiter’s eye, but he simply waved his hand as if to say: ‘I’ll be with you soon.’ Eventually he threw a loaf of bread on the table as he rushed past. He then pushed a large copper jug (sitting in a plastic container filled with ice) onto our table. I’d seen him pour a pale-yellow liquid into the jug only seconds earlier, but I wasn’t sure what it
was. We soon discovered it was a very rough – but very enjoyable – white wine.
After a few minutes he walked towards us and threw two plates onto our table – one brimming with chick peas, the other overflowing with butter beans. Finally, a plate of fried fish was thrown into the middle of the table. We hadn’t ordered a thing, so we realised the taverna offered a set menu… and it was fantastic. The legumes were hearty, and the fried fish was incredible, especially with fresh lime juice squeezed over it.
We’ve always wanted to experience the type of restaurant that offers a set menu, where you simply walk in, sit down and enjoy the dishes being prepared in the kitchen on that particular day – without making a single decision. Not even about the wine. You simply eat and drink what’s placed in front of you. It was an amazing experience. The surrounds were basic, the wine was rough and there were no niceties like napkins – but the food was fantastic. I will fondly remember this basement taverna for a very long time.
Having devoured the fried fish with our fingers, it was
a bit of a shock to discover there was nowhere to wash our hands. Luckily, our hotel was just around the corner. We strolled back, cleaned our fishy fingers and headed straight to the Ancient Agora in nearby Monastiraki. There were two key reasons why I wanted to visit this sprawling historic site. Firstly, because Socrates used to frequent the place; and secondly, because we’d caught a train underneath the place about nine days earlier.
We arrived in the late afternoon and planned our walking tour of the leafy ruins in the following order:
> Stoa of Attalos
> Agora Museum
> Church of the Holy Apostles
> New Bouleuterion
> Temple of Hephaistos (which was very popular with photographers)
> Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios (one of the places where Socrates expounded his philosophic methods).
It was an amazing site to visit, and the highlight (for me) was sitting in the ruins of the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios and imagining Socrates chatting away with his Athenian friends and colleagues. We left the Ancient Agora around 6:30pm and headed back to the hotel, picking up some cold drinks from a local supermarket just over the road from where we
were staying.
After a quick visit to our hotel’s extraordinary rooftop bar, we settled in our room and caught up on our travel notes. It was so good to be back in Athens. We love the feel of this amazing metropolis. And best of all, the city had become familiar. We knew our way around, which is a feeling we love in new places.
SHE SAID... When we woke on our last morning in Kardamyli, I had two fleeting feelings – happiness at returning to
Athens and annoyance at not having tea making facilities in our room. I hadn’t slept well, and my stomach wasn’t feeling great. I just wanted a cup of tea without having to face the Kardamyli Beach Hotel’s odd breakfast set up.
By the time we packed and went down to breakfast, I was feeling slightly better, and managed two small pieces of
bougatsa (custard phyllo pie) with my pot of tea. However, when it came to writing my notes, I couldn’t remember if the
bougatsa had been good. So, at best I’d say it had been average. We took in one last view of the beautiful panoramic view of the
Messenian Gulf and the Taygetos Mountains from our room’s balcony, then piled into the minibus for the long trip back to Athens.
This time I’m happy to report that we scored seats in the middle of our small minibus. It was far more comfortable than the back seat, not just in terms of nursing my sore tummy, but also because there was a bit more elbow space to write travel notes.
We were basically crossing almost the entire width of the Peloponnese – from the deep southwestern corner of the Messinian Mani peninsula to the eastern side, where the Corinth Canal would deliver us back to the central part of the Greek mainland.
I had expected to see a rapidly changing landscape as we moved across the Peloponnese, in a sort of sped-up reversal of the gradual shift in scenery we’d witnessed over the last week as we moved from the mainland to Kardamyli. However, after a brief drive through picturesque backroads, the view was somewhat dulled by the fact that we were on a multi-lane highway for most of the trip back to Athens. It was certainly time efficient, but not as beautiful and scenic as
I had anticipated.
We made good time on the highway, and before long we stopped at a roadside rest stop in Corinth. I say ‘rest stop’, but this wasn’t your average fast-food or greasy cafe and toilet stop. It was a very crisp and new looking cafe called Box Coffee with excellent toilets. There were various sub-stations within the large space that specialised in hot food, sandwiches, bakery items etc. All I could manage was a coke and a bit of Andrew’s corn
koulouri (a bready sesame encrusted ring). This was the first time I’d seen cans of ‘yellow’ lemon flavoured coke zero, but I stuck to my trusty ‘black’ coke zero.
From the cafe, a quick walk along the main road took us to the famous main bridge over the infamous Corinth Canal. All my life I’d seen this canal in books, magazines and films, but it wasn’t until we were standing on the very high bridge that I could fully appreciate what a feat of engineering the narrow canal really was. I don’t suffer from vertigo or have a fear of heights, but when I looked directly down at the ribbon of milky green water, the
sheer height of the bridge tricked my mind into thinking it swayed in the wind!
The man-made canal has been cut through 6km of limestone across the Corinth isthmus, thereby linking the Gulf of Corinth in the Ionian Sea with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It blew my mind even more when I realised that the project was first started by the Roman Emperor Nero in the 1st century AD (but wasn’t completed until the 19th century). Although a marvel in its own right, the 25m metre wide channel is now too narrow for the girth of modern ships. Some call it a colossal financial folly, but the initial masterminds of the canal had no way of predicting the future of engineering and mega-ship building.
We reboarded our minibus and crossed the bridge once more, this time on wheels. As we exited the Peloponnese peninsula, it occurred to me that given the narrow isthmus of Corinth (that connected the peninsula with the mainland) had been totally severed by this artificial canal, the peninsula was now technically a large island.
Soon enough after entering the mainland, we passed through the sprawling outskirts of Athens. At one
point we saw a distant shipyard that was apparently a few kilometres away from Piraeus, the passenger port from which we’d began this trip nine days earlier. On the one hand I felt like it had been much longer than just nine days – we’d seen and experienced so much on the Saronic Gulf islands and the Peloponnese peninsula! How could such a rich plethora of experiences have been gained in a mere nine days? But then on the other hand, as we drove into Athens and got our bearings, it felt like no time had passed at all. When we walked back into Hotel Attalos and checked into a familiar room, it felt like we’d just returned from a day out exploring.
We had just over two days in Athens before we began our travels into the north of the mainland. Having already done a lot of general sightseeing during our days in the city before we left for the Peloponnese, we were hoping to now concentrate on a few of the ‘very old’ things Athens is famous for. We were focussed on starting at the Ancient Agora, but first things first, we wanted to find a proper
Athenian spot for lunch.
Our room wasn’t quite ready, so we left our packs in the peculiar basement storage area and walked around our hotel’s neighbourhood streets of Psyrri with Dani. We ran into Mariana and Pedro on Evripidou Street (the one that skirts the central market), who like Dani were looking for last minute presents to take back home. We had been so effusive in our recommendations of Georgios from Roe Olives that they all ended up buying his products.
We’d already said our goodbyes to the group as a whole (apart from Georgia, who was going to be the Group Leader of our next trip), but we said a final sad goodbye to Dani, Pedro and Mariana. They had been a genuine pleasure to travel with… and I really wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up seeing them in some other part of the world on our future travels.
Andrew and I returned to the hotel to sort out a whole heap of laundry that we needed to leave at reception. After hydrating with a few cups of tea, we tried to motivate ourselves to head out into the blazing hot sun again. Finally, our
hungry tummies – along with the prospect of experiencing an old school underground taverna – impelled us to do so.
Underground tavernas became popular in the Ottoman Empire’s days of alcohol prohibition. They were male-only spaces where they’d close the doors and drink their home brews in secret. These days there are precious few of them left in Athens (in fact, we had attempted to locate one in the Plaka area, only to find that it had become a wine bar in the last few months). Diporto Agoras was only a few streets away from our hotel but a bit hard to find without any signage, so we had scouted its position on our earlier walk (and also made sure it was open).
Lunch at Diporto Agoras was an experience to say the least. It’s located right next to the Central Market, and it used to be popular with the market traders and local workers in the area. However, it’s recently found fame among tourists, and getting a table is now notoriously hard. Even though we’d turned up later in the afternoon, it was packed and we had to wait in a line that at times sneaked up
the steep stone stairs and onto Sokratous Street.
Wine barrels lined one wall, and tables were haphazardly placed around the small floor space. The kitchen was tiny. And the owner was run off his feet and overtly grumpy. We were eventually seated at a table which was cleared up in a hurry and a clean square of butcher’s paper thrown on top. I had read that the owner cooks whatever he finds at the market that day. And consistent with this, there was no menu from what we could see. So, we decided on what we were going to order based on the meals going out to everyone else. The staff didn’t speak English, and we were preparing to point and mime our order (and hopefully not get yelled at in the process).
What we’d failed to realise is that you don’t get to order; they merely bring out whatever the grumpy owner has cooked that day. The harried waiter plonked a chunk of bread and a copper carafe of white wine on our table. This was followed by a plate of deep-fried fish and bowls of
revithia soupa (chickpea soup) and
gigantes plaki (baked beans stew). Andrew
and I giggled nervously because we hadn’t intended on ordering the fish, but having seen others get berated by the owner for much more trivial issues than sending food back; we decided to embrace the challenge of tucking in with our fingers and de-boning the fish directly onto the table like the locals were doing. 😄
The meal was simple but tasty, and definitely the most authentic old-school Greek meal we’d had so far. I should also make note of the house white wine we were served. It was a local Greek wine called
retsina (white wine infused with pine resin) which has been produced in Greece for more than 2000 years. The resin was originally added by the ancient Greeks as a preservative, but now has come to represent a bygone era of sitting around your grandparents’ kitchen table and eating comfort food. I had been expecting something that was utterly undrinkable, but to my surprise it complemented Diporto’s home-style cooking quite well. The experience was very memorable and took me back to scenes from European black and white films from the 1950s and ‘60s.
I was very glad to see that the clientele at the taverna
was a good mix of locals and tourists. The locals were clearly much-loved regulars who good naturedly put up with the grumpy owner. The place was absolutely on the ‘no frills’ end of the scale, and the service verged on scary. Nevertheless, I would definitely return to have another meal at Diporto. After paying the bill that had been tallied on our paper tablecloth, we ensured we didn’t hit our heads on the weirdly low ceiling or stub our toes on the uneven concrete steps on our way out.
We walked back into the hot and bright afternoon sun, sighing with happiness. How absolutely amazing it was to be back in the familiar streets of Athens! We pointed ourselves in the direction of the Ancient Agora with the joy of knowing that we could find our way through most of central Athens without a map.
We made our way down to Monastiraki Square and past the railway line to the main entrance of the Ancient Agora. We spent a very enjoyable late afternoon wandering around the largish site – it’s thought that this was where ideas of modern civilisation and democracy were born, discussed and took hold. Andrew
was so thrilled to stroll the stony paths that Socrates himself would have once walked.
We followed the route suggested in the Lonely Planet (LP) guide, and started our explorations at the Stoa of Attalos. This restored building had once been a covered shopping mall. While I can’t speak for how faithful the restoration is to its history, I can definitely say that it’s now a stunning two-storey building. A part of the ground floor has been converted to a museum and gift shop, but I was most attracted to the covered open-front portico with its gorgeous rows of Doric columns. The upstairs section gave panoramic views of the rest of the agora, and it also houses an open museum.
Next, we walked to the Church of the Holy Apostles, a charming little 11th century Byzantine red brick church. It was apparently built to commemorate St Paul’s teaching in the agora. Sadly, it was locked, but I still enjoyed looking at its interesting external decorations. There were a few large trees in the vicinity of the church, in whose shade many tired humans and hot felines were seeking shelter.
We kept following the LP guide’s walk through
the site, with Andrew navigating us to the various buildings of note. Most of them were just foundation stones, and like at Epidavros, it required far more imagination that I had to conjure up the imagery of the grand structures they once were.
The crowds had mostly thinned by the time we had entered the Ancient Agora (at 5pm) but as forewarned in all our reading, the Temple of Hephaistos was still pretty crowded. It sits on a hill on the opposite end of the site to the Stoa of Attalos. It’s supposed to be the best-preserved Doric temple in Greece, and it was built in the 5th century BC by one of the architects of the Parthenon. Most interestingly of all its incarnations (as a church etc), this temple was once a refugee camp in the 1920s.
I should have liked this building, because it had beautiful architectural detail that we could get relatively close to; and it made for great photos… but this very reason made dozens of other people like it too, and ironically led me to dislike the experience. There used to be an unspoken rule of social etiquette when photographing in a popular
spot – you waited in a vague sort of queue, took a few shots and moved on. Sadly, the Instagram brigade has thrown this system totally out the window.
There were many small huddles of people with their multiple cameras who had staked out the best photographic positions. A whole group of us politely waited for ages while a group of six guys fluffed around with their ‘photoshoot’, and then began filming videos… eventually most people (including me) gave up and just walked in front of them to get our shots. This sort of thing really annoys me, because their rudeness forces others to behave rudely in order to not miss out. And it becomes a whole mess of rudeness and angst. It caused unnecessary harrumphing by everyone involved! 😞
While the Temple of Hephaistos was beautiful, the restored Stoa of Attalos was without a doubt my favourite building in the agora. We happened to be at the Stoa at golden hour, and the late afternoon sun cast the most beautiful long shadows from the columns. For me this building was a masterclass in how to restore and repurpose an ancient building without losing its soul. However, I’m
fairly sure many heritage historians, architects and restorers would disagree.
When we left the site close to 7pm, the evening had finally started to cool down, so we enjoyed our meander back to our hotel via a few Athenian treasures like Hadrian’s Library… which also glowed in the late evening light. I’ve said it already, but I’ll say it again – it was so lovely being back in Athens. 😄
We were still full from our late lunch at the taverna, so we stopped at the supermarket on the way back to the hotel and stocked up on bottles of coke (me) and beer (Andrew). When we’d left the local home in Kardamyli the night before, our hosts had thrust a plastic bag full of the
lalagia (local doughnuts) we’d made into each of our hands… and it was unexpectedly tasty with fizzy drinks.
We visited our hotel’s much loved rooftop bar to say ‘hi, we’re back’ to the view of the Parthenon, but the place was packed with a very large and loud group. So we left them to it and retreated to our room. It was nice to have a quiet evening of writing travel
notes and planning our adventures for the next day.
We’d booked this Greece trip at the last minute, and by then the only room that was left for this night (in between our two trips) had been a four-person quad room. It had seemed quite excessive at the time, but we didn’t really have a choice and we’d snapped it up. Now with both our packs totally emptied out for a massive laundry effort, I was very glad for the extra room to pack and get organised for our next trip. Andrew loved having ‘his’ spare room to spread out into, and I knew we would struggle when we had to move back into a tiny double room the next day.
But before then, we have a whole day of exploring Athens. 😊
See you around Athens!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
The joys of Greek Food
Thanks for taking us along on this culinary tour of Greece. Each day offered plenty of options for your taste buds to dance. The Greek waters are so lovely. A country rich in history and adventure.