10 Days in Greece During the Off-Season (in a nutshell)

 a Government building in Athens

Athens. Hostel is perfect, friendly, and helpful. We wander around in the sunshine. Authentic gyro for lunch, amazing. Found a pastry shop that I have no doubt or hesitation in declaring that it must make the best pastries in the entire world. The Acropolis towers over the city majestically, lit up against the clear night sky. Went to dinner in a couple-hundred-year-old wine cellar where a table of elderly Greek couples beside us pulled out their song book and passed it around serenading us throughout our delicious meal of spanakopita and tzatziki. Up early to find our ferry to Milos. Made everyone on the boat jealous with our decadent breakfast of cream-filled, caramel-honey frosted donuts from the bakery and fresh strawberries from the market. We are the only tourists on the entire ferry. We stuck out with our blonde hair and shorts that were worn more out of insistence that it was spring break than the need to stay cool. Escaped the scrutinizing stares, up to the empty top deck of the boat to be in the sun and gawk at the islands we docked at. 

  amazing vistas of the extreme Milos landscape

 

Milos. Starving. Sat unsuspectingly on a deck café and ordered more food than we could eat and a cold beer. The waiter brought us each two beers. Then a shot. Then massive beers. Then another shot. Then refilled our beers. Repeatedly. Welcome to Milos? Nap time. Woke up and took the cab to the capital, Plaka, even though we had slept through our dinner reservation. Tiny little restaurant run by a husband and wife. They had been waiting for us and were so excited that we actually showed up. We ordered fish baked with potatoes and sun-dried tomatoes. Absolutely phenomenal. We came back three more times and ate our meals and watched Dancing with the Stars with our newly adopted Greek grandparents. Best meals since being in Europe. Rented a car and found countless beautiful beaches. Found herds of goats with big old bells on their necks that made the nicest music at the slightest movement. On a quest for sunshine, drove towards the sunshine, got stuck in rain, found the sunshine. Napped on the beach till the sun started to sink behind the hills. Next day taking a ferry to Santorini at 5. Got to the port, ferry not leaving till midnight or possibly 6 a.m. because of high winds. Sat on the ferry…for 36 hours…until the ferry left at midnight the following night. Swells so powerful, impossible to stand up. Terrified.

           

 Oia, the most picturesque city in Santorini

 

Santorini. Get there at 4 a.m., drive up up up the cliffs. Feel like we’re floating in darkness. They weren’t expecting us so they give us blankets and cots to sleep in the outdoors living room for the remainder of the night. Hot shower is so necessary when we finally get into the room. Cold out so took a bus to a winery to do a tour and tasting. What a failure. Creepy mannequins reenacting how wine was made on ancient wine press’s and three tiny glasses of lack luster wine. Waited at the bus stop for 45 minutes in the cold. Back to the hotel and are pleasantly surprised to find a DVD player and black and white movies in English and the hotel brings us wine and snacks on a tray. Dinner, chef brings us unlimited free wine and dessert. Things are looking up. Next morning, rented a car and drove to Oia, the picturesque town on all the post cards of “Greek Isles”.  Found shelter from the wind and enjoyed the sun from someone’s deserted Villa patio. Found Black Beach. Found Red Beach. Watched the sun sunk red into the ocean as the pink light faded to purple on the white washed buildings. Dinner at the same restaurant three nights in a row. Best moussaka I have ever tasted, maybe even better than the dinners in Milos. 8 hour ferry back to Athens. Try to sleep. Screaming Children.

            The Acropolis, close to where we stayed in Plaka, Athens

Athens. Acropolis is not as breathtaking up close because it is over packed with tourists and you can’t get very close to the structure. Flea market. Getting really sick of being haggled by people selling scarves, togas, gladiator sandals, silly squishy plastic balls that splat on the ground, and even restaurants hosts who try to corral you into their dining area. Mentally exhausted. Somehow climb to the highest point of Athens. Share a beer and admire the mass of white buildings that extend as far as the eye can see in every direction with the Acropolis jutting above it all on its rocky perch. Barter for a better price at dinner just because we can and we are broke at this point. Train to Airport. Plane to Rome. Bus to train station. So fed up with traveling I go ahead and buy the overpriced 1 hour train back to Florence.

            Home.

sunset in Oia

For Hotels/Hostels that we stayed in on a student budget in the off-season:

Student & Traveler's Inn in Plaka, Athens

Dionisis Hotel in Adamanas, Milos

San Giorgos Vilas in Fira, Santorini

"One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind."

- Dorthea Lang                            

Homemade Limoncello

When visiting Academia (the museum that is the home of Michelangelo's David) I picked up an Italian cookbook that was translated into English hoping to use to to make some traditional Italian food at home. In the cookbook was the recipe for homemade limoncello, a very strong, lemony, sweet liquor served after meals. My roommates and I decided to make our own. Here is the recipe:

400 g of sugar
5 dl of 95 proof alcohol
the juice of 1 lemon
the peel of 6 lemons
16 lemon leaves

Set the lemon leaves and peel to macerate in the alcohol in a hermetically sealed jar in a dark place for 15 days, shaking the jar from time to time. When fifteen days have passed, add 5 dl of water mixed with lemon juice and sugar and leave aside for 24 hours. Filter carefully, bottle, and leave to rest for a month. 

The first step is completed, we will add the sugar/water/lemon juice on Saturday and it will be ready to drink on April 10th!

Horseback Riding & Wine Tasting in Chianti

On a beautiful Saturday morning, I woke up early and walked in the sunshine to the train station to meet my friends and our tour guide to go into the Chianti region of Siena to go horseback riding and wine tasting. Even though it was the perfect day for the trip, we were lucky enough to be the only ones who had signed up that day so we were pleasantly surprised with a private tour. We took a forty-five minute car ride to L’ équipe Agrifoglio, a horse farm located in a small valley in the green rolling hillside of Siena. The five of us were helped onto our horses and followed our excursion leader in single file out onto the dirt paths that wove through the farm land and vinyards. We rode for a little over an hour, plodding along through the countryside and hoping our horses would stop to graze for a second so that they had to canter to catch up with the group, giving us a thrill as we squeezed the horses sides tighter to stay on, the wind whipping in our hair for just a few seconds. Although we asked our guide if we could go faster we were told it was not safe since one of the girls had never ridden before, which was probably the right choice considering what happened later.

When we got back to the farm, our friend who had ridden when she was younger was allowed to take the horse to the ring and go as fast as she liked, and we all ran excitedly through the mud to watch her, accompanied by our tour guide who brought along a bottle of locally harvested Chianti to enjoy the show. Her horse, a racing horse from Germany, was used to going fast and she had to pull the reigns back as hard as she could to keep the horse from darting into a swift gallop. Having no more arm strength left, she let the horse have its way and the quick burst of speed the horse took off when it realized it was in control toppled her over the front of the horses right shoulder. Luckily, she had fallen many times in her years riding and nothing was hurt except for her pride, but we all clenched our plastic wine glasses a little more tightly until the horse was back in the stable.

           

While we sat and finished the bottle of wine, our tour guide told us about the castle we were going to visit and how it was built as a fortress for when Siena and Florence were in constant competition for control of trade routes in the sixteenth century. Both Siena and Florence built castles close to the trade because all goods had to be taxed on their way into the city. Who controlled more trade routs, could tax more goods, and therefore have more money and be more powerful. After briefing us on the history, we climbed back into the car and headed to the castle where we would be having lunch and doing our wine tasting. Upon first arriving we enjoyed a traditional Tuscan lunch accompanied by a white wine with the appetizer of bruchetta and cured meats and a red wine with the spicy, tomato and spinach pasta. After our lunch we went across the piazza and down into the wine cellar of a tiny wine shop, and were given the history and tastes of five different wines, honey and olive oil by a friendly employee. After trying the assortment of wines we all gave in and bought at least one bottle. I bought the last wine we tasted, a 2007 Chianti, which we were told was an excellent year for Chianti in that region and could be aged for up to ten years and would only get better. It will be my first bottle in my wine collection and I look forward to opening it in ten years and remembering the wonderful day my friends and I spent in Tuscany tasting wine and riding horses through the beautiful Chianti countryside.

 For horseback riding tours and other fun day trips in Tuscany visit Fun in Tuscany's website

The Perfect Day in Paris

On a slightly overcast day in Paris, my friend and I jumped on the metro and headed toward Montmartre. Eager for a day of adventuring, our enthusiasm was briefly halted by a Metro police duo demanding to see our metro tickets in order to get on the train. In all my local friend’s two months in Paris, he had never run into the rumored Metro patrollers  but on this day, the day I snuck through the bar behind him as he swiped his student pass, they were out in full force. Forty euro later (no lost-ticket-excuses, begging, or bartering to a lower price allowed) we took our very expensive Metro ride to Montmarte. Lesson learned: buy your metro tickets. 

And bus tickets. 

And train tickets (side note: For train tickets don’t forget to stamp your ticket in the yellow box in all the train stations, they will charge you 40 euro also. I weaseled my way out of that one for only 5 but I am told I was lucky). 

Anyway, on to Montmartre. Montmartre is a small artist colony set back on winding streets and squares behind the grand Sacré-Cœur. The Sacré-Cœur is beautiful white, domed, towering Roman Catholic Church that sits on the highest point of Paris’ Right Bank, looking over the city ethereally.

 

We bought a cheap bottle of Riesling (which is nonexistent in Italy) and pack of foreign-looking candy and climbed the steps that lead up to the church. We stopped and sat at top of the stairs, split our bottle of wine, tried all the various candies curiously, and watched all the different performers who had also made the climb to the steps, hoping to earn a little money from those who had gathered to enjoy the view. There were several guitar playing, croaky singers, hip-hop dancers, and one man who juggled a soccer ball all the way up a lamp post. We thought this must have been a once in a lifetime event to see until I looked it up online and he seems to be quite famous. But unlike all the videos I found, he did not mess up once when we were watching. Take a look!

 

After a glass of wine and some entertainment, we headed back behind the church on a tiny cobblestone road laden with cafes and vintage art vendors until we found ourselves in a square. The square was surrounded with quaint buildings adorned with flower boxes and bustling with artists, families, and friends meeting to have a drink at one of the bordering cafés. We meandered through the easels that had art displayed to sell on one side and the artist absorbed in their next piece on the other. We admired the art, laughed at some of the caricatures being done and spotted two elderly French men wrapped in scarves and old tweed coats moving their pieces across an ancient wooden chessboard behind an easel. We stopped to watch until the game was finished and snagged a prime seat looking out on the square under the awning of a friendly café right as it started to drizzle. 

 

We sat there for hours until it grew dark, having cappuccinos, crepes, and trying the French specialty: hot wine (it’s delicious). When the square was almost completely packed up of all its artwork and the hustle and bustle that went along with it, we wove our way back down the stone steps to continue our adventure elsewhere.

 

What's for Breakfast?

Here in Florence, and most of Europe for that matter, breakfast is not a big deal. Italians will pick up a pastry and a cappuccino on the way to work or just down an espresso and call it a morning. 

At home, my parents made sure every morning before school that we had time to all sit around the kitchen table and share my dads poached eggs, bacon, and orange juice, or one of my mom's pies or tarts. Being a creature of habit, the Italian way was hard to adjust to.

I quickly became addicted to gulping down espressos and cappuccinos more out of a way to pass time in between classes than the actual need to wake up to the point that I couldn't keep my eyes open unless I had three espressos. Being tired all the time, I would barely get up in time for class and have to snag a pastry on the way to class. Now was I not only addicted to caffeine but I was demolishing large amounts of Nutella wrapped in buttery dough every morning. Not exactly healthy, and I would spend about 4 euros every morning on breakfast...a total of 28 a week.

After my parents visited they got me in the routine of buying yogurt, fruit, nuts and berries, and making my own breakfast every morning. I also started drinking tea instead of decending the slippery slope to a complete caffeine addiction. This new routine only cost me 5 euros total a week or less. I recently bought a plane ticket to Paris for 7 euros and a ticket to Malta for 12. Think of all the places you can go by just eating in!