I’ve recently given in to the demons, and I spend an inordinate amount of time on Instagram reels. The AI has learned, and it now knows the kind of little videos I’ll enjoy. Cats jumping and miscalculating the landing. Italians having breakdowns over incorrect pizza. Anything poking fun at Harry Maguire, the poor sod. And…
Tag: Greece
Follow the Little Owl- A Spring Visit to Athens
A little discouraged that the previous flat I had stayed in in Athens, on the edge of Exarcheia, was not available for our planned weekend, I set out to scour for alternative options, looking for a sign that would point me to the right direction. The sign showed itself in the form of a pun,…
Things Are Not Always What They Symi-Island Hopping in the Dodecanese
After spending one eventful morning embroiled in the entrails of Piraeus port being unable to locate the Hydra ferry, I swore never again to arrive at a port without doing my homework properly. I was also very glad that Duolingo did find it logical to teach me the Greek for ‘where is the boat to…
Athena Was Here, Perhaps Saint Paul Too, But Mary Has Left the Building: Lindos and Beyond
The island of Rhodos offers plenty of opportunities for a day trip, and you can plan most as a mix of beach splashing and more elevated cultural pursuits. After some careful evaluation we went for what we thought was a rather relaxed itinerary of Lindos, Butterfly Valley and Phileremos Monastery, with a starting point from…
Knights, Beaches and Negronis: The (Almost)Practical Guide: Rhodos Part Two
The old town of Rhodos is an open air museum in itself. Work on the fortifications that we see today was begun by the Knights Hospitalier in 1309, the year when they finished the conquest of the island. The different portions of the wall were guarded by the different Langues of the Knights- the langue,…
Love and Loathing on a Sun Soaked Island: Rhodos Part One
We have a complicated relationship, Rhodos and I. It began with what could only be described as love at first sight but then it went down unexpected Rho(a)des. It was the first time I had arrived in Greece by way of water, which could seem odd for a country so fundamentally defined by its seas,…
Food to Eat and Food for Thought- Thessaloniki Part Two
Disclaimer: You might expect, reasonably, I should add, that a post centred mostly on food and drinks would contain some photography of said items. I will therefore let you down right at the beginning. While the blog’s industrious co-photographer is an enthusiastic eater, he is generally way too concerned with consuming what’s on his plate…
Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Atatürk and A Monk Getting Pizza- Thessaloniki Part One
The plane’s path from Budapest is straight as an arrow, across the southern Hungarian plain, the whole length of Serbia, the brief interlude of North Macedonia and then one of those quintessentially Greek descents, from the sky you glimpse the sea, blue meets blue and the land seems almost secondary, an unwelcome guest among the…
A Vacation from Myself- Memories of Hydra
The English word vacation comes from the Latin vacans, the present active participle of vaco, which can mean, depending on the context, to be free, to be at leisure, or to be empty. Since Hungarian straightforwardly uses the same word, ‘szabadság’ both for freedom and vacation, and in Romanian you will say ‘îmi iau liber’,…
So What’s the Deal with Spetses
Loukas the taxi driver was interested in my long term plans in Greece. Surely, I was going to the islands, not just staying in Athens. Yes, I was. Which island? Oh! But you MUST go to Spetses. This was the automatic reaction every time I revealed my dirty little plan to just stay on Hydra….
Pocket Diary Budapest 