February 27 - This is my Athens walking tour.

This morning we were up early in order to meet our tour guide, George for 9 am for a walking tour through the Central Market and the surrounding area. When we arrived at our meeting point at 8:50 he was already there waiting for us.


He had sent us some homework last night to read about the history of Athens. It was pretty heavy reading. Before starting our tour, he gave us a history and geography lesson. It was interesting but a bit hard to follow. He had the vocabulary but a very strong accent making it hard to absorb what he was saying. He took us all around the central part of Athens showing us the different markets, (fish, meat, spice and fruit and vegetable) the last one which we had been unable to find yesterday.

Lots of olives to choose from

He even showed us a restaurant that has no signs. It is just a set of stairs going down to the basement. The walls are surrounded by barrels of wine. They serve the same thing everyday. Jacques marked it as a waypoint on the GPS so that we can find it again. It is the only restaurant serving authentic old Greek recipes. He then took us to a grocery store. Most supermarkets have more than one level. The non food items like cleaning supplies and toiletries are on a different level from the food. The tour is given by volunteers and is free, but he did not say no to a tip. In addition, we had brought a bottle of Canadian Maple syrup as a gift.

Environmental friendly bikes (frame made of wood)

Temple of Zeus

City gate with part of the Acropolis in the background

So far, we have not seen any grocery store that are as big as the ones home. There are definitely not as many varieties of products as we have. The market seems to be the cheaper option to grocery shop by quite a bit so I guess that we will be going often.


Before coming home, we bought lamb chops, potatoes, olives, red peppers and mushrooms for supper tonight. It should go well with the bottle of red wine that we bought at the supermarket.

Goat on the left (with the tail), lamb on the right (without the tail) 

After the tour we came back to the apartment to rest a bit. We are starting to feel the effects of doing over 20,000 steps a day. I guess we are not in as good a shape as we thought we were.  All those stairs are the killers.


We finished the day with another stroll at Syntagma Square to do a cache in front of where the soldiers guard the memorial of the unknown soldier.


Today, the first case of corona virus was detected in Athens from someone who had gone to northern Italy. As a result, the festival that was supposed to happen this weekend has been cancelled. They want to contain it right away. Two other cases were confirmed earlier this week in northern Greece.