Athens

The famous song, “Tradition!” belted by Tevia in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” depicts a father relaying the importance of tradition to his daughter. Athens is such a place. Everywhere we visited seemed to echo the sound of trades being passed down through the family line.

First stop? The Parthenon where we learned about the building (which was amazing) and Greek mythology, which was… yawn (serious snooze-fest).

Afterwards, we paid a visit to Stavros, also known as The Poet, a well-known sandal maker (whose hand-crafted sandals for The Beatles, Jackie-O, and others) and recites poetry while making custom fitted sandals. No poetry was recited as his son explained, “He’s at home resting. Sorry, my father’s in his late 80’s.” Guess we’ll never know if he’s a better poet or sandal maker. However, everything we had envisioned when meeting the poet, seemed to be the same with Pantelis (his son), who now carries on the family tradition. The impeccable precision that went into making my sandals was astounding! The phrase, fits like a glove, has definitely taken on a new meaning for my footsies. His father would be proud.

This was the highlight I’d been waiting for all day; that and tasting authentic Greek food. Which was, by the way, WOW! I would’ve never known what I was missing until I tried a Greek salad prepared in a Greek kitchen. Husby chose the slow roasted beef with eggplant. The owner modeled how to eat the dish correctly (not with fork & spoon but rather with bread as the utensil).

How about those pastries in the street? You’d think my love muffin would’ve snatched the whole cart. It’s like rubbing salt in the wound each time I remind him how he should’ve tried one. Culture equation learned: Food is equal to if not greater than site seeing.