Days 7 & 8: The Greek Kitchen and the Ancient Agora

On Saturday morning, we had breakfast in our hotel and took a bus in the rain (despite not having tickets--apparently you can't pay onboard in Athens, as we were expected to do on Santorini) to central Plaka. There we joined a cooking class with The Greek Kitchen. Our classmates were a family of four from Brisbane, Australia, a couple from Texas, a mother-daughter duo from the UK, a securities lawyer from D.C. who desperately needed a break from work, and a young woman from Nuremberg who is working in Athens for a couple of months on an up-coming beer festival. 

Our instructor, Vasia, gave us a tour of the nearby partially covered open-air food market. She told us about the offal soup Greeks eat at midnight after Holy Saturday services to break their Lenten fast of no animal products (Orthodox Easter is May 5 this year), and a different one made of cow stomach and feet that's supposed to help a hangover. (She recommended continuing to drink instead!) Then it was on to the fish market and how to tell when a fish is fresh. Finally, we went through the fruit and olive stalls. After class, Dear Husband and I circled back to pick up some apples and oranges for the rest of our trip.

SO MANY OLIVES!

We took turns chopping ingredients for things like tzatziki and making individual dishes. We learned how to roll both dolmades (rice +/- ground beef in grape leaves) and spanakopita. There was an eggplant dish, and dessert was an orange "pie" with torn phyllo dough that had the texture of a British pudding. Along the way, Vasia told jokes and played music, and we chatted amongst ourselves. 

Finally, lunch! Everything tasted delicious. 10/10, can recommend, had a lot of fun. After that we walked over to Monastiraki Square and the Ancient Agora (below). There's a small museum with objects from graves, and then a focus on the buildings that occupied the place over the centuries.

View of the Ancient Agora from the mount of Hephaestus's Temple, with the reconstructed stoa that holds the museum.

Left: ceramic boots found in women's graves. Right: a machine for determining who had jury duty. Below: obligatory red and black pottery.

I looked cute in the sunshine.

Above: Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles, unfortunately closed for renovations. Below: The temple to Hephaestus (patron of fire, metal-working, and pottery) mostly survives. From 700-1800s it was a church to Saint George. Otto I was declared the first Greek King after independence from the Ottoman Empire there in 1833. It was used as a museum 1834-1934, and then it became an archaeological site.

DH really wanted to visit the Aeropagus (Mars Hill), where Paul preached to the Athenians. Due to fencing around the various site, it was a looong uphill walk. Unlike the Acropolis nextdoor, the hill is free to clamber up for the breathtaking views of the city.

By the time we had walked back to our hotel, I was nauseous and pre-syncopal, and I eventually developed full-blown food poisoning. It's unclear whether the culprit was the Indian curry for dinner the previous night or the eggplant dish for lunch. Nevertheless, an uncomfortable night for both of us. Sunday morning we did get dressed and go to St. Paul's Anglican church, but I only made it partway through the service before having to leave and lie down on a bench outside. The congregants kindly checked on me and offered water, but mostly I wanted to walk back to the hotel (slowly), take a nap, and nibble on crackers/sip on water. We scrapped our lunch and dinner plans, as well as a visit the Benacki Museum of Islamic Art. (I made do with their virtual tour.) With any luck, we'll still get to ride the funicular up to Lycabettus Hill before we leave.