Week 34 - Roaming the streets

Adventures in Greece as we pursue the dream of buying a boat and cruising the Mediterranean.

It’s been a very quiet week. Mostly planning for our trip to do the Sea Trial for the boat next week — arranging a surveyor, an engine mechanic and coordinating the timing. But not too much else.

The weather is continuing to get warmer day by day and it really is beautiful around Athens at the moment with everything blooming, the scent of orange trees (when you lift your mask) and lots more people out and about. The shops have (mostly) re-opened, so we’re now able to buy basic supplies (like fresh seals for the coffee pot!) and it’s great to have some options again. The coronavirus cases haven’t exactly gone down yet, but they aren’t going up either, so I guess that’s positive.

Athens continues to have a vibrant street life. It’s very common to come across people filming what appears to be a music video, or a fashion shoot, an interview or a movie. We’d see something like this at least two to three times a week. I think it’s fairly prevalent around here because of the large number of pedestrian streets and the gritty “urban” feel.

We’ve been admiring shoes in the local shop windows for a while. Psyrri is full of traditional shoe makers that will hand craft a pair of shoes for you and we thought it would be a great 50th birthday present and a good memory of Athens as well. We’d visited during the last store opening, but of course everything shut down again — this time we were able to make some progress, so here’s me being measured up for some custom made shoes. Mum always used to say I had very odd shaped feet and the cobbler confirmed it and commented on it too!

On Wednesday it was 22C so we decided to head down to the beach with Hannah. It was far too cold for a swim, but she convinced me to come in anyway — just under 16C in the water is definitely too cold! I checked when I got home and this is actually the tail end of the coldest water temperature, it would have been warmer to go swimming when it was snowing! It warms up from here though, and by July should be around 28C.

We’ve been waiting and watching a new store at the end of our street get renovated and were excited that it finally opened. It’s a delicatessen with a good selection of quality cheeses and meats. A great excuse to spend far too much money on dinner. For dinner on Friday, we promised Hannah a traditional greek meal of stuffed tomatoes and at the market we asked for the “largest ones you can find”. Well, they delivered — these things are monstrous!

On one of our walks on Sunday morning we found a new corner of Kolonaki that we haven’t seen before and stumbled across Hadrian’s Reservoir. It dates back to 125CE and supplied water to Athens for almost 1,000 years. It was then abandoned until 1847 where it was restored and again supplied water to a growing Athens up until 1929.

Part of the preparation for the sea trial next week includes working out where you can actually go! At the moment, without permission from the coast guard, boats are only allowed to move within the area in the bay, bound by the green line to stop people carrying coronavirus between towns and islands. It all makes sense, but it’s interesting how far and detailed the restrictions go as you start digging into them.

Until next week where we expect to have some real news on a boat!

Tim & Karina