An Athenian Diary

21

A Walk around the Neighborhood

The other night about 8:00 I took a stroll down Xenokratous, the street up behind our house where the breadshop and the supermarkets are located, and it occurred to me that, though I've written about Kolonaki in general as an ambience, I haven't said much of anything about our neighborhood as a place to live. So here are some photos and descriptions of the places right by us that we visit on a regular basis, which you get to out of our wonderful back door, providing access to the world without going through the School.

The bread shop.

Every day we go here for fresh bread and milk. A loaf of wonderful, freshly baked bread costs us 60 euro-cents and lasts about a day. The bread's baked elsewhere and delivered about six am every morning to the hard-working family that owns the shop; we are sometimes their very first customers, as we get ready early weekday mornings for the kids to leave for school.  Caroline is very proud that she is big enough to go by herself to get the bread and milk sometimes, and is, we think, the favorite customer of the proprietress.

The ice-cream periptera.

Almost every periptera sells ice-cream but we've come to favor this one, a couple of blocks from our house, down on Xenokratous. It's a longer walk than some but that's nice too on a fall evening; an excuse to have a bit of a stroll along with the Athenians out for an evening. Keep your eyes open and you will see bits of old Athens inconspicuously displayed: two men walking down the street with their arms around each other (not gay, but just acting out an old practice much rarer now than before; one indeed is elderly); two women and a boy sitting in the key store, talking; young boys crouched on the stoop of an apartment building peering intently at their Game Boys -- okay, so that's not old Athens! But still it's a neighborhood, with people around. And the lady who works in the periptera Friday evenings knows the girls, and greets them with a big smile.

The super market.

Actually there are two: Xynos, which is closer, and Discount. Xynos seems to be the refuge of all the rude clerks who are no longer employed by the Post Office (which used to specialize in rudeness but has magically transformed into a place where you actually get help). Cramped and crowded, the supermarkets carry just enough American style goods -- peanut butter, microwave popcorn -- to fool you into thinking you will find anything you need, then just when the moment comes, the crucial thing isn't there (so with food coloring sought for Caroline's birthday party). But the feta cheese is really good, and sometimes they have what they call barbequed ham which isn't barbequed at all but is really good.

The Friday market

According to a report in the Eleutherotypia, 200 kilometers of city streets are closed every day for the farmers' markets, the laike. Ours takes place on Fridays, on Xenokratous, the street where the ice cream periptera and the supermarkets are located. The trucks start arriving early, and by eight or so they're all set up. Two blocks are dedicated. Down by our end is the fish seller, from whom we get fresh salmon or swordfish almost every Friday. Walking down the street you pass a stunning variety of stalls with carrots, tomatoes, produce of all kinds, even huge piles of spices open to the air, like some Middle Eastern bazaar. In the olden days someone was always shouting "Oranges! Oranges! 100 drachmai a kilo! Oranges!" Nobody shouts that anymore -- the drachma's long dead now -- but the sellers still shout out the quality of their wares, indistinguishable as they may be from everyone else's carrots or tomatoes. I swear, the vegetables and fruits are strikingly better than you get in the US, even in the summer at the markets. Perhaps the market here is now a bit more integrated into the larger EU world, perhaps, as I was told recently, the tomatoes aren't from Attike but are trucked in from the Korinthia -- I don't care: it's delightful to be ten seconds from door to market, every Friday.

The Food-and-Drinkery -- To Phagopoteion

One of Kolonaki's big problems in the "olden days" was the utter lack of simple, traditional Greek tavernas serving souvlaki and chicken and patates. Everywhere you turned some fashionable restaurant looked down its nose at you or hunkered, like the mysterious DekaOtko, in impenetrable darkness. And, of course, the prices were far out of the range of ordinary people. (In those days irony declared that, despite the "fashionableness" of the neighborhood, no exotic cuisine like Chinese would be permitted -- so you had expensive places with no variety.) The Phagopoteion (the "Food-and-Drinkery") has solved this problem. Perched on the sidewalk of Patriarchou Ioachim itself, the Phagopoteion offers absolutely standard taverna food at absolutely standard taverna prices. There's even a rotiesserie for classic gyros, but you can get kalamakia (grilled meat on a stick), brizoles (chops), patates, salads, and so on, and go away both satisfied and with enough money left to visit that ice-cream periptera on the way home. The staff remembers you, too -- my first visit I left behind a sweatshirt; on our second visit, ten or twelve days later, one of the waiters popped out of the back with it raised triumphantly in his hands. And I hadn't even noticed I'd forgotten it.

Floca.

Zacharoplasteia: the ubiquitous shops jammed full of cakes, cookies, confections -- anything that can be made with sugar, butter, and eggs. Rare in the US, they proliferate here. Everyone has a favorite; arguing about which is best is a common pastime when lounging over coffee. But the kids like Floca -- if only because it's right on the corner where the bus lets them off from school, and Edie takes them there religiously every Friday for a treat to mark the end of the school week.

Playgrounds.

Kolonaki is much better equipped with playgrounds for kids than it was in the old days. The American School (thanks to Mary Coulson) now has a swing set in the lower garden, whose only disadvantage is the bees that swarm around it in the late summer. Around the corner from us is a spanking new playground with all the amenities; apparently local officialdom's idea of keeping it spanking new is to keep it locked up against marauding bands of juveniles -- we've never seen it open. Slightly farther afield, up the hill a way, is a great playground on a plateia with a statue of Odyesseus Elitas -- one of Greece's great modern poets. Aside from the usual equipment, there's a tree you can climb. Our kids have played here, and when the weather's nice there are always a few kids here, with parents or grandparents or sitters lounging on the benches. Once some boys playing soccer helped us overturn (quite improperly) a stone that looked like it might be inscribed (it wasn't) and helped us peer into the remains of Hadrian's Aqueduct which ran along this side of Lykavettos, bearing water to bathers and the thirsty in second-century AD Athens. Finally, there's a new playground just up behind the School, long a source of great frustration because though finished it was locked for weeks -- but now is open, and invited play even in the rain.

The Hilton

The only reason to include this depressing place is that it's a local landmark -- you need to find us, and you tell people either "Near the Hilton" or "Behind Evangelismos" (the big hospital). The facade of the Hilton does have its interest, a windowless mass of concrete decorated with shapes that look vaguely Egyptian (why this in Greece, do not ask me, unless perhaps the Hilton chain clandestinely ascribes to the theories of Martin Bernal). And, of course, if terrorists decide to strike, it's an obvious target -- much better than the puny little American School!

The Kotopoulo Palace

Tucked away on Kolonaki Plateia you'll find a tiny little place, barely ten feet wide, with seating only outside, whose real name remains a mystery, but which is know to us an the "Kotopoulo (Chicken) Palace."It's the place you go for roasted chickens. They'll cut 'em up for you, season 'em with a delightful combination of salt and spices, and wrap 'em up with patates (French fries) to take home. Makes a great dinner. We indulged in these weekly, or more often, till we realized how much the price had risen since twenty years ago; but the owners still remembers me and teases me with a great smile every time I pass by.

The Ideal Fresh Oporopoleion

When the Friday market's closed (because it's not Friday), the place to go for fruits and vegetables is the "Ideal Fresh Oporopoleion." Located on Patriachou Ioachim just before you get to the Plateia, it's one of the traditional shops that's survived the scale-ification of Kolonaki. The guys who work there -- I can't tell who owns it, who's just an employee (the difference may be less distinct than we're used to) -- greet you with a bag in hand, ready to pick and weigh your produce. Everything's fresh and ripe and absolutely delicious.

December 3, 2003

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