HappyTummy              

It’s almost fall, and I still haven’t posted about all the amazing ports of call we stopped at during our two-week Mediterranean cruise earlier this summer. One of the places we were most excited to visit—or revisit, I guess I should say—was Greece. B and I gorged on great Greek food when we vacationed there last summer, and we were thrilled to be headed back—almost exactly a year ago to the day.

In Athens, we skipped the Acropolis, since we already toured it last year. But did visit the newly opened Acropolis Museum—more on that later. First, we took the Metro from the Port of Piraeus and headed back to the Athens Central Market, where B and I walked through a maze of raw meat, poultry and seafood. Very gross and very stinky, but also really fascinating.

We’d only been at the market for an hour when B complained that he simply had to have a gyro before he passed out. I’m not exaggerating when I say that B has dreamed about authentic Greek gyros almost every single day since our vacation in Greece last year. We’ve eaten in Chicago’s Greektown many times since then, and none of the restaurants or dives make a gyro even remotely close to the ones he had in Greece.

So… we headed to the Monastiraki Flea Market to find a gyro for him. I remembered the exact location of a place we ate at last year. He wolfed this giant gyro down in just minutes… even though it was only 10 in the morning.

Next stop in Athens was the new Acropolis Museum, which we had wanted to see last year but couldn’t, because they kept postponing the grand opening date. The Acropolis Museum finally ended up opening to the public just a few days before we arrived this year, and they were running an admission special—only 1 Euro to get in! The museum was fascinating—it houses every artifact found on the Acropolis and the building itself is stands above ancient ruins, which you can see through a glass floor. Very cool.

At about 1pm, I was starting to get hungry myself. The summer sun in Athens can be brutal, so again, we opted for a restaurant we visited last year, where you sit outside under a canopy of trees and fans blow mist at you. It was lovely to catch a break, people watch and eat great food. I myself was dying to have a Greek salad. I know Greek salads seem easy to put together, but believe me when I say you’ll never find a better Greek salad than the ones you find in Greece. The Greek salads in Greece have only bell peppers, red onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, Kalamata olives and a fat slab of feta, sprinkled with oregano and drizzled with olive oil. There’s no lettuce, no capers, no chickpeas, no nothing else. And even though all Greek restaurants automatically serve you bread, and then charge you for it, nothing beats a true Greek salad with a lovely hunk of carb on a very hot day. Yum.

Although it had only been three hours since he ate that ginormous gyro, B ordered a chicken souvlaki. As I said, he really missed authentic Greek food.

And if you really don’t believe me, take a look at this photo. Taken about two hours after eating his chicken souvlaki, we found ourselves back at the same gyro stand in the Monastiraki Flea Market. We had to hurry back to our cruise ship before it left the port, and he wanted to make sure he got his fill of gyros… even though we’d be in Santorini a few days later (where he again ate gyros, oye)!

Finally, I leave you with this photograph of one of the most beautiful, peaceful and magical places on earth. A few days after we left Athens, our cruise ship stopped in Santorini. We hiked the caldera again—but this time, we hiked only the 6.5-mile path from the port town of Fira to Oia, on the northern tip of the island, instead of the round-trip hike. It was lovely, just as we remembered it. I wish I could say when we’d be there again. Hopefully once more in our lifetimes…

Other stops on our Mediterranean cruise:

• Barcelona, Spain
• Taormina, Sicily
• Istanbul, Turkey