Greece
Hello Belgium!
A next week, so a next country for us
to visit. Monday we travelled from Bulgaria to Greece by airplane. The flight
was quite spectacular because there were a lot of thunderstorms around us. So
the airplane was shaking from one side to the other because the heavy thermal
winds. But we survived it and now we here in the beautiful country Greece.
“Welcome to Hellas” were the first words the hotel
manager from our cosy hotel said to us. When he was helping to bring our
luggage to the rooms he explained us that Hellenic Republic is the official
name from Greece, but foreign people often say Hellas. So that was the reason
he greeted us in this way.
Now we’re settled in a very small and beautiful hotel
in the suburbs from Athens for one extra night, but afterwards we’ll travel to
the rest of the country. In Bulgaria, we mostly travelled by bike, but this
week we’ll travel with almost everything that can help us getting to the places
we wish.
This week is prepared well because three years ago, me
and my family had planned to visit the peninsula Greece and some of the islands
around it such as Crete and Rhodes. Afterwards, we changed plans and we went to
Italy that summer, but my mother already prepared a lot about Greece in many
aspects such as transports, places to visit, cities to visit, museums to visit,
etc.
So we asked our hotel manager Archangelos to have a
quick look at the information my mother has prepared, because he can eventually
give us some additional tips or tell us give us some addresses from places we
have to visit during our stay in Greece. But he was very surprised about the research
work my mother did and continued staring at the part “typical Greek dishes.
After a while he explained us that he started 5 years ago with this hotel and
before that, he was a chef in a famous Greek restaurant in the city centre of Thessaloniki.
Archangelos is such a nice person. I’m very glad that
I met this man. But we are here to visit Greece, so we started our visit with a
city tour around Athens. Athens it the capital city and also the biggest city
in Greece. The city Athens has a population of 655.780 inhabitants and the
suburbs are even bigger with 3.074.160 inhabitants. Athens is a very old and
historical city and well known as the home of Plato's Academy and
Aristotle's Lyceum.
The cultural visits are for later on this week. Now it
was only a quick meet and greet with this city. Around 6 o’clock, we were back
in the hotel. We took a shower and when we came back from our rooms, we were
surprised by the delicious smell of fresh prepared food. Archangelos prepared
skordalia with hummus, vegetables and pita for us. Skordalia can be traced back
to ancient Greece and contains thick purée of walnuts, almonds, crushed garlic
and olive oil.
I know for sure after this delicious meal that I love
the Greek food and I hope to taste more of that Greek food in the coming week.
Now I have to go to bed, because the alarm will ring early tomorrow morning.
I promise to write a second blog this week about Greece
because I really love this country.
Greetz from Hellas!
Stijn De Wulf
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