Cheeky?

I know I've probably mentioned this before, but the news reports on Greek TV are rubbish. It doesn't really matter which channel you watch, all the terrestrial channels have hour-long bulletins. You could start watching the "News" at around 3.00pm and still be watching it at 11.00pm the same evening simply by flicking channels.

That's not what amazes me though. What I find myself remarking to my better half most times when we tune in, whether it be to Alpha, Ant1, Open Beyond, Skai, Star or the three ERT channels, is that the actual content of the news during the high summer is verging on the pornographic.

In the UK, despite morals being at an all-time low, all female TV presenters most obviously are told to 'dress-down' (There's no way most of them would even consider wearing some of the weird dresses, jackets and tops that they sit behind the desk or stand beside the Video screen wearing when on camera). Each TV station simply must have a 'wardrobe' dept. where the news readers and presenters probably have to go to change out of what they came to work wearing, into the awful, frumpy, disgusting-coloured stuff that they appear before the Great British Public wearing, and that's my immovable position on the subject.

Yet, here in Greece, even the newsreaders (the female ones) have no qualms about wearing figure-hugging garments that often display ample evidence of their cleavage, as they tell the nation about the events of the day. That's the thing, though, they actually don't tell us all that much about the events of the day. What they do is focus on the latest 'major' event here in Greece; like, for example, "There's a ferry strike planned for next Thursday", or "Forest fires rage in some-such place". If there's been a murder, or someone's disappeared while hiking on an island somewhere, or (more often) some corrupt politician's up before the beak - OK so that will be the main headline, which they'll talk about for fifteen minutes (at least), various pundits yelling at each other while they show a loop of fifteen seconds of video over, and over, and over, and over again.

Once they've exhausted the main story, and I use the word 'exhausted' advisedly, they'll move on to the fact that - wait for it - it's summer (NO!!!) and the weather here in Greece is rather hot (it IS?). Cue lots of video footage taken on beaches around the country, with the camera well and truly concentrating on thong-adorned bums and hankie-sized bikini tops. If you didn't know that it was a news bulletin, and you just switched the TV on, you'd dive for your toddlers to cover their eyes, or fumble with the remote in a desperate attempt to change the channel, only to arrive at another, whose news bulletin overlaps the one you stumbled across, and find that they also have only just discovered that there is a lot of flesh on display on the beaches all over the country. Well, knock me over with a wet fish.

The reporter, trying hard to make it sound of vital importance to the nation, will then be shoving his or her microphone up the noses of girls who look like they're taking a break from shooting the next front page of "Vogue" or "Cosmopolitan", while they lie prone on their sun loungers, and they'll ask things like, "So, how do you cope with the summer heat, then?"

Their answers will usually be highly intellectual replies like, "We come here to the beach. It's a good place for some cooler air, it's a great hang-out. We can go for a swim, it's nice." Queue more video of thongs in bum-cracks as some unwitting girls wade into the sea to cool off.

I'm not kidding folks, really. Now and again one or two of the channels, notably Ant1, will squeeze a kind of 'round-up' of world news in towards the end of the bulletin, usually a bunch of clips cadged from other TV channels from other countries showing a series of almost newsworthy events from places as diverse as Italy, Australia, the UK, the USA etc. This 'round-up' will last all of five minutes. Wow.

Looking around the world there's a lot of pretty vital stuff going on. Putin and Trump seem hell-bent on re-starting the arms race, China's about to get heavy in Hong Kong, climate change is bringing hellish conditions to de-stabilise the weather in country after country, North Korea's firing missiles like there's no tomorrow (there may well not be), mass shootings are almost a daily occurrence in the good old USA, but here in Greece? Well, it's summer, so wonder of wonders, there are lots of babes on the beach that can be surreptitiously filmed to titivate the male viewing public and bemuse the old ya yas of the country, whilst handily filling up the allotted sixty minutes of yet another overly-long news bulletin.

I'm really not kidding, if I had a Euro for every naked bum cheek that I've been subjected to on a Greek beach during a so-called TV 'news' bulletin during a typical Greek summer, then I'd truly be very wealthy indeed. It all kind of reminds me of the old Chris Rea song "Tennis." That song was much misunderstood, but, having heard Rea himself explain it, I can say with confidence that it's making the same kind of point that I'm trying to stress here. As Rea sang in the second verse:

"There are people in boats in the middle of the sea
Crying and dying like Jews
Do you like tennis?
Freedom is the man with the red grenade
She ran out of gas, got beat and raped
Do you like tennis?"

He says "Do you like tennis" to stress the point that (and, oddly enough I actually remember this incident) a rather attractive female tennis player, during her debut appearance at Wimbledon way back when, suddenly found that she had an itch in a region of her body that one would normally not want to draw attention to in public. Without thinking, she shoved her hand down her knickers and had a good scratch. That was all there was to it. Afterwards, she served and started the next rally. The result though, was that even though there was some pretty bad stuff going down in the world at the time, including Vietnamese 'boat-people' dying while trying to escape to another land by sea (plus ça change, eh?), the newspapers the following morning all chose to lead with stills of the unfortunate girl player with her hand down her pants on a show court at Wimbledon. Stuff the really tragic news, as he sang in the first verse...

"But the headline's on tennis

So it seems, everything's all right

There's a girl from the Midwest, with a pretty face

Scratched where it itched, they said it was a disgrace

"I don't wanna go to work today

Wanna stay at home and watch that girl play"

Do you like tennis?

Yes I do."

See, I get it to a degree. The Greek terrestrial TV channels are largely run on very low budgets. In fact one or two have recently gone to the wall, notably the channel "Mega." So they can't finance trips to all the various far-flung corners of the world for their reporters to send VT back from various world hotspots. They simply don't have the budget. So, my argument would be, why not shorten the flippin' news bulletins, instead of titivating the public with all this banal stuff about "people flocking to the beaches and islands because it's summer." I mean - hello!?

What do they fill the news bulletins with in winter I hear you asking? I'll tell you, almost every night there will be some earnest reporter or other talking 'live' from a fish market, or a fruit and veg market in downtown Athens, and they'll be making the price of onions sound like a global issue that's liable to bring down governments.

Of course, they don't actually have to fill the entire sixty minutes with 'news.' When it gets to around a quarter-to the hour they'll break for a full seven or eight minutes of ads, sometimes more, including quite often the same ads repeating three times during the same commercial break. Once you've put the kettle on, had a shower, done some gardening and solved third world debt, you can flop back down on to the sofa again to watch as the commercial break finally comes to an end, just in time for the presenter, who's evidently been waiting at his or her desk for all that time (probably reading War and Peace), to say "Goodnight, and thanks for watching."

Now, where's the sense in that, eh? Why don't they simply let the presenter sign off and then show the ads, when the programme's over? That would be far too logical. Instead the hapless anchor person has to sit there for what must seem like half a lifetime, simply to be able to say goodnight when the ads come to an end. In fact, I reckon a little advice from yours truly would improve the effectiveness of the ad breaks here in Greece anyway. I'm sure you know where I'm coming from on this. I mean, doesn't it stand to reason that if a commercial break is only two minutes long, then more viewers will sit through it (and thus see the ads), knowing that if they get up and go off then they're going to miss something (frequently quite a lot of human flesh in the case of the news) and thus they'll stay put. On the other hand, if a commercial break is known by the viewer to go on for upwards of eight to ten minutes, you can bet your sweet bottom dollar that no one's going to be watching, thus rendering all that advertising expenditure on the part of the advertisers a poor investment.

I've often watched a football match in a local café/bar here in Greece. Once half-time is reached, you won't see a couple of pundits talking about how the match has been so far for fifteen minutes, oh no. What you'll get is a full quarter of an hour of commercials, and so the barman will grab the remote and change channels. Everyone would rather see fifteen minutes of a truly awful soap, or maybe water polo, while they're waiting for the second half of the match to begin, than sit through ad after ad.

Maybe if they reduced sections of the news bulletins to fifteen minutes; you know, those extended reports from flesh-packed Greek beaches, and inserted them into the half-time break, at least people wouldn't want to switch channels.

I reckon some of these thong-clad beach-girls are missing a trick. If they got various logos tattooed onto their cheeks (the ones below the back and above the legs, not the ones each side of the nose, you understand), they could get paid handsomely for strutting down to the water's edge and taking a dip, all the while telling the viewing public (without words) which air-conditioning units to buy.

I should be in advertising.

Man About Town

Had to go to Rhodes this morning, so, as is our custom these days, we had to have a coffee with bougatsa at the Aktaion. Then a few errands. So, I just snapped these as we wandered about the place...

Zzzzzzzzzzzz...

Hello Peeps. I am still alive, just hiding indoors with the shutters tightly closed against the 38 degree heat we're having at the moment.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of mediocre shots from last night, when we did at least venture out after dark...

Sorry, uncharacteristically I moved my hand.

Anyone familiar with our part of Rhodes will know where these were taken. The first one approximately 20km from the 2nd two.

Talk soon, I'm going back to sleep!

Hidden Gems

Just a few more photos taken in Arhangelos recently. I've posted a few on the "Published Works" Facebook page back in June too. I think it's such a joy to wander away from the main thoroughfares. You end up seeing streets like these...

This was a clever illusion. The far wall is actually simply a boundary wall to the yard, but it creates the impression that it's a cottage. If you zoom in on the doorway, you can see light from the weed patch beyond coming through the crack between the doors.

Vicious Circle

Driving the other day, we were talking about some of the really bad habits that the locals have that can take some getting used to. For instance, when I was learning to drive, ooh about a hundred years ago [I am using hyperbole!!], I always remember the public service announcements that we used to get on UK TV, designed to make us all better members of society. Something that was drummed into me was the need to allow approximately one car-length for every ten miles per hour that one was travelling, assuming that there is a line of vehicles on the road, of course.

So, to spell it out, if the traffic is moving at fifty miles per hour, then you ought to allow five car lengths between you and the car in front. 'Simples.' This is, of course, to allow some kind of safe braking zone if the vehicle or vehicles in front have to brake suddenly. That way you stand a chance of stopping before you 'prang' the guy in front, or even worse, become part of a pile-up, in which you and several others get shunted both front and rear. The insurance company's nightmare.

Now, if you look in your rear view mirror whilst driving in a line of vehicles, and I'm sure many will identify with this, you can get quite alarmed if the vehicle behind you is so close that you can't even see its headlamps. It freaks me out even more if I can't even see any of its bonnet (OK, OK, 'hood' dudes), but what I can see of it begins with the wipers and goes upwards from there. If in such circumstances I were to slam on the brakes, even at a mere 25 mph, the driver behind would 100% smash into me, no contest.

And so I come to one of the not only most annoying, but downright dangerous, habits that most of the locals here have. Tailgating. Now, at this time of the year on Rhodes (and it gets worse every year with all the new hotels that are being thrown up along the east coast of the island) you can guarantee that, unless you're driving the 'Rodo-Lindou' main road at 3.00am, you're virtually certain to be in a line of traffic, often twenty cars long, usually behind a flippin' quad bike (Grrrr). Even at that speed the safe distance is a couple or three car lengths between each vehicle. Instead, you find that most Greeks are trying to kiss the rear bumper of the car in front with their front one. I know, they don't call them bumpers any more, but old habits. To me it often looks like a row of cars all towing each other along, they're driving that close to the vehicle in front.

See, there's little old socially responsible, not to say accident-paranoid, me, trying to keep a safe distance, and what does someone from behind do? They see that gap as a case of me needlessly keeping them from racing to their destination and so they'll slipstream me, like they do in Formula One, then, as soon as they get the minutest of gaps in the oncoming traffic, they'll duck out from behind, missing my offside tail light by a gnat's whisker, before slotting back in right in front of me, thus forcing me to drop back further to allow a safe distance behind this interloper. Net result, I slip further and further back down the 'queue' simply through trying to drive safely.

I can say, hand on heart, that nine times out of ten, if I'm in a queue of cars, and we can even be doing 90kph, which is around 56mph, I'll not be able to see the headlamps of the car behind me in my rearview mirror.

Small wonder that there are so many newly installed mini-shrines along the roadside verges here in Rhodes (and no doubt the rest of Greece I'd imagine). Fatal accidents are almost a hobby over here.

I happened to remark on a few of the newer of those shrines just this week. I said to her indoors as we crawled along, "At the rate we're going there will be a shrine every fifty metres for the entire length of this road before long. It seems that Greeks are able to create a serious accident just about anywhere, even on what we in the UK would consider safe sections of the highway."

The better half, evidently experiencing one of her more witty moments, replied, "Yea, and when they're so hidebound by the religious 'requirement' that they cross themselves each time they pass anything remotely religious within sight of the road, it's not surprising that there are so many accidents. Someone dies, they erect a shrine. Someone else passes, spots the shrine, crosses themselves while trying to talk on their mobile phone with the other hand and, bingo, another accident and hence another shrine. It's a vicious circle."

If it weren't almost funny, it would be tragic. I'm sure that people reading this will also have seen shrines right beside each other, we certainly have. Her quip makes some sense when you think about it, doesn't it.

Now, there will be some reading this who'll shout: "Stop knocking the Greeks!" Come off it, if you love someone it doesn't mean you can't see their faults, now, does it? We all have them, both individually and collectively (when it comes to national traits and habits). Sadly, the ones I refer to here are taking lives - and that's a fact.

Were I a younger man in the throws of deciding what kind of business to open in order to have a full order book, maybe I'd start a business supplying marble...

Slumming it.

Two days ago, one could have been forgiven for thinking it was one day last January. For a few hours, starting around 9.00am, and lasting until around 2.00pm, here in Kiotari it rained like it has never rained in July in living memory. The video below shows our view from the lounge-diner at home. Had it been shot in January, one would have not raised an eyebrow, but for it to be July 17th, well, that's got all the locals here talking about how no one's ever seen the like of it.

To be honest, for a fella with the worst comb-over in history to be running a country, plus claiming that global warming is 'fake news', is a bit rich. Anyone with hair like that automatically disqualifies himself from being taken seriously in my book, I'm afraid. I remember twenty and more years ago reading articles in the Sunday papers, and watching programmes like "Horizon" on BBC 2, and being told that, owing to the melting of the polar ice caps, the sea level around the world would rise by a metre within our lifetime.

That has yet to happen, but the reason is simple. All that water may not yet have made the oceans rise, but it is instead floating around in the atmosphere, thus increasing humidity and producing more extreme weather conditions, including unseasonal deluges. On the plus side, I turned off the watering system because the garden received a welcome soaking. Every cloud... eh?

Anyway, enough of my layman's science and meteorology, why did I call this post "Slumming it"? I'll tell you. Are you sitting comfortably, then I'll begin (just can't resist using that little phrase at every opportunity I'm afraid).

See, this is our first season with neither of us working since 2007, but I believe I've already mentioned that a few times. We had all sorts of plans about how we were going to go to this beach and that beach and eat out more often, but still we seem to be slipping the stick into first gear where all that is concerned. But, this morning we did finally do something we also hadn't done for 12 years, we took the regular bus service into Rhodes Town. During the summer season we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to choice as to what time to catch a bus. They're all over the place like an orange rash at this time of the year and so we plumped for the 9.50am bus from Kiotari, which got us into town, right in the thick of the action behind the New Market in Mandraki, at a respectable 11.15am or so.

Of course, by the time the bus is trundling through Pefkos or Lindos, it's standing room only, but boarding at Kiotari one has a great choice of where to sit. We were able to sit right behind the driver, with a nice view ahead over the top of his head. I have to say that the whole experience was really great fun. Plus one can't help but be well impressed by these drivers, who get spoken to in Italian, Russian, Polish, French and a few other languages as well, apart from English, and yet they cope admirably. Plus, they're in regular communication with each other all the time, enabling them to adjust their routes subtly, depending on how full each bus is.

For example, we were only ten minutes into the journey when our driver (bus no. 5) was talking to a colleague (No. 39) about a little clutch of people waiting at a certain bus stop who wanted to go to Lindos. They'd make decisions on the run about who'd stop for whom. As we drove through Lothiarika they passed and re-passed each other depending on which people wanted which destination. It was all accomplished with great fluidity and good humour. As we pulled up at each stop, the driver would open the front door and call out:

"Where you going?"

Depending on the answer he received he'd either cock a thumb and shake it backward, at the same time saying "Bus behind, two minutes!" or he'd say, "Yes, please, come, come!"

When we got to Faliraki, it was the first and only time we turned off the main road and took a convoluted route through the maze of hotel and apartment-lined small roads on the outskirts of the resort. At one point we pulled up right behind another bus that was currently interacting with ours and watched as some people boarded it, while some came walking back to ours and jumped aboard. Two rather fetching young ladies they were, and our driver asked them: "You want Rodos?"

To which they replied, "No, Tsambika Beach." Which, as it happened, was already behind us. Seems that the other bus (a different one from earlier on) at this juncture was heading south once it got out of the village. Our driver quickly closed the door, told the girls to hang on and put their money away for a moment, and instantly hailed the other driver with his radio and said,  "Hey Manoli! These two dolls want Tsambika! Hold on and I'll catch you up, then you can have them, OK? - No, I haven't printed tickets yet, you can do that once they're with you. Although I'd rather they stayed with me!"

We rounded a bend or two, came to a halt behind the other bus and the girls were able to jump off of ours and run to get aboard the other one.

What also amused us was the fact that each time our bus passed another coming the other way, the drivers would hail each other over their radios with a "Hey No. 7!! How you doing today? Good health and kalo dromo [literally: "Good road"]. We''ll sup a frappé together this evening!" and other expressions of matieness.

All in all, it was a nice trip, further enhanced by the fact that I didn't have to concentrate on driving among the hordes of quad bikes, scooters and snail-creeping hire cars that, it has to be said, make driving for locals on Rhodes during high season both frustrating and hazardous (no offence!). I could sit back and let the bus driver take the strain. Plus, no worries about parking once we got into town.

OK, so financially it doesn't make a lot of sense for two people to go to town by bus. It would cost about half as much in petrol if we'd taken the car. But the sheer pleasure of simply looking at the view all the way there more than made up for that.

Once we arrived in town we were able to hop off the bus and go straight to the Aktaion Café, where we could use the loos and order a couple of freddo Espressos and a delicious slice of bougatsa. Then it was time for an intense interlude of people-watching. Bliss. After that we ticked off a few things on our 'to do' list and finally headed to the Top Three to see my old mates from my excursion days, where we could wait out the final half an hour or so before taking the bus home again. 

Of course, it was a genuinely warm and double-cheek kissing reunion with Spiro and Dimitri, accompanied by bear hugs. I was rather sad to hear that the excursions aren't going well this year, with most of the "Rhodes By Day" trips being done by minibus, something that was unheard of for June thru September (even into mid October) when I was doing it. Looks like I got out just in time, although I'm sad for the person who took over from me, because they seem to have lost out. As we arose to leave and my better half attempted to pay for our drinks, Spiro physically stuffed the money back into her purse and told her in no uncertain terms that he'd be offended if she didn't put it away forthwith. I assured him that we hadn't come simply to get a free drink and that sooner or later I'd want to pay him. His reply? "OK, Gianni, this one's on me, and you can buy me a beer another time!"

On the way back I was amused to see just how much like a home-from-home the driver on this bus had made his working environment. Check out the photo...

Don't you just love it? Note the frappé (now empty) and the Basil plant in its vase!! Just one or two air-fresheners hanging from the mirror too.

Apart from the basil plant and ubiquitous frappé, there was also a small pack of tissues, a nice lace doily around the jar that contained the basil, some wet-wipes, a few bus timetables for anyone asking for one, and other stuff besides. Something that also demonstrates how crime rates here are still lower than many other parts of Europe, is the fact that all the drivers have clips holding bank notes and coin holders all within full sight and easy reach of the general public. In other countries drivers nowadays are behind a toughened glass screen and you have to use a little steel tray to exchange your cash for your ticket.

All in all, a relaxing and fun day out.

Looking on the Bright Side - Part the Second

Don't you just love it? the sign says: "PLEASE! Don't park motorcycles on the pavement [sidewalk]"!

Where was I? Oh yes, in Piraeus. The first feeling I got as we walked about the place was, "It's just like New York." We don't watch many movies or TV series, yet my abiding impression of the side-streets of the big apple as seen in movies was very much what I saw as we walked around downtown Piraeus. The only difference was that the buildings weren't as tall. And the signs are all, obviously, in Greek.

Even the taxi cabs there are now yellow. It seems that the whole world wants to be like America sometimes. All the Greek schoolbuses too, for instance, are now yellow, carbon copies of the school buses all over the USA. A few decades past, this would not have been the case. So, when you're walking city streets, all set at 90º angles to one-another, dumpsters on most corners, graffiti everywhere, vehicles dancing to the traffic light rhythm and horns sounding every second or two, fast-food joints and roller-shuttered shops everywhere, well, you have to resist the urge to start humming the theme music to Kojak. And that shows you how long it is since I watched such stuff, doesn't it.

On our first evening at the hotel, we headed straight for a fast food joint that my wife had discovered on (the very dubious...) TripAdvisor. It's called To Kalamaki tis Troumpas, and it seemed to have good reports re value and atmosphere. We weren't overly impressed, sadly. It was OK, but the location and the feel of the place felt very downbeat, slightly shabby. The salad was humungus, but swimming in water, and the pittas, well, they were OK. There was hardly any outdoor dining and we had to settle for an inside table beside a wide-open glass patio door. Nevertheless, this was July and we were sweltering. There didn't seem to be any air-con and the cooking area of the kitchen was just the other side of a counter from our table. The staff though, yeah, they were friendly, I'll give them that.

The thing is, the pavements in the area where we were staying were dirty, with quite a bit of detritus laying around. Couple that with all the graffiti (it truly is everywhere, and I mean everywhere) and small wonder that I imagined I was in back-street New York. the big difference though, thankfully, was the fact that, even though some of the pedestrians looked decidedly like they may have been living slightly shady lives, we didn't feel unsafe after dark. 

The next night we opted to walk the ten minutes or so over the hill (yet more New York street scenes) to the Marina that I'd seen on the street map. The marina is quite a pleasant place, if you can handle the fact that the traffic is manic most of the time. But at least on the marina-side of the road there is a wide walkway, with a low wall on which locals sit to take in the view, or simply pass the time. Even though the wall is only knee-height, it still has graffiti covering most of it. We strolled the pavement on the opposite side of the road and ended up at Kali Pita, which is situated about here:

The 'pin' in the map is the location of Kali Pita. Photo courtesy of Google Earth Pro.

They had a rather nice setup of check-table clothed tables with traditional chairs across the pavement from the front of store, with a nice view of the yacht masts over the way. The only drawback is the constant traffic that's zipping past you as you eat. That said, we had a good meal there, with my beloved having falafel wraps and me a veggie pitta wrap, plus they do some delicious desserts. I opted for one portokalopita (orange sponge-cake pie) and the beloved for a walnut cake pie, both of which came in good-sized portions that had us wishing we'd only ordered one of them and cut it in two.

You can eat well and cheaply on any street in downtown Piraeus, there's no doubt about that. We did, however, find ourselves saying over and over, we simply couldn't live in such an environment. We're spoilt now, having lived far away from the city for so long, both in the UK and out here in Greece.

By the time our third and last evening before returning to the airport had arrived, we'd kind of written off the place as too noisy, too dirty, too frenetic for us. Just around the corner from our admittedly comfy, if modest hotel (it's called the Filon, BTW. Although that link isn't very helpful, unless you want to book a room at a hotel you've never seen any photos of, so try this one too), we'd walked past a strip joint as well. Across the street from that was a μεζεδοπωλείο (virtually a taverna, the difference is so slight) which could have done with a facelift, but just inside the permanently open frontage (at this time of the year) was a live bouzouki band, evidently the source of the music we'd heard from our hotel room all night long.

We decided to make one last attempt at finding a positive view of Piraeus. And we succeeded. On our last whole day I finally noticed an A3 tear-off street map of the whole area on the hotel reception desk. Taking it up to the room, I pored over it for a while, and spotted what looked like a clutch of eateries and bars along the sea front near the entrance to the marina. That would be where we aimed for that evening. A fifteen minute walk from the hotel found us strolling down a curved access road, lined with cooling trees and greenery, which emptied out on to a two-hundred-metre-long strip that was a sheer delight.

We made our way down while there was still some daylight...

Once we arrived at the bottom, this quayside welcomed us...

Here's the Google Earth shot to show you where it is. The road leading down to the front is clearly visible, emptying out on to the boulevard about one third of the way along from the marina entrance.

Now, finally, we'd come up trumps. This strip, lined along one side with some pretty impressive super-yachts, and on the other with some tastefully decorated bars and eateries, was much more like it. We decided to eat at Lamarina, which turned out to be an excellent choice. The Haloumi pittas were cheaper that at the Kali Pita the previous night, but in a far, far more chic and vibrant environment. The staff were young, attentive, friendly and decked out in very modern, grungy garb, and the menu was excellent. By the time our food arrived (and it arrived fast) people were queueing up to get into the place, which, incidentally, was very well air-conditioned too, even on the roofless terrace where we sat.

All the people promenading around looked to be chic, relaxed and 'normal', not at all like the kinds you'd walk past in the rabbit warren of streets just metres away. That's not meant to sound snobbish, well, OK, just a bit then.

Here are a couple of shots I took from our table...

And here's our food. That salad was called Salad "Tou Agrou" - which means "Salad of the field", evidently referring to the fact that it's a mix of vegetables all of which grow in a farmer's field - plus a few olives. It was arguable the best salad we've ever had and was certainly the largest. Here's the menu BTW.

We were really excited about the whole place and, as we walked the promenade before going back to the hotel, we decided that we could easily now spend another long weekend in Piraeus, this time just the two of us, by spending the mornings taking coffee and a cake down here, jumping on the electriko into Athens centre during the afternoons, before returning here for the evening meal and digestif.

All in all then, after an initial dismay at how scruffy and dirty urban Piraeus appeared to be, we found a truly bright outlook with that marina promenade. Cities are cities the world over, of course, so one shouldn't be too surprised at the shabbiness; but once you factor in the nearness of that modest hotel both to the quay where one can hop on a boat and sail off to Aegina, Agistri, Methana, Poros, Hydra etc., as well as to the chic marina where we ate on our last night, and also the fact that it's only fifteen minutes walk from the airport express bus and the Electriko station - well, you have the recipe for a flaming good short stay.

Something I can't stress enough too, is the fact that through all of our nighttime walks through the backstreets of this huge urban sprawl, we didn't once sense any threat to our security. We never found ourselves saying "Oh, better avoid those people over there. Let's cross the road." 

Our final judgment of Piraeus? Forget the fact that it's an urban maze. Seek out the good points and you can have a damn good stay there.