Greece, doughnuts & cheese pies

Lovely hot Greece, with your ancient ruins, modern cities, doughnut sellers on the beach and let us not forget your wonderful cheese pies! Oh and I dare not forget to mention the not to be missed cold chocolate drinks. Memorable moments. As always, mostly around food and drink! And the time when looking out over the water of Nafplio, watching the yachts go by, my friend spilling wine all over herself when we were all laughing at a joke. Nafplio had little alley ways, where al fresco dining spilled over into the walkways and shops selling paintings on found wood and miniature sculptures of ships and bikes in metal. I bought a little boat made of red metal, deliberating between the tug boat which was more bold and solid and the one I finally chose which was slighter in build but taller. I also bought a painting of a little boat with a background of a warm brown sky at a found wood store. The artist also painted icons on found shutters and twisted branches of trees. He said the icons weren't painted with egg tempera but egg and I think pigment. As my Greek is very minimal we couldn't quite communicate what the difference was. The icons I would have loved to have purchased but they were too big for my bag. 

On a very hot day in Athens we tried in vain to find the National Art Gallery, which we found had turned into a construction site and had been temporarily relocated to the suburbs. We stumbled instead across the Byzantine and Christian Museum, which if we had more time I think I would have explored further, and then we wandered along the streets to the city gardens. On the way we saw the changing of the guard, with pom poms on their shoes and their flamingo like dance as they walked in a focused manner on the pavement, their moustaches still and faces serious.

In our walking and in the search for sweet treats, we stumbled across these street art pieces. I love that the entire wall of this house has been made into a separate world and that the flying creature looks as if it is just about to launch into the blue sky above. And of course, I love these fish - the sad and happy ones and the scraggly tags in between.

Athens Street Art 1 - Photograph K Fisher (2017)

Athens Street Art 2 - Photograph K Fisher (2017)

On another day we visited the ruins of Ancient Corinth and the museum there, with its beautiful pottery from around 450BC. The painting on the pottery is still magnificent after all this time. The owl - symbol of the Goddess Athena and good fortune. I can almost see the scene on this vase as wall art itself.  

Ancient Corinth Museum Pottery - Photograph K Fisher (2017)