The first place that we visited was one of the Byzantine churches that she, Andromihki (Andi) and Fanni had worked on for 7 years painting all of the "icons" (saints) and that Alexi (Eleni's husband) had provided some of the gold and silver metalwork (think chandaliers, prayer lights, etc) for. It was a gorgeous church and it was amazing to think of how much work they had put into it. And the craziest part of all....everything was painted on 23K gold sheets! The walls in that church were probably worth millions of dollars in just gold let alone anything else. Here's some pictures to let you see:
After that we went up to the "Castle" of Thessaloniki which is really just a corner of the old city walls which enclosed a space that was 2-3 miles across. Little of the walls are still standing as they had to knock them down to expand the city, but it the area where we were does provide a beautiful view of the city below:
We then visited Alexi at his shop and saw more of the amazing metalwork he does with gold and silver. There they thoroughly embarassed us by giving us a bunch of silver as a wedding present. Since the whole hotel thing hadn't worked out apparently they had been trying to figure out what to get us, so they had Alexi pull together a bunch of stuff. This is PURE silver and is amazing craftsmanship. They really are way too kind, and we'll definitely have to send them better gifts once we get back to America (We had brought salt water taffy, maple sugar candy and boston harbor tea for the 3 of them because it could easily fit in our suitcases).
Our last stop with Elani was to visit Andi and Fanni where all of them work (Eleni had taken the week off to be our guide). Adrienne was able to see a painting Andi had done years ago of her Papu (Grandfather), and I know that meant alot to her. Fanni and the rest of the family were telling her stories too of when her Papu and YaiYai (Grandmother) visited Greece years ago. Later that night in the car Adrienne made me promise that as soon as we get home we start saving up for another trip to Greece (in addition to saving for a lake house).
We then went to lunch with Fanni and Andi to a place on the outskirts of the Thessaloniki hills that overlooked the city. There I found that the Greeks CAN do spicy! They have this awesome spicey 4 cheese spread that basically is their version of jalepeno cheese. It was so good I basically ate the whole plate. Fanni then took us to the top of the hills to get another great view of the city down below:
The glow you see is the sun reflected in the sea.
After pictures Fanni dropped us off at the hotel and we took a quick nap before heading out to explore the shopping district that we were staying in before meeting up with the Andi's family & Fanni for dinner. Adrienne wasn't able to find anything for my sister's wedding, and we discovered that purple is the new IT color and that at least Thessaloniki is stuck back in 1989.
For dinner we went to a place far up in the mountains to get some good lamb. It was a pleasant family dinner, and I was super glad that Yannis (Andi's husband) was there because since he went to grad school in London he speaks English exceptionally well....which has the added benefit of him getting my jokes!
Then on Saturday Fanni picked us up with all of our luggage and we went and visited their summer home down the coast from Thessaloniki. Unfortunately it was too foggy to get a good picture of Thessaloniki from their balcony, but you could see that on a clear summer day they must have an AMAZING view! While there we discovered that Greeks DO like magnets as they have a fireplace shield with magnets from everywhere they have visited on it (BACKSTORY: we were agonizing whether to get any of them Boston magnets as a present from the US). We then went out for fish (meeting up with Andi, Yannis and Konstaninos again) near their house right on the water where we went back into the kitchen and the owner let us pick which fish we wanted to eat. Needless to say having fish that fresh was delicious.
We were then taken to the airport by everyone where we had some mishaps with overweight luggage and missing boarding passes that eventually worked itself out and we said goodbye to the family. (ASIDE: you'll be happy to know that in Europe they're actually sane and don't make you take off your shoes to go through security).
We then boarded our turbo-prop plane that was going to make two stops before getting to Kefalonia. There was a bit of confusion that when we landed at the second stop we didn't realize we had to leave the plane so they could refuel it (a passenger saw us just sitting there and had to tell us), but we got here safely and checked into the Ionian Plaza.
Since it was only 7PM or so we walked around the city, discovered the most DELECTABLE pastry shop and had dinner in the main Argostolia square.
Tomorrow will be a big day as we're going to explore most of Kefalonia and specifically try to visit her great grandparent's graves (with just rough instructions from her family). Then on Monday morning (at 7AM!) we fly to Athens to catch another flight later for Santorini.
2 comments:
Yay, I'm finally reading your blog. All caught up now :)
That church is unbelievable! I am glad you guys are there and things are going well. All the mishaps make me think we would all be good traveling companions someday - especially the first day with the clock! LOL. Sounds like something we would do!
Can't wait to see more!
@Yai Yai loved your post about Tessaloniki. She especially liked the pictures of Eleni, Phani, Niki, and all the family. I think she really appreciated the kind words that were spoken about Pa Pou, and all the interesting facts about the city that you visited. I am glad you had such a great time with my cousins, and I hope you have a good time in Kefalonia.
Post a Comment