You know what I did last summer?

Volos and Pelion mountain are not more than 2 hours far from my hometown but I did not really know the region. I had gone once for holidays with my family when I was 9 and a couple of times with my school during winter. This time, I went with F. I was eager to show him Greece; it was his first time in my country and I wanted to show him not only my region but also our life. It was a wonderful holiday, even I experienced it as if it were something different and exotic.

We spent three days at Volos and four at Agios Ioannis. Agios Ioannis was supposed to be the most touristy place but, to be honest, it was very calm - at least when we were there. Anyway, we hadn't chosen it for the parties but because from there we could go on foot to 3 different beaches (Agios Ioannis, Plaka, Papa Nero).

I wish I could describe the beauty of Pelion without repeating cliches and sounding cheesy, but I can not; I suggest you to google it and look at the photos. All I can say is that there are several stories of the Greek mythology that take place there. I also think that some scenes of "Mamma mia" were filmed in Pelion (the rest, was filmed at the islands nearby).




Things to know and things to do:

• Go to a tsipouradiko (most of them are located at the port of Volos). The tsipouradika are taverns where you drink tsipouro. You order the tsipouro and the waiters bring you small portions of food (mezedes). Usually it's appetizers, salads, fish and seafood. One of the things I personally love is the surprise on what they will bring next. Obviously, the more you drink, the more and better the food.
• Go to bouzoukia. Those are like clubs, with live folk-ish greek music, lots of dance and people throwing flowers to the singer and to each other. In general, go out! For coffee, for drinks, for food, everything. It's a part of the Greek life you should not miss.
• Get a car in order to manage to visit as much of Pelion as you can, both beaches and villages. Pelion is a beautiful, beautiful mountain, full of green and traditional villages and beaches with clear, blue-green waters. There is also a small train that gives you a tour at Pelion, but the timetables are not so convenient. (We didn't use it)
• There are ATMs only at the main villages, so don't leave Volos without money. At, Agios Ioannis, for example, there was none. And, remember, prices in Greece are as high as in western Europe.

More information you can find here (right now the site is under construction, hopefully it will be ready soon) and at Wikipedia, too. By the way, the beaches in the photos here are: Fakistra (ph.2), Mourtias (ph.3-4), Vromoneri (ph.5-6), Milopotamos (ph.7-8), Papa Nero (ph.9), Plaka (ph.10), Agios Ioannis (ph.11-12).

Last year, at Cervia...

Vienna Calling

My personal Vienna Un-Guide, based on my two-legged (one in October, one in December) visit of the city. By the end of it, you will have seen almost all the main attractions (but you will have difficulties on remembering the names), you will have visited no museums, you will have taken no photos, probably you will have taken some kilos and you will have found a total of 5 euros in the streets.

DAY 1: Arrive late. Have your friend drive you around the main sights and up the hill to admire Vienna by night. Then, straight to the bars at Museum District, drink all the gin tonics you can handle and dance the night away. Finally, go to a chalet-looking tiny bar, full of drunk Austrians singing loudly austrian songs. Learn some lyrics and impress them.

DAY 2: Get a problem with your lenses, throw them away and eat pumpkin soup for lunch. Go to St Stephen's Cathedral. Get lost in the crowd at the Military Fair in front of the Hofburg Palace (organized due to the National Day). Pretend that you do not want to go to Prater and get on the Wheel (but do it anyway) and eat fried garlic bread. Later, follow your friend's flatmate to a club and spend the night drinking cocktails and gossiping.

DAY 3: Have brunch. Go to the Christmas Market at the Town Hall, eat half a candy apple and let the other half fall on a man in the tram. Then, go to the Christmas Market at Schonbrunn Palace, drink berry punch, listen to a gospel choir and freeze to the point of feeling your toes in pain. Back home, share a Chinese duck dish and watch the last James Bond movie dubbed in austrian.

DAY 4: Go for breakfast in a typical austrian student cafe and take a stroll at the Danube channel. Spend some time reading the mirrors of Carlsplatz metro station. Laugh with the Golden Cabbage and then, cross the street to the open market and buy some yummy turkish finger food. Watch Avatar on 3D munching surimi and for desert, after the cinema, eat strawberries dipped in chocolate (not as good as it sounds, better try the banana).

Christmas time!

Every year, as Christmas is coming, I get all excited and happy. I suppose this is one of the things that I kept from my childhood and, frankly, I hope I will never lose. Usually, I behave like a 5-year-old, jumping all around, but sometimes I pretend that I am a mature grown-up strolling in the festive streets. At least, I have managed to supress my urge to write a letter to Santa and throw it in the post box.

This year, the first time I realized Christmas has actually arrived, I was in Bratislava, at Gorgeho, in front of the Opera. The not-yet-decorated Christmas tree was already in place and the first silver, blue and red lights hanged from the buildings. Someone played piano - I lit a cigarette and stood to listen to the music pouring from their open window.

Then, the Christmas Market opened and I went as often as the cold allowed me. The times I went alone, I spend my time people-watching: street musicians and their audience, parents taking photos of their children, couples holding hands, people rushing into the comforting heat of the nearby cafes and, mostly, people armed with coats, scarves and gloves standing around tall wooden tables, hands around plastic glasses of hot wine. The times I went with company, we just meddled in the crowd and focused on the hot wine and the grilled chicken.

With a glass of hot wine in hand (again), I saw oh-so-beautiful Prague all bright and Christmas-y too. It was a kind-of-Halloween celebration that day and, in Namesti Republiky, people disguised in angels and devils offered candies to children. I headed to Starometske, the Old Town Square, but it was so crowded I could barely walk. I climbed on a kind of stage and enjoyed a 360 view of it and then watched a fire juggling street performance next to the Astronomical Clock.

I even experienced White Christmas in Vienna. All night and all morning it was snowing, and when I arrived, the city was dressed in white. My original joy soon disappeared: the freezing cold made it impossible for me to stay still or my toes were in real pain. Nevertheless, I tried to make the most out of it and used the cold as an excuse to keep my fingers continuously wrapped around mugs of warm berry punch. I also tasted strawberries dipped in chocolate (it looked more delicious than it actually was), some warm apple pie and, for the first time, I ate half a candy apple (the other half fell on a man in the tram).

So, it was Christmas. I knew it, I could see it all around and I had tried to feel it in half the Christmas Markets of Central Europe. But still, something was missing: it didn't smell like Christmas.

Then, I took my flight back to Greece. The warm weather here reminds of spring, I do not even need a jacket and today, I woke up from the sunshine on my eyelids. It has nothing to do with the White Christmas of Vienna, nor the fairytale atmosphere of Prague. However, it was the moment I set foot on the airport of Athens that I realized that Christmas is actually here. Because, Christmas is meaningless unless you share it with the people you love. More than everything, Christmas is home.

Prague ♥ - Part 2

(photo by Robert Doisneau)

I don't want to write a pure diary-entry-style post, neither do I want to enumerate the sights in a travel-guide way (after all, there are more than enough decent travel guides out there for those who need official Prague info). All I want, is to express what Prague meant to me, it seems though that I lack the ability to transform my feelings into words.

Here is my best shot:

When, at my teens, I read the novels and saw the nostalgic photos of bohemic, intellectual Paris of the 50s-60s, something moved inside me. It was undefined, a peculiar feeling I could hardly discern but knew it was lying there, sleeping. I felt it some more times moving, but even Paris itself didn't manage to wake it up. It was in Prague that it woke up; it was magic, felt like love and overwhelmed me. Prague is all they had told me Paris was.

One evening, after the too crowded Christmas Market of the Main Square, where I could hardly walk (it took my breath away, even under those circumstances), I spent 15 minutes on Charles Bridge, watching the efforts of a French couple to take a specific photo: the girl, on her toes and leaning over the bridge, was trying to attract the seagulls with a cookie, whereas the boy waited, camera on hand, to capture the moment a seagull would eat it. For some moments, a seagull hovered above the girl's head, looking at the cookie and figuring out if he should go for it, finally, decided to pass. It is a pity they missed it, they were too focused on their original plan.

All my week there, I felt like the seagull, those few specific moments he hovered above the girl's head - he was there, still and moving at the same time, free to move towards any direction, each of them offering him something. He could fly higher in the air, dive into the river, land proud and alone on some statue's head, crash into the pavement, eat the cookie, refuse the cookie, join the strange creatures on the bridge or return to his peers: all options open, everything possible, able to do whatever he desired and whatever he imagined. What he chose, never mind: the only thing that counts, is this moment of sublime freedom.

Prague ♥

It was love at first sight.

I slept all 4 hours the bus drove from Bratislava to Prague; I opened my eyes about 10 minutes before arriving to the bus station. We were crossing a bridge; I got the first glimpse of Prague and thought I had woken up in a fairy tale.

The time gap between deciding to go and my actual going was 3 days. It is the most unorganized trip I've ever done and, more than any other before, it was based on the kindness of strangers: someone lent me a map, someone shared tips, someone drove me around, someone took me to his favorite spots... So, I did find my way around but, not having expectations and not rushing to museums and landmarks, allowed me to feel every single moment and see it all through a child's eyes, totally unprepared, innocent, amazed.

I wandered in a misty park overlooking Prague and the river, talking about scripts and meanings, listening to strange stories, searching in tree trunks for lost treasures - that wasn't real life, I was in one of those movies you see, love and forget as time goes by but remain stored somewhere in the memory.

I also attended New Europe 2009, a Contemporary Dance Festival. I must admit, after a few bad experiences, these new forms of art scare me and I tend to avoid them, thank god they persuaded me to go! Some of it made me think, some of it made me laugh, some of it made me sleepy but nothing moved me as much as the last performance - it started funny and, gradually and powerfully, moved to the tragic ending; it was out of pure embarrassment I managed not to cry my eyes out. It took me some 20 minutes to recover and say a few words about it, and still, my eyes filled with tears.

Some other special things I did:

• Went to a Mongolian restaurant and cried over a spicy shrimp soup.
• Drank tequila shots with salt and lemon, sitting with a Czech and a black Russian around a half-lit kitchen table.
• Went to an Erasmus party and, surprisingly enough, met a Polish whose first degree was on Greek Philology.
• Read Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls.
• Drank buckets of tea.
• Cursed the incompetence of my camera.
• Went for 3 days, stayed almost one week.
  

In Nis, twice

These last two months, I went to Nis twice. Neither of them was my first visit to the city. First time, I went to Nis in April, as a part of my Balkan tour. Though I spent there only two days, I managed to see the basics. Went to the Castle, climbed up the wall and looked at Nisava River unfolding at our feet, had a few beers in a bar there after our night wanderings in the city centre, drank a coffee in a park with thermal springs and visited the Skull Tower and the Red Concentration Camp.

This time, I decided to leave the undoubtedly strong past of Nis outside my schedule and mostly concentrated on just being in the city. Not that its past does not influence the present. Nis is a ghost city - the city lights go on and off as if the ghosts' invisible hands play with imaginary switches.

So, what did I do? I felt and lived and was happy, even if this happiness did not last as long as I originally thought (and hoped). The rest, more tangible and easily describable things, might sound irrelevant, maybe uninteresting, but it is because of them that Nis will stay with me.

• The smell of baked peppers; it was ajvar period, there were red peppers everywhere and in the yards, people sitting next to big cauldrons stirred the boiling red pulp.
• The small, narrow cafe that was all inspired and made out of a tram wagon.
• The big underground market that spread under the city centre and the street market next to the Castle, with the unbelievably narrow paths.
• The huge latte that would take me three hours to drink, in a cafe of the Main Square, where me and my laptop would go to work every morning.
• The waitress that asked me to teach her some words in Greek.
• Learnt a few words in Serbian (which I have totally forgotten now).
  
• Missed the chance to climb on a terrace and spend a few moments high above the ground, with some good company and a Drina cigarette.
• Quarreled and almost cried during a sad discussion about the Balkans.
  
• A rainy night, I went to a kind of rock band contest in an underground bar.
• Saw the biggest DVD collection ever.