Valentin’s Adventures in Greece:

After saying goodbye to Jana and letting my loving Russian grandma stuff my face with more blini, pelmeni, borshch and pirozhki while she had the chance, I hopped on a plane two days later at Sheremetyevo airport (Moscow has no less than three equally gargantuan international airports). This took me to Athens, Greece, where some important document business to get me into the motherland awaited me at the embassy of Kazakhstan. Bright and early I left for the embassy, dropped off my passport, and headed into the ancient Greek metropolis.

What struck me first after Moscow, is that many, if not most Greeks, especially those under 40, speak good English. I speak no Greek so this was great. The city centre, as expected, was mostly full of tourists. It is a clean, well maintained and charming centre with history around every corner. I’m walking and bang! There is a massive Greek gate older than time itself. I walk another block and bang! The Parthenon lies ahead on an enormous hill. I walk another few blocks and some marble columns tower overhead. Then, below me, a glass floor showing where somebody was digging foundations and accidentally unearthed more history. As if they didn’t have enough already.

The outskirts, however, seemed rather deserted after Moscow’s endless traffic. August is when most Greeks go on holiday to their beach houses, I was told. Even in tough economic times, they go to the beach and live rather well.

I stayed on a hill overlooking the city in a neighbourhood called Kareas. It was a charming place, streets lined with figs and eucalypts. Nice Greek grandmas smiling at you from their balconies. And… a block away from me, a Russian store. Kareas is an immigrant neighbourhood with many Russians, Armenians, Albanians, you name it.

The close family friends I was staying with were Russian Greeks, or Greek Russians… Not sure what describes them more correctly. They speak both languages and were my guides to the city and country. They were really nice and let me stay in their mother’s apartment which I had all to myself. It was across from a charming orthodox church which woke me up with very loud bells ringing at 7am, then 7:15, then 7:30, and so forth until about 9 in the morning.

Since I would wake up early (I’m a total night owl at home) I had lots of time to explore the surroundings before the Greek heat set in. I climbed to the peaks of the mountains above Kareas, which had the misfortune of being scorched by a forest fire a few weeks prior. Nevertheless, you could see all of Athens, and it was absolutely stunning. One day I went to the beach nearby. You could say it was on that day that I began to consider “losing” my passport at the embassy. Greece has amazing beaches and I did not want to leave.

After a few more days I was invited to stay in Loutraki, a beach resort town near Corinth. Needless to say, I was packed before the sun came up the next morning. Another family friend had built a vacation house there. Loutraki is nestled between massive mountains and biblical lands, the warm Mediterranean lapping on its shores. It was a pleasant break from the city and I would recommend it to anybody.

My last few days in Greece were spent back in Athens where I made sure to climb up to the Athenian Acropolis and get a good thorough look at the Parthenon and at the surrounding views of town. It was nice, but for the same reason I didn’t climb the tower of Pisa in Pisa, don’t expect the best view of town to be from the Acropolis. It is an architectural marvel undoubtedly worth seeing; in fact it is an entire complex of many Greek ruins (including the Parthenon) where one could spend all day picking their jaw up from the floor. Maybe I was just spoiled by the panorama from Kareas. For the best view, I suggest climbing a mountain on the edges of town on a nice sunny day at sunrise. This is not to say the view from the Parthenon sucked at all:

I left Greece with a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I was excited to visit my city of birth (Almaty) yet again, but I was sad to leave yet another country I didn’t expect to fall in love with. Or maybe it was just the different bittersweet ouzos I sampled at the duty free stores in the airport. I don’t know.

Greece is a country I only saw a tiny little piece of but I know I will be back. There are many islands left unexplored, many mountains left unclimbed and many beaches left unseen. Many liqueurs left unsampled. Ευχαριστώ Ελλάδα. Until we meet again.