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“It has to be right here!” I exclaimed for the tenth time. Yet again, Rich and I walked up and down the sidewalk, around the corner and back, on an obscure street in downtown Athens. The helpful little GPS map on the phone showed a blue dot (us) right next to the red pointer (the alleged taverna). We’d been shown the place just two days earlier. Had it somehow vanished since then?  It wasn’t until someone trotted down the steps, ducking under the lintel, that I realized I was looking directly at one of the two doorways that give the restaurant, Diporto, its name. (Still searching? It's the low brown opening with the pink graffiti.) I felt as if I’d discovered Narnia at the back of the wardrobe. “Quick, let’s go in before it disappears again,” I urged.   The kind of tavernas I remember from back in the day. The Diporto is without doubt my favorite eatery in Athens. To be fair, the actual food isn’t exceptional, but here I found the old-school atmosphere I remembered from my visit to Greece as a teenager in 1972. In those days, tavernas were masculine enclaves where the occasional young hippies who passed through were viewed as amusing curiosities and treated with traditional Greek xenia, the generosity and courtesy shown to those who are far from home. From the moment we entered the Diporto, our host, Kyr. Mitsos, refused to let little things like no written menu and no English stand in the way of dishing out generous helpings of xenia. As we settled at one of the wooden tables, he brought over a chunk of crusty bread and several sheets of paper that would serve as plates and napkins. Then he fetched a pair of glasses and a large tin cup set in a plastic container of ice. I picked up the cup and sniffed. “Water?” asked Rich. “Retsina.” Retsina is a hearty white wine that carries a hint of pine, a flavor popularized 2000 years ago when Greeks were sealing their wine jars with pine resin. It was the perfect complement to the food that began to arrive: crisp sardines, chunky vegetable stew, garbanzo bean soup, and yellow split peas with onions and olives. OK, to be honest, the split peas were a bit underwhelming, but everything else was great — not Michelin-star great, but comfort-food-at-grandma’s great. When we’d eaten our fill, Kyr. Mitsos came over to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. He frowned in thought, then wrote a number — our bill — on the paper covering the tablecloth. Xenia is considered a two-way street, an obligation on both sides to make the guest-host relationship work. During our time in Greece, Rich and I did our best to express our genuine appreciation to our kind hosts at the Diporto, our Airbnb, our EatWith dinner, the Taste Athens Food Walk, and everywhere else we went. While we rely heavily on mutual goodwill to get us past the inevitable faux pas that arise in a foreign social setting, we also do a little advance research in an effort to keep personal embarrassment and international incidents to a minimum. I tend to talk with my hands, so I paid close attention to Rich’s latest find, the Culture Crossing Guide, which explains that certain gestures, considered perfectly innocent back home, cause deep offense among Greeks. For instance, while a thumb’s up is OK, a thumb’s down is most definitely not acceptable in polite society. And apparently holding up your hand with the palm facing the other person is a good way to get into a bar fight. Even the simplest non-verbal communication becomes tricky when a single downward nod means “yes” and a single upwards nod means “no.” To add to the confusion, the Greek word for “yes: (ναι) is pronounced née, and the word for “no” (όχι) is pronounced oh-he, sounding much like okay. As you can imagine, the possibilities for misunderstandings are endless.  Marina, our engaging Taste Athens Food Walk guide, also talks with her hands, but as she knows what all the gestures mean, she can get away with it. Seeking further guidance, I recently downloaded the updated Kindle edition of one of my old standbys, the book Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More than 60 Countries. Even if you’re not in town on business, you’ll find a wealth of useful advice and information, such as: “After giving or receiving a compliment, Greeks sometimes make a puff of breath through the lips to ward off the ‘evil eye.’” I love this idea and fully intend to employ it in any situation in which I feel there’s a risk that the evil eye may fall on me. Perhaps the richest information can be found in the online Cultural Atlas. Here’s one of my favorite bits: “To fully understand the Greek communication style, one must appreciate their love for discussion. ‘Kefi’ refers to the contentment, bliss and joy one feels when a moment is so overwhelmingly enjoyable they are transported by it. The Greeks recognize kefi arising when an engaging conversation with good company becomes particularly delighting and fulfilling.” Rich and I enjoyed a lot of kefi during our most unplanned, disorganized trip ever. One of the main reasons we travel is to be transported by unexpected delight at the sudden confluence of good company and good conversation — if possible combined with good food and a cool bottle of retsina. Last night we flew back from Athens to Spain, drawing this adventure to a close, but we’ll carry the memories forever: Anna and the pay-as-you-go elevator, Rich’s Albanian haircut, the disappearing Diporto, and the joys of xenia and kefi. And I still have stories from the trip to share; watch for my upcoming post: Dive Bars of the Mediterranean. Thanks for joining us on the journey! 
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“Do you realize we’re just 30 minutes from Albania?” I said. “We could take a boat over tomorrow.”
Albania — like Naples — is often viewed as one of the least desirable destinations in Europe, so naturally Rich and I have been longing to go. We’ve set out for it twice, only to have our trips cut short for various reasons. And now, in the middle of our most unplanned, disorganized trip ever, we found ourselves literally within sight of its shores. 
Here's how it happened. After the madhouse of Naples, we’d meandered southeast across Italy, dozing in the quiet mountain town of Potenza and strolling the tranquil streets of ancient Lecce. Finally I said, “Great food, gorgeous weather, magnificent monuments … this is beginning to feel more like a vacation than an adventure. Time to shake things up a little!” We stopped in a café, ordered espresso, and pulled out the map.
“Brindisi is just up the coast,” Rich pointed out. “We could catch a ferry to Greece. The closest port is … Iggie-something.” Igoumenitsa (or Iguana, as Rich kept calling it) was just opposite the island of Corfu. Before we’d drained our thimble-sized coffee cups, Rich was on his phone booking tickets. Perhaps we should have paused to read the reviews, although at that point we had the bit between our teeth and would doubtless have charged forward anyway. Later I discovered that embittered travelers frequently speak of that ferry ride using such phrases as “a thoroughly, genuinely terrible experience,” and “an absolute disaster, never again.” Blithely unaware of the ferry's reputation, we stumbled on board, wondering why there were so few passengers. A crew member directed us to an empty lounge furnished with filthy, ragged seats so repellent that we immediately fled to the bar. Bypassing the hideously uncomfortable couches, we selected seats from the array of chairs with screws poking up out of the armrests. The food was so bad even the truckers weren’t finishing their meals. When we finally docked in Iguana late that night, we had to exit through the parking deck, flattening ourselves against the wall to avoid being crushed by massive 18-wheelers tearing past; we could hardly blame them for being eager to leave. The next morning, a pristine little ferry took us to Corfu. Onboard, we saw a few folks on holiday but nothing like the mobs of tourists we’d feared to find on this popular destination island. Our lodgings were near the harbor on a quaint street of colorful old houses with a few cafés, a church, and a bakery; we saw no one but locals. Wandering over to a nearby square, we found sun-bleached old buildings with weathered shutters and a few people lingering over coffee in the shade of a vine-covered trellis. “Lucky we’re here in the offseason,” I said. “We have the island practically to ourselves.” 
My optimism was as short-lived as it was misplaced. A few blocks further on, we began seeing tourists: a few dozen, then hundreds, finally thousands. The streets became a heaving mass of vacationers, tour guides, horse-drawn carriages, Segways, and Hop-On-Hop-Off buses. Aghast, we bolted back to the apartment. “So not quite as undiscovered as we’d hoped,” I muttered grimly. “There must be some way of avoiding the crowds.” And that’s when I opened my laptop and found the day trip to Sarandë, Albania, conveniently located just 8.7 miles across the Ionian Sea. Off we went the next morning on the Flying Dolphin, a hovercraft packed with ancient women in widow’s black, European bicyclists, families heading to reunions, and men hauling mattresses home to their wives. “This is more like it,” Rich said.
A century ago Sarandë was a settlement of 110 inhabitants; today it’s home to 20,227 or possibly 41,173 residents, depending on whose figures you believe. Considered part of the new (still largely theoretical) Albanian Riviera, this port city offers deep blue water, 300+ days of sun a year, and a row of nice waterfront cafés; it hasn’t yet gotten around to doing much else to attract tourists.
Undistracted by official Points of Interest, Rich and I watched fishermen selling their catch, chatted with an old fellow who wanted to know if we were married (I’m not sure why this was of interest), and poked our heads into the dank interior one of the famous 173,000 defensive bunkers built by Enver Hoxha when he ran the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. We climbed over the stubby remains of stone walls which, according to the sign, were a Christian basilica constructed four to five hundred years before Christ. (How that is possible? Beats me. A miracle, maybe?) As we left the stone ruins, a dapper fellow named Romeo popped up from his underground barber shop and greeted us in English. The next thing I knew Rich was saying “Yes, I could use a trim!” A delighted Romeo escorted us downstairs, and as he finished up with a prior customer, he regaled us with stories about visiting his son in Minneapolis, USA. This topic took us through Rich’s haircut, which involved scissors, straight razor, electric razor, whisking, blowdrying, and threading cotton through a comb to remove stray hairs. We got a solid 40 minutes of entertainment and a haircut for just 300 lev (about $3.70). For us, it was a perfect day. Sarandë may lack Corfu’s storybook charm — indeed, most of the landscape is a series of unfortunate high-rises — and the kamikaze road warriors are more terrifying even than Napoli’s. But aside from the drivers and one cranky, hungover waiter at the coffee bar, everyone was warm and welcoming, laying before us such modest treasures as the city possesses, urging us to come back whenever we need a haircut, fresh fish, or simply a chat. And we will be back. Faleminderit për kujtimet, Albania. (Thanks for the memories.) Stay tuned for updates on our trip. I’ll be posting at unplanned, disorganized intervals, so if you’re not already on my mailing list, sign up now to make sure you don’t miss a thing.  Our fellow passengers on the early-morning flight to Naples “I’m not panicking,” I growled at Rich. “I’m just saying all the coffee sellers appear to be on strike.” I’m rarely at my best for early morning flights; I sleep fitfully, sure that I’ll miss the alarm and worried I’ll forget to pack something vital in the final mad rush to get out the door. There hadn’t been time for so much as a sip of coffee at the hotel, and arriving at the Barcelona airport to find every caffeine dispensary closed with a hand-written sign reading “huelga” (strike) was a low blow indeed. Fortunately for my sanity, we eventually discovered one barista on the job, possibly bribed by airport officials to prevent a riot. We inhaled café con leche and stumbled onto our flight to Naples, Italy. By local standards, our cab ride to the B&B in Naples’ Spanish Quarter was sedate, with a minimum of horn blowing and only one instance of driving into oncoming traffic going the wrong way up trolley tracks. We didn’t get into real trouble until we entered our building and stepped inside the building’s ancient elevator. It wouldn't budge. We kept double-checking that the doors were shut tight, pressing the button for our floor, over and over, to no avail. Finally we noticed a coin-fed meter on the wall. “You have to pay to go up in the elevator?” Rich said incredulously, fishing out a five cent coin. I was exceedingly grateful he had the correct change and we weren't obliged to hike up the four flights of stairs to the B&B.  Our landlady, Anna, proved to be nearly as ancient and eccentric as the elevator. “I am a shy person,” she told me — then proceeded to talk my ear off, providing a wealth of unsolicited advice about sightseeing. “You must visit the Royal Palace!” She gave us a set of enormous keys to carry with us when we went out. “But when you come in, you must put them here,” she said, indicated a table underneath a poster showing a prehistoric statue of two men having sex. “I need to know who is in my house.” Leading us through a labyrinth of hallways lined with tables piled with dusty books, Anna gave detailed instructions about light switches — “This goes on, this goes off!” — to make sure we didn’t burn any extra electricity. At the end of the last corridor, she led us into a spacious bedroom with high ceilings, lots of light, and artwork with erotic themes. I looked around for the bathroom. There wasn’t one. “We were told the room came with a private bath,” I said. “Yes, it is here,” she said, leading us back out into the hallway and past another bedroom to indicate a door. We were sharing a bath? I recalled an old movie in which, under similar circumstances, the host said, “When the brochure said ‘private’ it meant your bathroom is not open to the general public.” Luckily, it turned out that we didn’t have to share the bathroom with other guests, but still I wasn’t thrilled with the arrangement. Note to self: from now on check to make sure the description includes the words “en suite.” The intake process involved committing to an exact time and menu for breakfast, and we soon learned she prepared the eggs and toast precisely at the appointed hour, so if we wanted them even slightly warm, we arrived on time. At 9:30 we were asked to vacate the room so the maid could come in and clean. While the maid worked, Anna rearranged our things, rehanging my toiletry kit in a less convenient spot on the towel rack, tucking my slippers into a basket, removing my underwear from the bathtub wash line to drape it on the radiator. Returning after lunch, we would find her waiting for us. “Be sure to put your keys on the table,” she’d say. “Did you see the Royal Palace?” “It’s like living with Frau Blücher,” Rich said, referring to the officious housekeeper in the classic film Young Frankenstein. Anna’s quirky B&B was one of the highlights of our trip to Naples. Oh sure, we could have stayed in the Hilton and had an en suite bath, the luxury of setting our own hours, hot food whenever we wanted it, free elevators, and no interrogations about our activities, the light switches, or the keys. But what fun would that have been? What stories would we tell? So I know what you’re wondering: if we never got to the Royal Palace, how did we manage to fill our time in Napoli? Here are a few highlights. Everyone in Naples lives as if they’ve just downed their fifth espresso, and they probably have. To adapt, Rich and I started drinking coffee in thimble-sized cups, ordering caffè (pure espresso) or macchiato (espresso with a few token drops of milk as a courtesy to our stomach lining). It’s a great way to fuel up for strolling the streets, seeing the sights, and dodging rampaging Vespas. We’re proud to report that we survived the chaos that is Naples, and we are heading onward to new adventures in our most unplanned, disorganized trip ever. Stay tuned for updates on our trip. I’ll be posting at unplanned, disorganized intervals, so if you’re not already on my mailing list, sign up now to make sure you don’t miss a thing. Living in a city that’s rated the number one travel destination on the planet, I often see tourists dragging around enormous suitcases — the kind that, in a certain sort of movie, would likely contain a dead body and/or ancient artifacts stolen from the museum. Incredibly, however, most travelers aren’t forced to buy these behemoths to accommodate criminal activity but freely select them in order to haul around extra clothes that are never worn, shoes to go with every outfit, hardbound books, full-sized bottles of shampoo, and other weighty objects they'll soon wish they'd left at home.  Rich snapped this shot of me as we were returning from our luggage-free trip to France, strolling past travelers hauling bulky suitcases. When it comes to luggage, less is more. A couple of years back, Rich and I went all the way with a luggage-free, six-day trip to France. I’ve never spent so much time doing laundry or fielding emails about our undergarments’ hygiene regimen. (They were washed daily, if you must know; occasionally they didn’t dry overnight so we'd finish them off in the morning with the hotel’s hair drier.) I wasn’t keen to do quite that much daily laundry on our upcoming most unplanned, disorganized trip ever. But how exactly do you pack when you have no idea where you’ll be, what weather conditions will prevail, or how many weeks you’ll be on the road? After some discussion, Rich and I agreed we’d pack the bare minimum of practical travel wear, including wrinkle-resistant, fast-drying garments that could be layered to adapt to spring’s changeable temperatures. If we find ourselves in sudden need of special attire — swim suits, red sequined tuxedos, or something suitable for a private audience with the Pope — we’ll buy it on the spot.  So here’s my packing list: Light jacket 17-pocket travel vest Cashmere cardigan and pullover One pair of shoes (comfy, supportive sneakers) Two pairs of trousers (black crepe slacks, fast-drying jeans) Three shirts (two travel knits, one cotton) Two long-sleeved T-shirts One tank top Yoga pants and short-sleeved T-shirt for lounging, yoga, sleeping Slippers Socks and undergarments Scarf Gloves Toiletries and medications Reading glasses Umbrella MacBook Air, Kindle, iPhone Rich’s list is nearly identical, except that he will be wearing one of his trademark hats, in this case his rain-resistant Navy-blue felt fedora. And while I prefer extra layers to allow a nuanced response to changing temperatures, he wears a more robust jacket with hidden compartments, so he doesn’t need a 17-pocket vest or a cardigan to layer over his sweater. For specifics on brands and styles— our favorites, and those we avoid at all costs —see my post How to Choose Great Travel Clothes.  Here's Rich in his blue fedora one morning during Holy Week, when we stopped for coffee near the cathedral. As I snapped this he suddenly said, "Wait, is that the sound of a marching band approaching?" We paid up in haste and skedaddled to avoid being trapped behind processional lines. As for luggage, we’ll each have a small, roll-aboard suitcase, and I’ll carry a purse for incidentals like maps and water bottles. Rich is still debating whether he’ll bring a day pack or stuff his incidentals in the roomy pockets of his jacket. Our valuables will be safely zipped into the hidden inner compartments of our clothes. Will we end up making purchases along the way? Undoubtedly, if only to replace tiny tubes of toiletries as they run out. I'm not worried about finding shopping opportunities. In my experience, just about the time you think, “Damn, I really should have brought a sun hat,” some enterprising local will be standing there offering an assortment for you to choose from. And if we do wind up needing those red sequined tuxedos or a suitcase large enough to hold ancient artifacts, I’m sure Rich has an app that will help us find what we need. Stay tuned for updates on our trip. I’ll be posting at unplanned, disorganized intervals, so if you’re not already on my mailing list, sign up now to make sure you don’t miss a thing. Unlike some of my better-organized and more practical blogger friends, I never obtain any free or discounted gear, clothing, or supplies in return for promoting anything on this blog. I'm just letting you know about products Rich and I find particularly useful for our kind of travel. If you have questions or packing tips to share, I'd love to hear from you; please leave a comment below. |
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As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only write about things I find interesting and/or useful. I'm an American travel writer living in Seville, Spain and my home state of California. I travel the world seeking eccentric people, quirky places, and wacky food so I can have the fun of writing about them here.
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Karen McCann
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Winner of the 2023 Firebird Book Award for Travel
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