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Day: July 2, 2023

Digital nomads, scourge of downtowns

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Posted in categories: Culture, Greece

A sign I’ve come to recognise, that Here Be an AirBnB Rental. A key safe, this one in Athens. Ubiquitous in both Athens and Salonica, just as I’d been warned. As I’ve been told, it is noticeable that there are a lot fewer locals around in downtown Salonica than there used to be, as they […]

Karamanlis and their food

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Posted in categories: Culture, Greece

The Karamanlides/Karamanlar were a Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox people living in Anatolia. The term was generalised to all Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox. Since the Karamanlides were Greek Orthodox, and since alphabet went with creed in much of the world, the Karamanlides read Turkish in Greek script, which is accordingly called Karamanlidika. Karamanlidika is the name of ANYTHING […]

We interrupt to bring you this electoral advertorial…

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Posted in categories: Culture, Greece

In the wee hours of 23 June, just before the second round of Greek parliamentary elections, I was staying up to finish off a work task, and instead of Law and Order Criminal Intent, I’m watching the electoral speech of Zoe Konstantinopoulou: daughter of the president of SYRIZA’s predecessor party, former unsmiling SYRIZA speaker of […]

Tzisdarakis Mosque

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Posted in categories: Culture, Greece

The Tzisdarakis Mosque, towering over Monastiraki, the Athens flea market district. The mosque now houses the Greek folk art museum. It was built by Ottoman governor Dizdar Mustafa Ağa in 1759. The story goes that he ground down one of the columns of Olympian Zeus for limestone for it, and that the Ottoman authorities, as […]

Our Lady of the Chimney Officer

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Posted in categories: Culture, Greece

Smack in the middle of Ermou St Mall, the Church of Panagia Kapnikarea, Our Lady of the Chimney Officer. (A Chimney Officer, kapnikarios, was a building tax collector, who worked out which buildings to tax from which buildings had their chimneys working.) Thank you Byzantine Athens.com. This 11th century church is now used by the […]

Athens Cathedral

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Posted in categories: Culture, Greece

Athens Cathedral (“the metropolis”). Tucked in the corner, the cathedral’s Mini Me, the far older Church of Panagia Gorgoepikoos (Our Lady of Granting Requests Promptly), aka The Little Metropolis. Facing down the cathedral, the statue of archbishop Damaskinos. The inscription I caught sight of commemorates in Ancient Greek the fact that he was briefly vice […]

A soirée in Dafni

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Posted in categories: Culture, Greece

There are in fact plenty of nicer bits of Athens, all of them characterized by the fact that they are nowhere near the city center. My relatives and friends have taken me to several of them, including Kifisia and Palio Faliro and Glyfada. And so it was that I ended up at Souare bar in […]

Wasted street names

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Posted in categories: Culture, Greece

Athens did some premature optimisation with its street names. When Athens became capital of the Greek State, there was a rush to name its streets after all the gloried personages of antiquity. The problem was, Athens in 1833 was just Plaka and other densely laned streets, and a building project of new avenues. The new […]

Museum of Greek folk instruments: basement

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Posted in categories: Greece, Music

The basement of the museum has instruments that don’t quite fit into the narrative of public, festive music-making. Bells. Lots of bells. Greeks didn’t really do carillons: tuned bells were more for shepherds’ amusement, and noise-makers during carnival. Cymbals and spoons came in for use as accompaniments to dancing—the spoons being a particular favourite in […]

Museum of Greek folk instruments: blurry

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Posted in categories: Greece, Music

As you go down into the museum basement, you see a box by the side that is unlabelled, but instantly recognisable, for anyone that has watched a Grecollywood film. Well… I thought I’d captured it. I also thought that my instantané photography was charming and spontaneous, which it is, when it isn’t completely blurry and […]

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