26 Apr

One of the more striking features of the remains of the ancient and famous city of Mycenae in the Argolid (just north of Nafplio) is the cistern there. You may think I’m being a bit of a nerd; surely the Lion Gate, the tombs, and the treasures found there are amazing too? There is no […]

09 Apr

Spring has crept up on me this year, and as Easter approaches, it’s as though subtle heralds of the season are sneaking up on me through my senses. I am intermittently blinded by the still low sun: bright enough to startle in the day, not yet warm enough to linger on into the evening. The […]

05 Apr

Have you ever had that unnerving – and sometimes embarrassing – situation where a word that you thought meant one thing actually means another? It happens quite a lot to me, and not just in Greek, in English too. A word like – say – ‘dissemble’ turns out to mean something else altogether different from […]

08 Mar

When I first moved to live in the centre of Athens, I would catch snippets of Greek music as I passed by a café, shop or taverna. It would invariably be accompanied by a bouzouki (the long-necked instrument resembling a mandolin) twiddling away. Back then it just added to the atmosphere of my new home: […]

09 Feb

I have to confess if I have one guilty pleasure it is Champagne. I love the taste and the smell, the bubbly effervescence as it tickles the nose and the back of the throat, the lightness, even the way it makes me slightly merry in a more alive way. Opening the cork is an event […]