Rome Run: Exploring the Villa Borghese Gardens (March 3, 2012)

When we awoke on our second morning in Rome, I was ~2 weeks out from a really good run.  We couldn’t really run in Cambodia, and when we got back, I had this awful run.  Then, we were in Athens, and I was sick/recovering/busy touring 2,000 year old ruins.  But two weeks is just too long for me to go run-less, and my feet were itching for my sneakers.

Heading out for a first run in an unfamiliar city can be amazing and invigorating, ridiculously frustrating, or (most often) some combination of the two.  We try to reduce the frustration by doing some in-person reconnaissance, if possible, and consulting maps and running forums for suggested routes.  This is slightly more interesting when you’re trying to do it in a foreign language, but thankfully, maps (usually) transcend language. 

In this particular case, we'd done our research and decided to head out to the Villa Borghese gardens.  The Villa Borghese was constructed on the outskirts of Rome for the Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a collector and patron of the arts (including Caravaggio and Bernini), to house his art collection.  In the early 1600s, the Cardinal took care to develop the vineyards around this villa into gardens.  In the 1900s, the gardens were remade in an English style. Today, the Villa itself is an art museum, and other buildings on the site include: several other art museums, the British School at Rome, the French Academy in Rome, and a zoo.  The gardens are open to the public, and we planned to run through them.

So we laced up, headed out…and spent the next 5 minutes hopping around on the corner, trying to stay warm while our Garmins figured out that we weren't in Asia anymore.  The few passers-by stared at us curiously, so I can only assume that skinny, spandex-clad individuals tapping and talking to their wristwatches is not a common site...

Finally, we were oriented - and off we went.  We found the gardens (and most of Rome's early-morning runners, it seemed) quite easily and began to explore.  These "gardens" are more like what we Americans would call a "park".  They consisted mostly of open, grassy areas, a few trees, and some fountains.  Perhaps more flowers appear in the warmer weather, but this was not a site of extensive, intricate landscaping.  Rather, it was a simple green escape in the middle of a bustling city.


Traffic was confined to one or two main roads through the gardens, and it was too early for most tourists/employees, so we had free reign of the paved paths.  The space was open and the terrain relatively flat, but running free in the cool morning air felt amazing.  The gardens were large enough that we had plenty to explore, but not so huge that we feared getting lost.  There were also an abundance of "You Are Here" maps, so we could easily get re-oriented if necessary.  [These maps are life-savers for tourists.  The longer we spent on the road, the more we loved them - especially in parks/for running.  We didn't have to carry anything, but we assured we could always figure out where we were.]

We finished up with about 4-5 miles, nothing amazing, but enough to feel re-energized and ready to explore Rome Underground.  Stay tuned!

From Russia, with... love?

In the last week, we have had 41 page views from Russia (79 this month, and 263 since we started blogging, which is the 3rd highest overall behind the US and Singapore). Whoever you are, I hope you're friendly...

Our First (Full) Day in Rome (March 2, 2012)

For our first full day in Rome, we scheduled a guided tour of the Vatican with an outfit called Context Tours. There are plenty of tour guides out there offering a wide variety in types of tours, but Context appealed to us because the tours are pretty small (usually no more than 6) and the guides are experts in a relevant academic discipline (our guide for the Vatican tour was an art historian who lectured in art and architecture at a local Italian university). So we didn’t have to constantly keep an eye out for our tour guide’s raised flag/umbrella/heraldic banner, and our guides were not only extremely knowledgeable about the subject matter of the tour, but also took the time to answer questions and even customize the tour to suit our group’s particular interests.

Based on our experience in Athens, we decided to walk from our hotel to the Vatican, which was about 1.75 miles (2.8km) away, to get a better feel for the city. We were supposed to meet our tour guide at 8am, so we left a little after 7 to give ourselves time to find some breakfast (and get lost). Rome is a beautiful city, especially in the peace of the early morning light and quiet.

The Tiber River in the tranquility of the early morning

We met our guide, Jose, just outside the entrance to the Vatican City, and were soon joined by two fellow tourists from Canada. Jose ushered us past Vatican security and soon enough, we were standing in the main visitor entrance area of the Vatican. Our tour began with a quick history of Vatican City and the papacy to give us some context for what we’d see. The next four hours were spent touring the Vatican Museum on what was essentially an extended art history lesson, with the benefit of being able to look at the actual art itself instead of just photos or slides of the art. The experience, even with an experienced guide, was overwhelming. The amount of art in the Vatican collection is staggering, and we had to skip entire galleries to keep our tour on time.

Courtyard in the Vatican

But of all the artwork that we saw that day, the one piece that had the most impact on me, was this:

Laocoön and His Sons

We saw quite a number of remarkable statues during our travels, but the Laocoön was definitely one of the most mesmerizing. Few other works so realistically captured human emotion, freezing the anguish, grief, and horror of Laocoön and his sons in time.

Of course, no Vatican tour would be complete without seeing the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica, which were both beautiful and awe-inspiring in their own right, fine examples of using art and architecture to teach the Bible to an illiterate population. This was a recurring theme in our travels through Italy, as we saw other ornately decorated churches that could best be described as “the Bible in architecture”.

The front of St. Peter's Basilica

Holly and Flat Stanley by one of the fountains in St. Peter's Square

When the tour ended, we were ready for a break, some time to process all that we had learned and let it soak in. And what better way to do that, than over lunch? At the recommendation of one of our guidebooks, we traipsed over to Insalata Ricca, just outside the walls of the Vatican. As the name suggests, Insalata Ricca is known for its salads. So we both ordered some crostini to start, a caprese salad for Holly, and a seafood salad for me.

Crostini with parma ham. Holly's wedding band included to illustrate size.
And yes, the crostini on the right has been ... sampled.

Holly's caprese salad.

My seafood salad. Yes, that prawn still has its head, whiskers and all.

The salads were large, and the vegetables looked good. Unfortunately, both of us felt that our salads fell kind of flat in the taste department. The vegetables were bland and tasteless, and the dressings were similarly uninspiring. The seafood on my salad had been frozen, not fresh, and didn’t taste that good. It was a pity, one of the few disappointing meals we had in Rome.

After lunch, we headed back towards the center of Rome, with an eye towards seeing the Pantheon. Somehow, we managed to walk right past it, and landed up in front of this:

Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II, a/k/a
"the wedding cake" or "the typewriter". It is big, white, and,
like many of Rome's monuments, pompously larger than life.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Inside, we found the Museum of Italian Reunification, which recounts the history of modern-day Italy, from its unification by King Vittorio Emanuele II (who got the building named after him) until the end of World War I (no mention of Mussolini or World War II). The real treat, however, was from the building's balconies, where you could see Rome spread out in front of you (we could have paid to take an elevator even further up, but we decided the view from halfway up was good enough, though in retrospect we do wish we'd done it). 

After the Museum, we stumbled upon the Basilica of St. Mary of the Altar of Heaven (Santa Maria in Aracoeli), one of the oldest churches in Rome, right next door. While not as grand or as large as St. Peter's (apparently no other Catholic church is allowed to be), St. Mary's was still an impressive church.

Our next stop was the Pantheon, which we did find on our second try. When we got there, it was closed for Mass (it’s now a church), so we settled for a photo from the outside. 

The Pantheon

By this point, we had been out all day and decided to head back to the hotel for a short break before dinner.

Dinner that night was at a restaurant called Asino d’Oro, which was recommended to us via, of all things, an app, specifically, the EatRome app. It is a restaurant that focuses on cuisine (including wine) from Umbria, in central Italy, and tries to combine both savory and sweet in its dishes (we had lots of chocolate flavors in ours). The Eat Rome app did not disappoint, this was a good recommendation.

Ravioli with dark chocolate and mushroom sauce

A spaghettoni dish with truffles and shaved almonds

Venison ham with a creamy lemon sauce and chocolate accents

Rabbit in a chocolate-flavored sauce. Yum.

Holly's dessert - some sort of chocolate truffle. 

I had homemade sorbet with a berry sauce for dessert.

Confession: We forgot to take detailed notes of this dinner. But our general recollection is that it was good. It was one of the pricier dinners we had in Rome (€83 for dinner and 3 glasses of good wine), but it was definitely good, with excellent service. While it wasn't the best or most value-for-money dinner we had in Rome, we definitely enjoyed our dining experience there.

After dinner, we somehow managed to roll/waddle back to our hotel, contented and happy with our first day of adventures in Rome. We turned in early that night--we had another Context Tour (Underground Rome) in the morning, and wanted to squeeze in a run before that. Which we'll get to blogging about... hopefully soon! :)

We Are Tumblr-ing Our Way Across the US!

keeminandholly.tumblr.com

This is the "cool new project" that Holly mentioned in her previous post. For those of you who think this is just waaay too much technology to follow, don't worry! We've tried to make it simple for you (see the new italicized explanation at the top of this blog). And you can always just keep visiting this blog regularly - links to our most recent Tumblr posts will appear in the box to the right. 

And if any of you read our blog via an RSS reader, just subscribe to our Tumblr RSS feed and you're all set! :)

Back in the U S of A...

For those of you who stalk us - or like us - or are Facebook friends with us (I think that should include everyone now) - you have probably suspected that we are back in the States.  In fact, I rolled over this morning and sleepily reported/asked Kee-Min, "One week?"


"Huh?"


"We've only been back for one week?!?"


Much has happened, and many miles have already been covered in the past 7 days.  We landed last Tuesday night (April 3) at JFK.  Thus commenced one of the most pesky and least efficient travel experience of our entire trip, as we tried to take a shuttle to Newark airport.   [We'll spare you the gory details, but suffice to say that we do not suggest taking the Airport Super Shuttle for this trip.]  But we made it, and my Dad fetched us and took us home.  Or, at least, to my parents' home, which is as much of a home as we have in the States right now.  At least, it was a place where we were fed delicious Kuzmiak food, and we hijacked the washer for 2 days to clean two hiking backpacks full of dirty clothes.


The following day, my parents and I set off for Phoenix, Arizona to attend my sister's thesis defense.  I was traveling on a different flight from them, and while I made it to Phoenix in time to enjoy some delicious Indian dinner with my sis, my parents arrived a bit later.  But by midnight, the whole Kuzmiak clan had invaded Tempe, AZ.


And even better - by noon the next day, we had another Doctor in the family!  Congratulations to my feisty, funny, beautiful, and brilliant sister!!

Mom - Sarah - Brian - Dad

Drs. Kuzmiak and Kuzmiak-Ngiam

Now that this thesis business is done, she can't wait to get back to the bench:

Don't they make a great pair?

I spent one more day (Friday) in Phoenix with my family, doing some shopping, relaxing, and catching up.  I accidentally acquired two new dresses at the JC Penny outlet, as well as a handbag from Burlington Coat Factory (they're MORE than great coats, guys!!).  I guess I had some shopping to catch up on!  My sister...well, she is the proud new owner of a very special duck:

It is totally normal to go nuts over a
microwavable warm fuzzy duck the day after your thesis defense.

We also did what Kuzmiaks do best: eat.  We enjoyed a lovely lunch at AZ Bread Co - if you find yourself in Tempe, I highly recommend you check it out for a simple and tasty breakfast/brunch/lunch.  Later, we used our awesome teamwork skills to assemble a delicious dinner at Sarah's place:

Black bean and corn salad burritos, served with pseudo-Asian cabbage salad,.

Kee-Min, meanwhile, had been left in New Jersey as the "Estate Manager" at my parents' house.  In other words, he drove us to the airport, ate all the leftover food in the fridge, and kept an eye on the Casa de Kuzmiak.  He also left NJ ridiculously early on Saturday morning to drive up to Rochester.  I'd caught a red eye (Phoenix - Newark - Rochester) back to the East Coast late Friday night.  Landing in Rochester at 10 AM after traveling all night...felt very familiar (but in a "thankfully I'm done with this" kind of way).


However, meeting a pile of running friends for breakfast felt very good.  I loved hearing about plans for Boston, Poconos, triathlons, 50Ks, 50 milers, and other crazy running schemes and adventures.  This is a group, with members new and old, that make Relentless Forward Progress under any and all conditions.  I've missed seeing their smiling faces.


Kee-Min and I checked out the new Fleet Feet Rochester store in Greece (OK, it's been open for 5 months already, but it was new to us!): What a beautiful space!  We also zipped over the the Brighton store to say hi to some awesome people there, too.  I'd planned a photo with at least one of the FF stores, but alas - I forgot.  Dang!!!


At that point - having been up since way early - we both crashed for an hour or two, before heading out to dinner with some more running friends.  Dinner wasn't really enough time to catch up with everyone, but we sure tried.  Thanks, guys! 


On Sunday, I squeezed in two runs with friends - the first, an early morning jaunt through Mendon Ponds Park.  For those of you unfamiliar with the place, it's hilly and beautiful, and we saw plenty of deer before we even hit the trails.  Our random group of runners that morning:

Thanks, John, for serving as our fearless leader!!
[Clearly, we needed a shower...Bill and Jen are keeping their distance...]

I also caught an afternoon run and coffee with "the other Holly".  Thankfully, she was gentle with my lungs and I, and ran slowly enough that I even managed a bit of chatting.  Unfortunately, we were having so much fun that I forgot to take a photo.  Too bad, really, because her workout outfits are spectacular.


Between these two runs, we joined the folks at Artisan Church for Easter worship service.  Although I stayed on the periphery of the Artisan community during my time in Rochester, on this morning I was reminded of how much the group has grown and developed in the last 6 years.  I am thankful that Kee-Min and I were able to witness and be a part of the unique and wonderful community they have formed - it was good to be back with you all!


Finally, we met up with a friend of mine from grad school, and one of her friends, for dinner at SEA Restaurant.  She also graciously let us spend the night at her place, even though she had a looming work deadline and stayed up super late to attend to it while we slept soundly...

Toby - Keemin - Stanley - Lindy

The following morning (Monday), I made a brief stop at the University and waved hi to a few friends.  And with that, we headed East!!


Stay tuned in the coming days - we'll still be posting about our international adventure right here, on this blog.  We also have a cool new project that will let you follow us across the US.  We'll be launching that in the next 24 hrs - so stop back soon!

UPDATE: Cool New Project has now been announced here!!

Buenasera, Roma!

Our eventual departure from Athens went pretty smoothly. We couldn’t take the subway to the airport as planned, due to the Metro workers’ strike, but the strike was only for the train and tram staff, which left the buses running as usual (very considerate of them!). So we grabbed the airport bus from Syntagma Square to the airport. After the usual check-in and security process, we chilled in the Aegean Airlines lounge for a couple of hours before boarding our flight. Buenasera, Roma!

But after landing in Rome and exiting Fiumicino Airport, our first experience was one of mild bewilderment. We had no fewer than four choices at the train station for buying tickets: two kinds of ticket machines, a ticket window, and a little convenience shop (a tabacchi). After a few moments of trying to understand why on earth you would want to have four different vendors of the same tickets at a train station, we gave up and just bought our tickets. Soon enough we were on our way to Rome, and a short subway transfer and brief walk later, we arrived at our chosen hotel, La Piccola Maison (note, turn your volume down/off before you click on the link, unless you don't mind sharing some light house/electronica with your officemates/family/fellow coffeeshop patrons).

Our host Giorgio, who ran La Piccola Maison, was extremely friendly. He gave us an upgrade to a larger room (a whole apartment, really), spent time showing us where things were located, and took the time to answer our questions about Rome, in particular, where we could get dinner.

The bedroom of our little apartment at La Piccola Maison.

And the main living room, dining room, and kitchenette.
The sofabed was used as a luggage rack.

At Giorgio's suggestion, we decided to try Sora Lucia, a little trattoria that was a 10 minute walk. We found it without too much trouble, on via del Panetteria, close to the Trevi Fountain (we didn’t realize how close until after dinner). When we walked in, we were the only patrons, and we were in fact the only ones in there the whole time (in fact, when we were leaving, they were already packing up for the night).

Sora Lucia is a family-run restaurant, with the father and (presumed) son out front taking orders and pouring drinks, and the mother whipping up dishes in the kitchen. Although they didn’t speak much English, between our stilted Italian, some borrowed Spanish, a garnish of hand gestures, and plenty of smiles and laughter, we managed to order two pastas, some wine, and two desserts just fine. We weren’t expecting much, especially since we had done no research on Sora Lucia and the place was deserted the entire time we were there. But dinner that night was like going over to your friend’s place for dinner, if your friend’s mother happens to be old school Italian and a first-rate cook. 

The presentation and ambience wasn’t fancy, but the food was beyond reproach: simple, home-cooked, and delicious (and sadly, we were so hungry we finished eating everything before we remembered to take photos, or rather, remembered that we forgot to take photos). Sora Lucia was a good reminder that an excellent restaurant experience isn’t just about the food, but also about the hospitality you receive and how much you’re made to feel welcome. After all, a meal isn’t just for nourishment; it's an opportunity for fellowship, for relating to the people you eat with and the people who make your meal possible. Perhaps that’s one of the oft overlooked problems with fast food, and with a lot of modern-day restaurant dining – our interactions with the people who serve us are so limited, scripted, and confined. After she was done cooking, the mother came out of the kitchen to see if we liked dinner. She didn’t speak English, but she beamed when she saw us digging into our food with gusto and the big smiles on our faces. It was clear that she took a lot of pride in her cooking, and we could attest that it was worth being proud of.

After dinner, we decided to keep walking around a little to get our bearings and stumbled on the Trevi Fountain. Well, it was hard to miss, not just because of its size, but also because of the number of tourists there, even at almost 11pm at night. That’s when we knew that while we weren’t in the throes of tourist season, some places just attract lots of tourists all the time, and Rome is one of them!

The Trevi Fountain. A little over the top, but that's quite Roman too
(also, I have no idea how Holly managed to snap this shot with so few
people in it. I swear there were at least 3 or 4x as many people as you
can see here.)

After taking a few photos, we headed back to our hotel. We had to be up early the next day, for a guided tour of Vatican City and the Vatican Museum!

Athens Meal Round-Up

This post is quite, quite overdue - I'm putting the finishing touches on this post while sitting at Holly's parents' dining room table. Obviously, we have quite a backlog of blog posts to work through! But this should conclude our time in Athens. Next up, and hopefully coming soon, Rome! Stay tuned!

Finding good places to eat while on vacation has gotten much easier with the internet. Now, on top of recommendations from friends who’d been there, write-ups in guides, and tips from the locals, you can consult a wider community via Chowhound, Tripadvisor, and googling for “restaurants in Athens”. Of course, the internet can only do so much for you, and every visit to a new restaurant is still an adventure. But while we’ve had a few disappointments, our overall culinary experiences have been very positive. We’ve already blogged about some of the meals we’ve had in Athens (e.g., here and here), but for posterity and the benefit of any future Athens-bound travelers, here’s a round-up of the other places that we ate at.

Dinner, Day #2: Gyros

Our second dinner in Athens was on Clean Monday. As you know from our previous post, lots of places were closed that day, and the same was true for our first choice for dinner—Mystic Pizza. We were able to find a few places that were open, and eventually we agreed on a gyro place not too far from our hotel. Unfortunately we forgot to jot down the name of the place, and couldn’t find it online (increasingly rare these days). But if you exit from the north exit of the Syngrou-Fix Metro Station and head north on Drakou (away from the main street, Leoforos Syngrou), it’s on your left, between some other eateries, less than a block away. Here’s a Google Map showing its approximate location:

There were other customers inside, and they seemed to do a steady business in take-away orders, based on the number of people who walked in and out while we were conducting our reconnaissance (popularity with the local population is, of course, one of the cardinal rules of picking a place to eat in a foreign land).

When we walked in, they seemed surprised to see us, maybe because it was Clean Monday, or maybe because we didn’t look Greek (or at least, I didn’t). The first guy who greeted us didn’t speak much English, but we did manage to communicate that we’d like a table for two. He showed us to a table and brought us water and utensils, but someone else brought the (English) menus over and greeted us in English. She started by pointing out all the things they didn’t have that day, on account of it being a public holiday. In the end, I think we were effectively left with two choices for our main dishes: gyros or kebabs. We ordered a gyro plate, tzatziki, and fried potatoes (which we subsequently confirmed just means steak-cut french fries). While we waited for our food to arrive, we took a look around the place. The other patrons were locals, except for a pair of tourists from England (we know because we saw them the next day at the Acropolis Museum, and because they had English accents). The atmosphere was definitely homely and relaxed—plastic tablecloths, well-used furniture, a handful of photographs on the wall, nothing fancy at all. Similarly, when the food came, it was quite unremarkable to look at (and we completely forgot to take any photos--sorry!).

But the food was really good, and quite well-priced. Holly gave the tzatziki slightly lower marks than the one we tried at Aschimopapo, but decided it was still better than most tzatziki in the US. The gyro meat was delicious – tender and moist, but full of flavor and roasted just right. The potatoes were excellent too (although admittedly it’s hard for fried potatoes not to taste good). We agreed that the restaurant was just the sort of place that we’d go for a good and simple meal without any fuss. In fact, that’s probably why most of the local customers were there that night.   

Lunch, Day #4

For our second-last day in Athens, we had identified two restaurants in Athens: Tzitzikas kai Mermingas (TM), and Kuzina. TM was recommended by Lonely Planet and had gotten some positive reviews on Chowhound, while Kuzina came to my attention via Chowhound. From the reviews, we knew TM had a set lunch menu, and since it was on our way from the Ancient Agora to the Benaki Museum, we figured we’d drop in there for lunch. Well, we got there a little after noon, and found that they didn’t open till 1pm (Greek meals tend to start later than we’re used to in the US). We were hungry though, and since we had some time to kill, we popped on over to Ariston, a little bakery that’s been around forever, just off Syntagma Square and not too far from TM. We picked up a mushroom and cheese pie, pictured below:

Yes, we took a bite (or two) before we remembered to snap a photo.
But all the better to show you the contents of the pie!

The pie was a bit disappointing, given the uniformly positive press we’d read about Ariston. I thought about going back to try another, but it was almost 1pm and time for lunch (the pie, after all, was merely a pre-appetizer). The TM set menu offered us several choices, and between the two of us, we had:

A tomato and cucumber salad, with feta.

Dolmades, but wrapped in “spring onions” instead of grape leaves
(not what we’d call spring onions in the US or Singapore,
but definitely some sort of onion cousin).

A fried seafood basket (as an interesting aside, because Greeks really care about getting their seafood fresh, restaurants have to indicate on their menus if a dish has frozen seafood, which ours did).

A mushroom and beef stew.

A semolina cake with ice cream.

The total cost was €36.50. This included two glasses of the house wine as well. We weren’t overwhelmed by the food. It was good, but a little underwhelming given some of the positive reviews we had read and the price (relative price in Athens—by the time we reached northern Europe, the price would have been a steal). This was one of those meals where none of the dishes were per se bad: The salad was light and tasty enough, but nothing special; the wrapped onions were okay but the flavors weren’t especially strong; the fried seafood was frozen, not fresh, and so while it was still good, it wasn’t amazing; and the stew and the dessert were similar—good but forgettable. TM could have just had a bad day, or perhaps we didn’t choose the best dishes. It’s also possible that since we had just eaten at Mani Mani the night before, and had amazing meals in Athens up till now, our standards were a little higher than they otherwise would be. Nonetheless, lunch at TM probably merited a 7 out of 10, but no more.

Dinner, Day #4

That same night, we decided to do a late dinner at Kuzina. Kuzina is located on a stretch of restaurants along the northern border of the Acropolis, and some of its neighbors are definitely tourist-oriented. We’d walked past that stretch before, and seen multiple signs for “tourist menus”, “authentic Greek taverna,” and been greeted by multiple people trying to entice us in for a meal. Kuzina, however, did not. In fact, by the time we got there at almost 10pm, many of the other places had closed for the night and we were a little worried that Kuzina would be too. But when we opened the door, we were greeted by the sounds of laughter, conversation, and clinking glasses. Clearly, its customers were having a good time. We had heard that the views of the Acropolis from a window table on the upper floor were fantastic, but completely forgot to ask for one, and so got a table on the first floor instead, where we were able to observe the bar, parts of the kitchen, and the other customers (a good mix of locals and locals entertaining overseas guests).

Kuzina was pretty thinly staffed – we only saw one waiter and the manager the whole evening, not counting people in the kitchen. But they were both very pleasant and friendly (we had read a review to the contrary, so this was a relief). And the food experience was excellent. I ordered their dinner prix fix menu, and Holly ordered a couple of additional dishes (she wasn't feeling 100%). We had:

Potato croquettes

Beet and walnut salad

A garden salad

Roasted duck

A chicken, cheese and spinach flatbread

Baked apple and vanilla ice-cream with raspberry sauce  

 Chocolate and cream dessert

Dinner cost us €59.40, including wine for us both (I may have had a second glass). We were wowed by the food, and the flavors were well-balanced and tasty. The croquettes weren’t over-fried, and the consistency was just right – they held together well without being either too wet or too dry. The roast duck was moist, which is hard to get right with duck, and the sauce perfectly complemented the taste of the duck. Both salads were excellent, and the dressings really accentuated the flavors of the vegetables (which were fresh and really flavorful in and of themselves. And I don’t even like beets that much!). The flatbread was excellent too. The desserts were just the icing on the cake (and so good that I think we practically licked the dishes clean). We left happy, and the midnight walk back to our hotel was magical – clear black skies, and the Acropolis lit up like a city on a hill.

Taken with a cellphone camera - much lovelier in person.

In Conclusion…

Of all our meals in Athens, our top three were: (1) Aschimopapo, (2) Mani Mani, and (3) Kuzina. The food at each was excellent and our experiences were fantastic. But we really didn’t have any bad meals our entire time there. And while the country has seen better times, the people we met were incredibly friendly and warm. Hopefully Greece pulls through this crisis and sees better days. In the meantime, though, we'd still encourage people to visit. And if anyone wants a map of Athens to help them plan a trip, here's the one we put together for ours. Next up, Rome!