Sunday is traditionally a day of leisure for the average Greek, dedicated to two important aspects of life: food and family. On this tour we’ll get a chance to experience Athens like a typical Greek does, visiting a series of beloved family-run institutions that have kept locals happily fed on the weekends for decades. We’ll begin with a fresh-baked koulouri at the bakery that supplies most of the city’s street vendors with this iconic street food, along with a tasting of traditional savory pies, before exploring the nearby weekly flea market. On Sundays, the flea market comes alive: antique shops spill out onto the streets, vendors set up around the central square, and locals drift from stall to stall hunting for treasures, creating a lively, almost ritual rhythm to the morning. We’ll pause here with coffee to take in the atmosphere at its most vibrant. As our Sunday stroll continues through the cobblestoned streets of the Plaka, the historic neighborhood under the shadow of the Acropolis, we’ll walk past buildings and monuments representing the depth of Athenian history, from the ancient Agora and the Stoa of Attalos, a 2nd century B.C. shopping arcade, to one of Athens’ oldest functioning churches, where students still go to get a blessing before final exams. From here, we’ll wend our way through Thiseio, where we stop at one of Athens’ first modern yogurt bars for a tasting of strained Greek yogurt topped with traditional spoon sweets, such as black cherry, or thyme honey. Founded in 2011, the shop treats yogurt as a living expression of Greek food culture and sits beneath Aeropagus Hill, where Apostle Paul once preached, before continuing on to Petralona, two lively neighborhoods filled with cafes and classic tavernas, which still maintain an air of “old Athens” about them. Here we will make our first lunch stop, sitting down for a meal of unforgettable grilled lamb chops and hand-cut fries in a family-run local institution. Our final stop will be in nearby Psyri – a working-class neighborhood that’s still home to many old-school small businesses – to eat at another family-run spot, a traditional taverna located on a tranquil pedestrianized street, where we’ll join the locals who are eating out with their extended families. There we’ll enjoy Greek comfort food like dolmades (stuffed grape leaves), soutzoukakia (Smyrna-style meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce) and the season’s best horta (salads made of wild greens) among Athenian families and friends – a fitting end to our moveable feast.
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