Tuesday 10 July 2012

A week in Athens. (Part C)

This is the last part of my Athens report!
On the last day of our stay on the Saturday we started in the morning at the city centre.
So we took the metro and came to the Parliament square.

 We walked up Kydathenaion street in Plaka looking up to the Acropolis.
 It is filled with little souvenir shops. I loved the rainbow range of these dresses which are very cool and comfortable.
 There were lots of machine made embroideries with olive trees branches.
 And a variety of little pottery bowls which I have also seen in Turkey and I thought they were Turkish here too.

First we visited the Folk Museum in Plaka.
Both hubby and I wanted to visit this small museum, he for the shadow puppet figures (yes again) and me for the embroideries!
The top floor is filled with various traditional costumes from various parts of Greece like these from Skyros island.

 I loved spotting cross stitch on them.

 Going down to my great surprise I saw this huge framed cross stitch piece. This is the info about it.
" A cross stitch embroidery on canvas for wall decoration depicting Neo Faliron at the end of the 19th century, made by Myrsini Melahrinou of the Alex. Valsamakis family of Skopelos island in 1896,donated by her son Kostis Melahrinos in 1984."
Neo Faliron is a seafront area in Athens.
 On the next floor there was jewelry in silver for women, brides and priests.
Then on the next floor there was a room dedicated to Theophilos the folk painter I had told you about on my trip to Pelion Mountain. This is the painting of Erotokritos and Aretousa.

 And that's part of the room all of its walls were brought here from Mytilene island.
Next was a temporary exhibition of embroidery from Karpathos island.

There wasn't much on the shadow puppet theatre but still it was interesting.


And the entrance hall was filled with more embroidery from all around Greece.






 This one is cross stitch!

After the museum we strolled the flea market at Monastiraki . There was lots to see but I couldn't afford anything!





and we finished up with a souvlaki at Bairaktaris restaurant opposite the Monastiraki metro station and the Ceramics museum seen in the photo. Unfortunately we did not have time to visit that one, too.

In the afternoon we visited more relatives and some came to say good bye at my aunt's house where we were staying. I so enjoyed meeting them all!
Apart from excellent memories and experiences and meeting relatives and fellow shadow puppeteers I brought back from Athens these three things.
Some plants from my aunt's balcony to plant here.
 Four cards with Nikos Hatjikyriakos Gikas paintings and a ruler with shadow puppets.
 And some sea glass my aunt collected, one rare red piece among them! I didn't spend much, did I?
I will be away from blogland  for a while so I will be wishing you a happy warm sunny July!

5 comments:

prpltrtl946 said...

Thank you for this beautiful "tour" of Athens!! 8*)

Have a happy summer! 8*)

Laura said...

Such beautiful pictures! The flea market looks so colorful. Even though I was only 14 years old when I was in Athens I vividly remember the Plaka and the Acropolis. Happy July to you too!

Anonymous said...

happy July too!
it was great to see so much from Athens.. thank you!!

Dani - tkdchick said...

What a wonderful adventure! That's the sad thing about living in the "new world" we have so little access to the ancient history that's over in Europe.

barbara@sparrowavenue said...

thank you for sharing all those gorgeous embroideries!
I also loved those "Turkish" bowls