Walking around Athens: Greece's Capital with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Walking around Athens: Greece’s Capital with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I took an afternoon flight to Athens from Paris and arrived at night in Athens.

We slept in and walked to the Acropolis through the Plaka quarter, which was full of restaurants serving Greek omelets with feta cheese and pan-baked potatoes.  I knew where I would be eating after climbing the Acropolis.

There were no crosswalks in Athens.  Walking can be hazardous downtown.  The air was polluted, too.  I knew why people were worried about the Parthenon being eaten down by pollution and being turned black like many of the monuments were in Rome (Italy).

Once we arrived at the foot of the Acropolis Hill, we climbed it to see the temples that governed life in ancient Greece.

At the top, we visited the Parthenon devoted to the Goddess Athena, who was worshiped for weaving and wisdom.  The Erectheon Temple with its caryiatids (columns in the form of women) was more beautiful than the Parthenon I thought.

I wanted to go inside these places and let the magic of their perfect proportions work on me.  However, most of the buildings were closed off to tourists.

After our visit to the Acropolis, we set out to purchase our plane ticket to Heraklion, the capital of the island of Crete where we were going to spend a two-week vacation.  With our tickets in hand, we went to the Plaka for breakfast. 

(I still want to build a shrine to the Agora Restaurant in Hyde Park, Chicago for keeping me healthy and strong on 3-egg, Greek omelets with feta cheese and pan-baked potatoes with a ton of café au lait and grapefruit juice when I was in college at the University of Chicago.)

At the airport the next day, we were the only non-German tourists in the terminal.

“Did we book a flight to Heraklion or Berlin?” I asked Laurent.

Laurent smiled at me as we got our affairs ready to board the plane.  It took about half an hour to fly from Athens to Crete.

Our travel agent was waiting for us at the airport.  She drove us to the rental car agency and helped us fill out our paperwork.

We checked in to our hotel and went to eat downtown.  I ate moussaka (a lamb casserole with béchamel and cheese sauce on top) and pastitio (macaroni with tomato sauce and béchamel sauce topping), I drank a Greek iced coffee with thick, real cream and no sugar.

We watched the sun go down and thought we had a pretty nice first day on the island of Crete.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Touring Pamplona and Bayonne, Spanish and French Basque Region Tourist Towns with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Pamplona and Bayonne, Spanish and French Basque Region Tourist Towns with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent and I continued driving through the Pyrénées Mountains to the City of Pamplona in Spain made famous by Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises.

Pamplona is the seat of the Navarra Government and has many government buildings as well.  We had trouble finding a place to park.

Once we found a parking spot, the siesta was well underway.  Everything was closed except for the bar-restaurants in town. 

We found one with air-conditioning and ate there.  I ordered in the Spanish I had learned all by myself using books, reading a bilingual French-Spanish newspaper, and watching the European news and feature television program called Continentales on television.

I ordered beer for us along with ham and cheese sandwiches.  The bar was air-conditioned.  I really did not want to go out and do any touring, but Laurent finally insisted we get moving.

The streets in Pamplona have collapsible metal barriers built into them that were beneath the pavement.  When the Running of the Bulls happens during the Feast of Saint Fermin in July, these metal barriers are hauled up to protect the spectators.

I pretended to be a bull and chased Laurent through the streets.  I hope we did not wake anyone up from their siesta from laughing.

We stayed in Bayonne the next day, because it was raining.  We covered Florence up and walked to a Basque bookstore in the Petit Bayonne.  The salesman in the bookstore was reading a Basque newspaper when we came in.

While we were looking around, he greeted another customer in Basque and had a long conversation.  Once the conversation was over, I asked the salesman for some recommendations on Basque music.

I bought two cassettes of Basque church music, a Basque cookbook, and a copiously illustrated book about the Basque Country in English.

We ate a Basque restaurant called the Bar du Marché.  Our simple lunch was delicious – grilled fish with potatoes and salad followed by chocolate cake.

Laurent and Florence conked out at the hotel.  I took a long walk outside and was happy with my vacation.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Visiting San Sebastian: Spain's Conch-Shelled Beach Town by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting San Sebastian: Spain’s Conch-Shelled Beach Town by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On another vacation day in the French Basque country, my husband Laurent and I headed out for the town of San Sebastian in the Spanish Basque country, which is famous for its conch shell-shaped beach on the Atlantic.

On the way to the Spanish border, we passed Hendaye, which is the water sports capital of Southwestern France.  There are tons of surfboards with sails, water scooters, and water skiers out on the water there.  Of course, everyone is tan and very, very thin.

The border was non-existant; we just drove into Spain with a glance at our license plates by border control.

Once inside the town of San Sebastian, Laurent and I parked at the garage shared by the Maria Christina Hotel and Victoria Eugénie Theatre. 

The ocean comes directly into town in channels with ornately carved bridges over them.  San Sebastian is like Venice, but with less polluted water and air to breathe.

We visited the town’s churches and admired the conch-shelled beach and the Spanish well-to-do in their lace-accented clothing.  (Versace was big in the 1990s.)

San Sebastian is a favorite vacation destination for Spanish royalty, aristocrats, and bureaucrats, who would-be aristocrats from Madrid.  The aristocratic babies were decked out in lovely, lace outfits that were perfectly ironed.

Florence had drawers full of these kinds of clothes at home in Paris, but I was becoming fed up with ironing and dressed Florence in shorts and T-shirts or blue jean overalls with a T-shirt to play in.

Florence looked cute in her American jeans and waved and smiled at everyone just like a movie star. 

We went back to France to eat.  We had steaks, steamed potatoes with butter and parsley, and green beans at the Buffalo Grill that also played loud Rolling Stones music.  I always got extra Sauce Béarnaise there and a strawberry sundae for dessert.

After lunch, we visited the monastery’s museum when that opened after the siesta.

Then, we drove through the mountains to St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the spot where all the Camino de Santiago de Compostela routes converged before going into Spain.

At the top of the mountain, we arrived at Roncevalles and ate lunch at a monastery.  Roncevalles is famous as being the spot where the French knight Roland was killed.  His story is recorded in the French national epic entitled The Song of Roland.

The Basque houses in the mountains had orange, asymmetrical roofs to aid in letting rainwater fall far away from the house quickly, shutters on windows on these white-washed homes could be orange, brown, blue, or green.  Flowers were in bloom everywhere.

I still love driving through the countryside analyzing homes to see what materials they are built with and what cultural group they belong to. 

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Visiting Biarritz and St.-Jean-de-Luz: Touring the French Basque Country's Ritzy Oceanfront Towns by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Biarritz and St.-Jean-de-Luz:  Touring the  French Basque Country’s Ritzy Oceanfront Towns by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

After a good night’s sleep in the Basque city of Bayonne, my husband Laurent and I drove down the Basque Coast.

Our first stop was at the resort town of Biarritz.  There is a dramatic oceanfront there with big waves smashing rocks.  The beach exists for surfers.

There is only a small section of beach reserved for swimmers at Biarritz.

My favorite story about Biarritz concerns Eugénie de Montijo and Emperor Napoleon III.  When Napoleon III was courting Eugénie, he asked her what was the shortest way to her apartment.

“Through the church,” she answered to her future husband.

The setting of Biarritz awes you with its hotels and apartments built up on rocks.  The fortress affect is softened by mauve hortensia flowers cascading down the fronts of buildings.

Biarritz reminded me of Deauville with its lush landscaping, designer clothing stores, and Swiss watch and pen stores.

The next town we visited further down the Atlantic Coast was the port town named Saint Jean-de-Luz.  Louis XIV married the Spanish princess Maria Theresa, the Infanta, of Spain here in a pink and white building on the port.

We bought boxes of chocolate as souvenirs and read that the Spanish Infanta brought her love for chocolate to France.

We ate mussels steamed with white wine and chopped shallots with crème fraîche added at the end in Saint Jean-de-Luz for dinner before going back to Bayonne with a beautiful sunset to end the day.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Visiting Bayonne: Touring the Capital of France's Basque Country with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Bayonne:  Touring the Capital of France’s Basque Country with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The capital of the French Basque Country is Bayonne, which is located on the Atlantic Ocean.  I called Bayonne the “City of Persian Shutters.”  All the row houses seem to have slatted shutters that you can see out of a house, but not into it.

Bayonne’s streets are narrow and finding a parking spot in the summer is impossible.  The many food and wine shops there made me think that people ate well in Bayonne.

I discovered that Bayonne was easy to navigate once you oriented yourself in relation to the cathedral.  The cathedral is beautiful from a distance, but I wanted to go shopping and not visit a church for once.

I was on the hunt for bookstores as I pushed Florence around town.  The first bookstore I found was all historical books, but I wanted cookbooks and art books, which were in short supply.

That night I ate Poulet Basquaise (Basque Chicken) for dinner.  Poulet Basquaise is a stovetop preparation of braised chicken with red bell peppers, green bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, and white wine. 

It is easy to prepare, and peppers are full of Vitamin C, which is supposed to be an antioxidant.  (Source: Anthony Bourdain’s recipe in Food and Wine magazine online.)

I drank a white wine with my dish called Irouléguy from the French Basque Country.  For dessert, I ate a Basque Cake with vanilla pastry cream in it.  Basque cake is sinfully good.   I reserved indulging in it for vacations.

I ate omelets, potatoes, salad with blue cheese dressing, and fruit salad at home, so I liked indulging in Basque cake on vacation.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie