All posts filed under: greece

Sniffing Through Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar

Published by

Originally posted on The 9 to 5 Wanderer:
Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar is a foodie’s dream come true. The covered market is lined with vendors selling spices, teas, dried fruits, and Turkish desserts. Mounds of jewel colored spices and teas line the walls of the market, and dried clusters of herbs and loofahs are strung up from the ceilings. The different aromas create an intoxicating scent that wafts through the narrow alleys of the bazaar. Sold by the kilo, “love teas” promise to serve as an aphrodisiac, “relaxing teas” to destress. There are also a variety of more conventional teas such as jasmine tea and black teas, for the less adventurous. The carefully formed mountains of spices include pure spices like saffron, cumin, and oregano, as well as “chicken spice”, “meat spice” and “salad spice” blends. (What is salad spice?) The Spice Bazaar also sells a number of sweets, dried fruits, and nuts. We bought some chicken spice and Turkish tea from one shopkeeper, and then from a smiling Syrian man who had been working at the Spice…

Athens, and the end of the road

Published by

Originally posted on Oh, the places you'll go :
*Post was written on my trip and posted retroactively – and late on account of bad wifi, a cold and oweek, apologies!”* So, as previously mentioned, I wasn’t feeling exactly 100% when I dragged my bags down our steep hill to the coach in Athens.  The lack of nighttime cold meds was really starting to kill me, as I found that when I took too deep of a breath I coughed, limiting the sleep I got to critically low amounts.  I did catch a few z’s again on the 2 hour ferry ride back to the mainland, which helped, and the coach that came and got us from the ferry terminal was really roomy with more leg room, so that was another added bonus. The drive to Athens from the terminal was also another plus – it was about 5 hours and super pretty, with gorgeous landscape after gorgeous landscape. We had two stops on our drive to Athens – one in a cute little Greek…

Pompeii, Corfu, jetskis and the Contiki Cough

Published by

Originally posted on Oh, the places you'll go :
*Post was written on my trip and posted – a bit more than intended, apologies for my cold – retroactively on account of bad wifi (and said cold!)* We left Rome the next morning bright and early for what was an all travel day, puntucated with a stop in Pompeii. Pompeii was again, about a zillion degrees, and there was very little shade, making that an extra treat 😝 However the town was worth it in my opinion, as we got to walk through the theatre: Brothel: Baths: Houses: Any city forum: Of all those people whose lives were essentially frozen in time by Vesuvius. There aren’t any bodies actually at the site of Pompeii now, in case anyone was curious, but there were three plaster casts of a man: A dog: And a baby: On display that were kind of fascinating in a terrible way. After Pompeii we got back on the bus again and travel the whole day to make it to our first…