Athens 2: DIY Dinner, Assisted Bathing, And More

Athens, Greece

On the afternoon of the day of the visit to the Acropolis and its museum, I took in the track field/stadium from the first modern-day Olympics in 1896⎯hearkening back to my post-COVID visit to the Olympic Museum in Geneva in 2021⎯and in the early evening attended a cooking class featuring 7 dishes comprising a typical Greek Sunday dinner.

TRAVEL TIP #5: Participate in a cooking class when you travel, especially if traveling solo! 🥘 Cooking classes provide a tremendous opportunity for more sustained social interaction in an unfamiliar city, and the instructor is likely to be a local with a great affinity for⎯and insights into⎯cooking native cuisine. 👨‍🍳

Through no fault of the tour operator, this cooking class was overbooked by six people, and I arrived last minute (no surprise there) and was consigned to the “kids’ table,” as we took to calling it. But that worked out great, as the six of us bonded as a result and had a fantastic time yucking it up and consuming multiple ADULT beverages 🍸🥃🍷 (I must confess, I led the charge on this) as we worked on the seven different Greek dishes.

After a few hours, we enjoyed the fruits of our labor–baked lamb, potatoes, a Greek salad, spanakopita, dolmades, tzatziki/pita, and honeyed yogurt for dessert⎯sitting on a patio viewing the fully lit Acropolis on a balmy evening! A cooking class like this⎯which you can find in every major city on Expedia, Viator, and other travel sites⎯is such a fantastic way to immerse yourself in the local culture. And remember, you are paying for the food AND the 3-4 hour experience, so don’t be put off by what may seem an expensive meal. 🫰

On a lark the following day, I decided to book a massage at this cool Turkish bath I had seen while exploring the first day. OMG⎯it was so great!!! For the uninitiated (like me), it’s basically a massage in a steam room but not quite as hot (which is ideal to me). 🧖 First, you put on your bathing suit and are escorted to a bathing room (not a bath room 😆) where you are assigned to your own cylindrical, deep sink, given a shallow metal bowl, and encouraged to dump warm water all over your body (i.e., bathe) for a while. In the middle of this room was a circular marble slab that is very warm and you are supposed to lay on it, using your overturned bowl as a headrest and perhaps your towel as a “mat” if the marble seems to warm or hard. However, the slab, like the marble massage table to come, is surprisingly comfortable, and the heat is relaxing.

After 30 minutes, you are escorted to your service in an area you were partly able to see while bathing yourself. Truth be told, I was disappointed I didn’t get the hot male masseur I had been watching pour water over his own body between rounds of massage⎯the masseurs/masseuses get totally soaked (and probably warm) in the process of massaging and this is one method of cooling down. The view of him dumping water over his scantily clad upper body was like something out of a gay porn, and served primarily to get me hot under the collar (which I wasn’t wearing), so maybe it was for the best that I got the masseuse and not the masseur.

The original Olympians engaged in a ritual of communal bathing. Athletes rubbed oil on their bodies, to which a fair amount of dust and dirt would adhere during training. In the communal post-workout bath, a strigil was used to scrape the oil and dirt off the body prior to massage and cleansing with water.

After you lay face down on the table, still in this steamy (but not oppressive) room, you are doused with water and soap is poured over your body and gently lathered with this fluffy loofa thing. They then pour oil⎯in smaller quantities but still a lot⎯over your body and start massaging. It’s like a massage and a bath and a steam all at the same time. After about 15-20 minutes you flip, as the massage lasts 30 minutes. For women, I believe there’s several minutes just washing your hair near the end. It was fantastic! Then you go to a cool down room for tea–black, herbal, or hibiscus but not hot⎯and sweet candies. Really wonderful!!!

I have no pictures of the Turkish bath⎯that sort of thing likely be frowned upon where people are near naked 🤣⎯but I’ve included a pic of the outside and the information for this particular establishment in Athens. Loved it!!!!

The rest of my stay in Athens included a return to the Museum of Cycladic Art to see the artifacts exhibited there, gelato at a terrific shop with interesting flavors and organic ingredients, a stop at a boutique hotel with a sleep store underneath it (literally), and a terrific dinner in Kolonaki at a place called the Stinking Bishop.

I had a very full and fulfilling 4+ days in Athens, and I’ve reached the conclusion that anyone who can’t find plenty of interesting things to do there is just not looking hard enough! As the ancient Greeks would say, “Know Thyself,” and then seek out the experiences that resonate with you. This seems like pretty good advice for traveling in any foreign city. 😀

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