#18 Hommage to Greek wine and music

Meet Nicole, Dimitris, Eunji and the Musicians of Athens

August 25 - September 5, 2022 - Greece - People

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Not only Udo Jürgen’s fell in love with the Greek culture in his famous song.

There are two things that were the patterns of dear memories during my 1.5 weeks in Greece sailing the saronic sea and spending a few days in Athens:

Krasi and Mousiki.

Sweet beginnings, sweet wine

We landed in Athens on August 25. My brother Noah, his girlfriend Elif as well as her friends Melina and Joël were to be my travel companions for a seven days sailing trip.

We popped a bottle of Swiss Prosecco to mark the start of our journey and retired to bed early.

The spent a successful Friday with the shopping of our provisions, a visit to Acropolis and a first two excellent bottles of white wine from Biblio Chora.

Another Yuanfen moment arose when I visited Nicole, a dear friend from my Master studies on their catamaran at night. She just finished a seven days sailing journey with ten of her female friends.

More white wine and a gin tonic later, I went back to bed.

Sunset and wine

In an humble attempt to spend an alcohol-free sailing day later that week, I went to buy some alcohol-free beer.

You can already guess, I did not manage, but anyway.

We boarded our beautiful Beneteau monohull boat on Saturday afternoon, where Dimitris our kind skipper greeted us.

With his more than 20 years of experience and a boat of 20 years that was kept in meticulous shape, we started our journey.

Every successful leg we concluded with an Anker beer.

And during our nightly stops in Ägina, next to the Shipwreck Rolini, in the port of Poros, the lonely bay of Dokos, the beautiful island of Hydra, the old port of Methana and the last night in a small hidden bay of Agistri, we had more tasty Greek wine.

And magic sunset moments.

Dimitri stuck to his sailer’s code of conduct, not to drink during the trip.

So it was our last evening back in the port of Alimos, were we had our shared bottle of Aspro Krasi and toasted to the successful adventure we spent together.

Efcharisto Dimi for the tasty Souvlaki dinner and to the crew for the unforgettable journey!

The surprise wine buddy

The crew parted its way on Saturday. I went to my cozy Airbnb hosted by Athina and explored the city.

Later that evening I received a message.

Eunji thanked me for the previous story about Kairos and sent greetings from Athens.

Wow, another Yuanfen moment.

Eunji and I met back at the House of Beautiful Business conference in Lisbon last October and spent a night discussing the world with Joe and Anni in my tiny hotel room and drinking red wine in the late hours after the final party.

She is a pure inspiration. Being Korea-born, US-educated and professional-years-spent, with a Bauhaus design master, now thriving in an innovation consulting firm in Hamburg (Germany of all places!), we realized how many topics we could talk about.

Niklas Luhmann and his system theory, Asian-American model minorities in the USA, innovators dilemma and negotiation theories to name a few.

We spent Sunday night sipping a bottle of tasty orange natural wine (Lisa and Susanne, so lecker!) at heteroclito Wine Bar and talking until her mum started to get nervous back in the hotel (never mind her daughter is in her 40s).

We parted close to midnight energised from our lively conversation and slightly elevated by the tasty wine.

The Greek chorus

Earlier that day I had a moment of pure bliss and pleasant shiver.

I strolled aimlessly through the early Sunday morning hours of Athens, waiting for my breakfast spot Cherchez la femme to open at 10am.

I passed a small church and a friendly group of elderly men sat outside a closed café.

“Calimera! Where are you from?”, they greeted me cheerfully.

In my broken few words in Greek and their just as broken English, I learned that they meet every Sunday on that spot to sing together.

Before I could say another thing, they started.

I took a chair and joined them.

The Greek songs that followed were beautiful.

The little group consisted of tenor as well as bass voices and the maestro guided them through the lyrics. A fourth colleague joined and more songs were sung.

I sat there and thanks to my Greek survival language guide (thank you Dimi!) was able to express my joy in simple Greek (Efchistisméni means enchanted).

The Window

On Monday I spent my final day in Athens walking around my neighbourhood.

I climbed a few sweaty meters up the hill to sip a Double Espresso Freddo at Prasinitenta gazing over the Acropolis on the horizon.

On my way back to the apartment and towards a tasty lunch at Sousourada, I suddenly stopped.

I heard a pleasant tune faintly passing my ears and reversed my direction until I stood before a house, where the music came from.

I searched the surrounding and boldly stared into each of the open windows.

The melody stopped as a elderly man in a turquoise shirt looked out from a first floor window.

He held a violin in his hand and smiled broadly.

I waived friendlily and sent back my biggest smile I had to offer.

He understood my wordless inquiry and intoned into one last song…

P.S. I’m writing these lines while listening to a random Youtube compilation of Greek violin songs and overlooking the sea at Larnaca, Cyprus. My friend Liz is with her painting group and I’m taking some time off from the beach to write. In case you are around, do let me know ;-)

Next week I will spend a few days in Belgrad, before going to Rijeka, Croatia.

As I learned with Eunji: The world is a small place.

If Yuanfen wants it, we may meet.

Sooner or later.

I’m looking forward to it!