The other day I read an article by Nikola Georgiakodi about outlet/warehouse stores around Athens. I figured at least a few of you might be interested in this very important topic, so I’m including parts of the piece in English below…  Original Greek article is here.

Here we go:

Local warehouse/outlet shops promise that we can go shopping for the new season without emptying our wallets in the blink of an eye. The majority of the discounts offered by these outlets reach 70%, but you may well run into some of the ten-day bazaars organized by products (eg. jeans, shoes, jackets) and get lucky with even greater discounts . Here are some of our favorite warehouse addresses in the wider Athens area for cheap autumn shopping.

Factory Outlet: www.factory.gr   At their 2 big locations, on Pireos Street and at the Airport, they stock some of the most popular casual and sportswear brands at prices up to 80% off retail.

McArthur Glen: www.mcarthurglen.com/gr/mcarthurglen-athens/gr   With lots of brands, including many more expensive names (Diesel, Guess, Lacoste, Moschino, Levi’s, Bodytalk, American Vintage, Notos Galleries, etc), McArthur Glen in Spata is part of an international chain of outlet ‘villages’ – an easy place to spend a day, with cafes and restaurants too.

Empoli Outlet: www.empoli.gr  At their 2 locations (the larger one in Nea Ionia and another in Peristeri), you will find brands like American Vintage, Attrativo, Boss, Miss Sixty, Nautica, Nike and many more, again up to 80% off retail.

Notos Outlet (Meneksedon 6, tel: 211 188 7341)  Notos Outlet in Kifisia stocks a large selection of clothing from brands like Trussardi Jeans, Ralph Lauren, Ecco Shoes, The Bostonians, Kookai, etc., at prices from 30%-70% off retail.  At the Notos Perfume Bar at the same location, you will find a large selection of fragrances, make-up and skincare products from Clarins, Guerlain, Lancaster, Davidoff, Max Factor, Givenchy, Bulgari, Calvin Klein, Hermes, etc. at 30%-50% off. You can also find a number of home décor products discounted up to 50%.

And here are a few more warehouse/outlet locations!

Benetton – Sisley: Alatsaton 34, Nea Ionia, tel 210 271 7774

Berto Lucci Stock: Lenorman 254, Athens, tel 210 515 2576

Oxford Company Stock: El. Venizelou 231, Palio Faliro, tel 210 988 9043

Raxevsky Stock: Kolonou 1, Peristeri, tel 210 575 1188

Vardas Stock: Sof. Venizelou 59, Likovrisi, tel 210 283 7796

Puma Outlet: El. Venizelou 224, Palaio Faliro, tel 210 985 4582)

Nike Outlet Store: El, Venizelou 224, Palaio Faliro, tel 983 6021

Top Shoes: Leoforos Dim. Metaksa Aggelou 24-26, Oscar Shopping Centre, Glyfada, 210 894 5935

Orange Stores Outlet (men’s & women’s underwear): Ag. Paraskevis 10, Peristeri, tel: 210 578 5400

Kalogirou Shoes: Arkadias 36, Peristeri, tel 210 335 6406

Roccoco Stock: Ag. Paraskevis 32, Halandri, 210 682 4059

The North Face: Her. Polutexneiou 19, Halandri, tel 210 675 5785

Happy Shopping! 

Until next week,

Jack

In this weekly space, keep up with ‘Jack’ as he navigates daily life in Athens… Anecdotes, stories, hits & misses, the good, the bad and, well, the rest…

3 Matzarou St. & Solonos St, 106 72 Kolonaki, Athens, Τ: 210. 3633144

cilentio.gr

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According to Greek mythology, the god Apollo and goddess Artemis were born on Delos, making it a sacred island. Hence the famous Temple of Apollo on the island.

Archaeologists found 16 terracotta pots and remains of a kiln embedded in the sea floor, similar to workshops found in Pompeii and Herculaneum, according to the ministry. The large stones in front of the workshop probably mean that they belong to the settlement’s waterfront.

Other lined stones suggest walls of structures, reinforcing the theory that this was indeed a settlement. In the past, archeologists believed that the ruins were port facilities.

The new search that was conducted by divers from the National Hellenic Research Foundation and the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, led to different conclusions. Rather than a dock, a pottery workshop and other buildings were once there. The structure remains were found in shallow waters, less than one meter deep.

To read more, please visit greekreporter.com

By Philip Chrysopoulos

“Maybe the otolith?” another scientist suggested.

“Ah,” Panopoulos said, “the otolith.”

He worked a knife into the fish’s head and removed the pearly ear bone. Then, using his glass as a primitive magnifying instrument, he counted the otolith’s layers, which accrue like rings in a tree. “I see four,” Panopoulos said, “and they are uneven. This fish is four years old and wild.”

That the fish before us was indeed wild is a rarity in modern Greece. Never common, wild European sea bass are today one of the more overfished creatures in the Mediterranean. So rare that when you want to say you “hit the jackpot” in Greek, you say you “epyase lavraki” — you caught a sea bass. But as is increasingly the case with prized sea creatures, the end of a fish in the sea does not mean its disappearance from the plate. In fact the diminishing of a wild population is often the trigger that starts research on a new species’ domestication.

Sea-bass farming has been a long time in the works. It was piloted in France and Israel in the 1960s, and it took years to decode the biochemistry behind reproduction and diet. A final element — the warm, protected inlets of coastal Greece, turned it into a commodity.

In Greece it began, as it should, with a man at sea. In 1982, Thanasis Frentzos set sail from Kefalonia, an island some archaeologists believe was Odysseus’ Ithaca. Frentzos bears a certain resemblance to Homer’s protagonist, and so it follows that when he traveled to Sicily to purchase 100,000 inch-long sea-bass juveniles, his return trip was interrupted by a fierce gale known as the donkey mistral, and 90,000 bass perished in the storm. He installed the surviving bass in a pen and grew them to maturity. From this first farm (now called Kefalonia Fisheries), Greece came to dominate world sea-bass production, and the Selonda company has emerged as an international leader, with exports to the United States growing to more than a million pounds in 2004 from 10,000 pounds in 2000.

American appreciation of foreign bass has risen in inverse proportion to the decline of our own domestic striped bass. Similar in shape to European sea bass, American striped bass were recently found through DNA analysis to be so closely related as to share a common genus (Morone). With their meaty white flesh, “stripers” were a favorite from the Carolinas to Maine all the way back to Colonial days. Fishing pressure on stripers mounted progressively until the mid-’70s, when the catch plunged. By the early ’80s, just as Thanasis Frentzos was sailing for Sicily, conservationists were suggesting stripers for the Endangered Species List.

But while Europeans generally turn to the farm when fish go missing, Americans tend to look to the wild. In a major conservation act, a consortium of states halted striped-bass fishing in the ’80s, and a program was introduced to rebuild the breeding stock in the Chesapeake Bay. One scientist the government engaged was Yonathan Zohar, an Israeli-born biologist at the University of Maryland at Baltimore who helped decode European sea-bass reproduction. Zohar, who refers to himself as an “OB-GYN for fish,” got wild striped bass to spawn in captivity in a predictable manner. Supplementation combined with fishing moratoriums yielded results. Today striper populations are listed as “fully rebuilt,” and the fish has once again appeared on seafood menus — alongside branzino.

To read more, please visit nytimes.com

By Paul Greenberg