As summer hots up, why not add this spicy dish to your BBQ or gathering?

There's Spicy Feta Spread and Spicy Feta Dip.  The main difference between the two is that the dip is more liquidy.  The ingredients also differ somewhat.   In order to make it more creamy, what better than to use a rich and creamy helping of Greek yogurt to form the basis? It does wonders for tzatziki, why not Spicy Feta Dip?

Use peppers, spice up as much or as little as you like by using chilli powder, serve with pitta or bread (wine optional!) and there you have it.

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

1 large green pepper, miled, sliced in hald and seeded

1 cup crumbled feta

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Pepper

Olive Oil - enough to achiieve dip consistency

Salt*

To read more, please visit: Lemon & Olives

Artwork by late actor Anthony Quinn will be exhibited at the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago. Quinn played the emblematic role of Zorba in the movie “Zorba the Greek.”

The exhibit entitled “Transcending Boundaries: The Art of Anthony Quinn,” opened at the museum in Chicago’s Greektown neighborhood on Friday. It features more than 80 of the actor’s paintings and sculptures along with a replica of the studio where he worked.

Quinn started drawing and sculpting at the age of 17 and continued to practice his art until his 80s. His art talent was rewarded by gaining an apprenticeship under architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

To read more, please visit: The Greek Reporter

As summer approaches, holidays around the Greek Islands spring to mind.  Staying in small hotels, even family run apartments can get expensive, so how about camping?

Sadly campsites seem to be diminishing in number. Bye bye Kea Camping in Korissia, Ios Camping on Yialos or Parasporos Camping on Paros. However, the ones that are still around, are still around for a reason: they are good value for money in an idyllic setting.

The standard of campsites in the Cyclades is one of the highest in the Mediterranean. You should expect to pay €5-7 per person and about €2-4 per tent; find basic cabins without W/C for €10-15; and sometimes bungalows with own a/c and W/C for around €20-25 per day. Oh, and they also rent tents, so you need only bring a sleeping bag.

All campsites below are shaded, flat, have a multiplicity of electricity points, free wi-fi, a mini-market (as they call grocery stores nowadays in Greece), provide transfers to ferries and airplanes, have a beach bar-cum-restaurant nearby and, most of all, are next to the sea.

Out of the way, right on the beach, overgrown with olive trees and citrus trees. It feels like you are camping in someone’s overgrown garden.

The flatist camping you'll come across (important!) on the best beach near the Paros capital with a really cool beach bar next door. It has a bus that collects people from town and brings them in at 6pm to party Greek-style (including plate smashing) until 9.30pm when they bus them back.

The location, just back from the excellent Serifos beach is great and the management even better.  Superb communal pool, restaurant, bar and free wi-fi.

To read more, please visit: The Jolly Traveller

City activist group atenistas are placing signs throughout the historic center of Athens in efforts to make walking the Greek capital easier for residents and travelers.

Under the motto: “WalkAthens!”, the signs have initially been placed in 15 key points across the city center, including at the Archaeological Museum, Omonoia, Syntagma, Monastiraki, Thissio, Psiri and Vathi squares.

The green signs feature directions to six surrounding locations in Greek and English, bearing a directional arrow and the estimated walking timeas well as info on nearby metro stations.

To read more, please visit: Greek Travel Pages

Breakfast; it's the most important meal of the day, but sometimes there's just not enough time. Winnie Yang, from Culinary Backstreets, lets us know her favorite local restaurants for the best grab-and-go breakfasts.

 

In Athens, bread and pies still form the foundation, if not the substance, of many a meal – breakfast especially. Make like a local and start your day off right with cheese pie or koulouri from one of our top picks. (These places are also perfect for a pick-me-up later in the day.)

Address: Petraki 24
Hours: 7am-5:30pm; closed Sunday

 

Pnyka sets itself apart from the chains that have taken over Athens through its methods and its commitment to using quality ingredients. It’s known for its hearty whole-grain loaves, made from flour the bakery mills itself at the headquarters in Pagrati, but our favorite is the spanakopita, which is peerless in a city full of spinach pies.

 

Address: Misaraliotou 14, Koukaki
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 7am-9pm; Sat. 7am-4pm; closed Sunday

 

Located in residential Koukaki, this bakery is famous for its breads, cheese pies, and tsoureki. Customers start lining up the night before Lent to get their hands on Takis’s lagana, the focaccia-like bread sprinkled with sesame seeds that’s eaten to mark the beginning of the holiday. The bakery’s flavorful vasilopita, a cake eaten during New Year’s, is a reason to visit at the end of the year, but Takis is great any day of the week, any time of year.

 

Address: Voulis 10, Syntagma
Hours: Mon., Wed., Sat. 7am-6pm; Tues., Thur., Fri. 7:30am- 9pm; closed Sunday

 

This bakery lives up to its name, “excellence” in Greek. It’s been run by the same family since it opened in 1910 in this very location, and in the century-plus of its existence, Ariston has perfected the art of making pies. There are at least 15 varieties on offer every day, the top seller of which is the kouro, half-moon shaped, crumbly, butter-rich dough encasing a rich filling of feta.

 

To read this article in full, please visit: I Cook Greek

The members of the first network of Greece based travel bloggers gathered in St. Irene Square in Athens to celebrate six months of teamwork during a dinner hosted by Manas Kouzina-Kouzina.
 

The blogger members consist of both expats and Greek bloggers with an international reach.  Since TBG started in Jan. 2015, it has grown to 20 members: 

“We’ve proven that teamwork matters and by working together we learn from each other. When we go and visit Greek destinations, our social media reach really helps promote touristic businesses in Greece,” says Rebecca Hall, one of the first members of TBG.  
 

Today, TBG’s social media reach to date is:

Facebook: 46,547 

Twitter: 18,841

Instagram: 8,135

During the six month celebration, members consistently shared, tweeted and posted the various traditional Greek dishes enjoyed at the event.   Mana’s Kouzina-Kouzina is one of the Greek businesses that successfully opened during the crisis specializing in magirefta or slow-cooked and baked traditional dishes hailing from all over specific villages, areas and the islands of Greece.  Homemade desserts were delivered from Thessaloniki by blogger member Amber Charmei, the publisher of Provocolate.

TBG has helped to promote authentic experiences working with various businesses including Discover Greek Culture, Scooterise, Alternative Tours of Athens, Livin Lovin, The Clumsies, Grecotel Pallas Athena, Keadivers, Sattas Group, ZanteHotels4U and more.  TBG has educational partnerships with Xyni Glyfada as well as the International Health Tourism Conference.  The professional networking group has also participated in blogger familiarization trips at the Montanema Handmade Village in Central Greece, Kea and Zakynthos islands.  

Each TBG member is based in Greece and blogs about a specific Greece travel related theme such as family travel, food, adventure travel and culture.  Each member must meet specific professional criteria to be approved as a beginner or full-member. Currently, TBG is working with more destinations and businesses to plan more events and travel excursions until the end of the year.

About Travel Bloggers Greece – TBG:  TBG is the first blogger networking group established in Greece. The members are Greeks and expats who live in Greece and cover Greece as a travel destination in various languages. They abide by ethical and professional standards and encourage positive cooperation, education and collaboration among their diverse membership.  TBG works with Greece-based businesses to help promote authentic travel and increased awareness of Greek travel destinations.

For more information please visit: Travel Bloggers Greece

We all know who Socrates was: only one of the greatest Greek philosophers of all time.  Socrates Now is a 75 minute solo theatre performance (in English with Modern Greek subtitles) highlighting the Apology of Socrates. Performed in seventeen countries so far—festivals, universities and theatres—in 2015 performances are planned from 27th June until 19th July and is expected to attract over 2000 viewers of all ages.

Starring and co-directed by the Emmy Award Winning actor and scholar Yannis Simonides, he gives us some insight.

To read more, please visit: Life Beyond Borders

For detailed event information and to book tickets, please click HERE.

It is one of the most emblematic images of Greece and a favorite for shutterbugs from around the world visiting the islands in the summer: the typical Greek fisherman, seen on a colorful wooden caique casting his nets in the sea, carefully untangling them at the harbor where he comes in every morning to sell his catch or setting off at night to the light of the stars and dozens of small lights strung on the mast of his boat. The world of the professional Greek fisherman has always been a source of wonderment and mystery and now it is open to everyone.

After years of legal and political wrangling, legislation has finally been passed setting the terms and conditions for the development of fishing tourism in Greece – an area of tourism that holds great promise and had been largely untapped. Thanks to the new regulations, professional fishermen can apply for a license that will allow them to take passengers either on pleasure trips or fishing excursions. This not only allows fishermen – already squeezed by competition and over-fishing – to supplement their incomes but also offers a rare opportunity to fans of fishing or people who simply love the sea to enter a completely different world and discover its secrets.

Hundreds of professional fishermen have already applied for the license and are waiting for the coveted piece of paper before the tourism season gets under way in earnest.

“There is a great deal of interest being shown all over the country. The fishermen have been asking for this measure for years and particularly in areas that have a lot of tourism, as this will make it easy for them to have a second source of income. Most fishermen can’t even cover the cost of petrol the way things are right now,” says Giorgos Lourdis, a mechanical engineer by trade but a fisherman at heart, who for years has been trying to promote fishing tourism in Greece.

To read more, please visit: ekathimerini

by

Lina Giannarou

That’s why Art Links Wishes 2015 (opening on Tuesday June 23 at 8pm at Gallery 7 in Kolonaki until July 3) is such a special collaboration. Art Links Wishes is a group art exhibition that showcases drawing, painting, photography and sculpture, donated by dozens of remarkable Greek and international artists, for the cause of Make-A-Wish Greece (Κάνε-Μια-Ευχή Ελλάδος). Proceeds from the sale of the diverse artworks will help illuminate the lives of seriously-ill children here in Greece through a precious moment of happiness.

‘As with all previous Art Links events, Art Links Wishes 2015 aspires to unite our community through creativity and art,’ says Art Links general manager Sia Corrina Durocher.

Here, three of the event’s exhibiting Greek artists share their own creative inner-worlds with Xpat Athens readers:

Hajiandreou was born in Rethymnon, Crete, and studied at the Athens School of Fine Art, where she graduated with first-class Honors. She has participated in many group exhibitions in Greece and abroad, and has given solo exhibitions at Gallery Ora, Gallery Apopsi, Gallery Dimito, Gallery Mylogianni Chania, Gallery 7 and the Cretan Museum of Modern Art, among others.

MH: That single moment when you discover that your painting shall produce something of true beauty; something that will keep your energy at full tilt right until its completion.

MH:I find myself returning to the human figure, and more specifically, the female figure. Over the years, I’ve worked in still life. My last exhibition consisted entirely of still life drawings. Before that I was fascinated by the gardens and enormous green houses of Scotland. But I always come home to the human figure. My current project has the female figure as its main theme.

MH: I wish I’d known how to present myself to the people in the art world better back then.

MH: Success means having evoked emotion in the viewer. The deeper they are moved, the greater you have succeeded.

MH: If someone from a private gallery in Barcelona or London specialising infigurative painting came knocking, well, that would be very nice.

MH:It’s the alpha and omega! If I’m not creating, I’m not living.

Piraeus-born Makris studied graphic arts at the Athenian Doxiadis Institute and later continued her studies in the United States and Scotland. She has worked as a cartoonist and illustrator for various newspapers and children's books and has also written books

for children. Her sculptures and paintings have been exhibited in group exhibitions in Greece and abroad. She has held twelve personal exhibitions.

AM: I often get angry at what is happening around me and so practicing my art becomes my personal "harbor", my safe haven. In order to create, I first have to empty myself of all the negative emotions and to become a child again, hopeful and carefree. If you cannot change the world, then change yourself. That is my motto.

AM: A clearly recurring theme in my work is that of women who exercise, women who flirt, women who get angry. Like an actor, I go through emotional states, through my sculptures, without even realizing it. Moreover, I like cats and seals and other animals as well. There is, however, a common denominator across all these forms: the curve.

AM: Self-knowledge. One cannot have too much of it, and the earlier the better. I also wish I were more daring in proposing ideas.

AM: Success, to me, is twofold. Firstly, you have to keep faith in your creative activity and, secondly, you have to be able to convince significant art venues to feature your artworks.

AM: A milestone in my career-path has been my solo exhibition at the "Zalokosta 7" gallery space, the first time I exhibited my work. 

AM: I am really fond of large-scale exhibitions, public spaces, and, also, art publications. In essence, I am looking to communicate via my work and I am keen to establish a connection with all those who become moved by my art.

AM: It takes dedication, isolation, persistence, and self-organization in order to express yourself through art. Art provides me with self-confidence and with the opportunity to become a better person through strengthening elements that give me joy and through avoiding elements that do not.

Massos was born in Athens where he still lives and works as a primary school teacher. In 2014, he graduated from the Athens School of Fine Arts (painting) and his works can be found in private collections across Greece.

What is the most enjoyable part of the artistic process for you?

KM: When after a lot of effort and investigation, the artwork gathers shape and form in terms of the “place” of action, the “heroes” and their feelings.

KM: The central theme of my work is the man and the “place” both within him and outside of himself.

KM: I have learned to trust and believe in the value of the route that helps me to locate the “new thing or theme” – but which results from a prior knowledge.

KM: I consider successful the artist who manages via his artwork to communicate his feelings and is willing to express everything which takes place around him.

KM: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and curators like Hans Urlich Obrist and Klaus Biesenbach.

KM: Joy, communication, constant searching.

Chloe Akrithaki, Daphhne Angelidou, Marie Baha, Maria Chrysohoidou, Evi Feofanidou, Maria Filippakopoulou, George Hadoulis, Vassiliki Haloridi, Maria Hatziandreou, Anastasia Karvela, Nikos Kaskouras, Theophilos Katsipanos, Aggeliki Kokonaki, Mersa Konstopoulou, Giannis Kontaratos, Athina Latinopoulou, Kostas Lavdas, Aggeliki Makri, Konstantinos Mantzaris, Alexia Marouli, Konstantinos Massos, Eleni Mihailou, Tassos Missouras, Kleopatra Moursela, Afrodite Papadouli, Marina Papalabridi, ZachariasPapantoniou,Charikleia Papapostolou, Eleni Pehlivani, Elianna Prokopiou, Miltos Psaros, Chrys Roboras, Peter C. Seibit, Vasilis Skopelitis, Pigi Spyratou, Matina Stavropoulou, Fotini Stefanidi, Nota Tsitoura, Angelika Vaxevanidou

Gallery 7 is at Solonos 20 and Boukourestiou, Kolonaki.)

Story and interviews by: Amanda Dardanis