The World Awaits: travel tales to inspire your wanderlust
Where does your wanderlust lead you?
To Melbourne’s cafes or the vast deserts of the Empty Quarter, a New Zealand vineyard or the pavements of New York… what’s your neighbourhood?
Join travel journalists and editors Kirstie Bedford and Belinda Jackson for inspiring stories and inside information from across the world.
Website https://theworldawaits.au
Instagram @theworldawaitspodcast
Support us https://ko-fi.com/theworldawaits (thank you!)
The World Awaits: travel tales to inspire your wanderlust
EP 103 Winter Series #2: The Greek Episode
Welcome to our Winter Series!
This week we're taking you to Greece.
First up, host Kirstie chats to Andria Mitsakos, founder of Anthologist and global founder of AMPR, who takes us to some of the country's best artisans where she buys her artefacts, and shares insider tips on the best way to enjoy a Greek getaway.
Next, host Belle Jackson takes us to Greece and Bulgaria, travelling by rail on a slow food, slow travel journey of these neighbouring countries. She travelled on a Eurail pass, which crisscrosses 33 European countries.
And we are giving away a tropical holiday in Thailand! We've partnered with our friends at Avani Hotels and Resorts to celebrate our 100th episode with this great prize.
You can win four nights for two people in a deluxe room at Avani+ Khao Lak, with daily breakfast and dinner, airport transfers and a Muay Thai boxing class!
Just go to our competition post on instagram, like it and tag a friend, and follow both The World Awaits and Avani Hotels, and you're in for the win!
Entrants can be located anywhere in the world. Entries close on 31st July.
Visit us at https://theworldawaits.au
Visit us at https://theworldawaits.au
Welcome to The World Away, travel tales to inspire your wanderlust. Hi there, welcome to our winter series. This week we're headed to Greece. First up is Andrea Mitsakos, founder of Anthologist and global founder of AMPR, who takes us to some of the country's best artisans, where she buys her artefacts and shares insider tips on the best way to enjoy a Greek getaway. Welcome to the show, Andrea. Oh, thank you so much, Kirstie. I'm thrilled to be here. It's so great to have you on The World Awaits. Let's start by telling us a bit about your background and how you came to be an anthologist. Oh,
SPEAKER_00:thank you. I'm American, Greek-Armenian-American. I grew up outside of Boston. My parents, my father is a career professor, my mother a career designer. I grew up in a really lively household of women creatives. So my great-aunt was an antique dealer. One grandmother was a shoemaker. My mom's mom was a shoemaker. And my dad's mom actually worked in textiles before she emigrated to America. So let's say it was all a creative hub of space and culture and travel. So what made you move to Greece? I was living in New York at the time. I was designing a handbag line actually in Milan, simultaneously running my international PR agency. And it was the middle of the financial crisis in Greece, and I was really interested to see what the manufacturing industry was here. I was manufacturing in Italy for a few years, and I decided to come to Athens to check it out. And one thing led to the next. It was really kismet. And unfortunately, I actually fell and I broke my rib. And I was literally grounded for three months here in Athens. So that gave me the opportunity to live in a city I hadn't lived in before. It was the middle of the financial crisis. It was winter. So it was quite an interesting time to be in Athens. That was back in 2013. And then once you start making handbags, then you're like, oh, I need to make hardware. Then you're making belts. Then I'm getting an apartment. Then I'm designing furniture. And I really felt that Greece, although it was going through this crisis, was going through a very creative time. I really believe that crisis breeds creativity and that in many other parts of the world. And it was just a time that I felt like, this was such an emerging destination and why not see what could happen here. Also following a bit in the footsteps of my ancestors.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, amazing. And obviously you're finding out and discovering some quite incredible artisans in Greece. And what makes the destination the best place to find those local sort of makers and the artifacts that you're actually now showcasing and selling as part of your business?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's a great foundation. It's so old world in that sense, much like other, I guess, European cities and other capitals. But Greece has a deep connection to its traditions, crafts like ceramics, weaving, metalwork. We happen to use a foundry that has been in operation for three generations, for instance, using ancient methods of pouring brass through sand molds. just doesn't happen in a lot of places today. Really, every region of the country has something unique, whether it's ceramics in the northern part of Athens, embroidery from different parts of the island. I also feel like the pace here encourages an appreciation of that. So for craftsmanship, authenticity, it really feels like people take time to appreciate their work and So as the world does, what I hope to move a little bit away from fast fashion, fast decor, going back to these traditions, and that's really, to me, what cultural preservation is all about.
SPEAKER_02:And living in Athens, where do you find the local makers whose works that you feature?
SPEAKER_00:The beauty of Greece is that Greeks really like to, let's say, I share their connections a bit. So as I mentioned earlier, once you're making a handbag, for instance, then you turn to somebody who's going to make a handle for you. And then someone else is going to introduce you to someone who's going to make a belt. But when it comes to just, let's say, the traveler who I think is listening today, Neighborhoods like Monastiraki, Thiri, here in Athens, they had some of these old workshops. You'll walk by this great buzzing bar, restaurant, and then on the next block, you'll find some man who's hand carving, hand hammering copper, right all in the center of Athens. So for me, I found everything on foot and through connections, really. So I think the more you dive deep in some of those little streets and alleys, Athens is really good for that.
SPEAKER_02:How long did it take you? Like, how long have you lived there? And how long did it take you to find all these little places?
SPEAKER_00:It's been 12 years now. So, yeah, it's a long time. It is. But it really depends what you're looking for. Like, in Monastiraki, there's a Sunday antiques market. My tip is to really go see those antique dealers during the week. So they're closed on Mondays because they rest after Sunday. But go check them out like Tuesday through Saturday. That's more when the locals shop. You can always ring a doorbell if it says it's closed, or you can ask one dealer maybe where somebody else is. And that's really my hint is don't go on the touristy days of Sunday morning when everybody is there. For instance, it's fun and it's lively and it's active, but don't always see a city on a weekend. I think people make that mistake when they travel. So It's always important for me to see a city, how it lived, how it is every day. That's when I really find the real treasure.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's such a good tip. And the sorts of things, what are some of the sorts of things that you can, like when you talk about these places that you can go and knock on the door and find them, what are the sorts of things that you can find that you can take home as a really amazing keepsake from that place?
SPEAKER_00:Oh gosh, from antique embroideries, hand-carved wood. Lots of copper work. There's a lot of copper work also in the north of Greece, up outside of Thessaloniki. But there are quite a few places in Athens that sell it here. Brass work, any kind of metal work, foundry work as well. And jewelry. Jewelry is renowned in Greece, obviously, for millennia. So you'll see stores that sell beautiful pieces that are possibly copies, but obviously in the most positive way. of ancient designs, one place that I absolutely love is the Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum. It's actually behind my house. And Lalaounis was, yeah, and Lalaounis was actually one of the most foremost jewelry houses, is the foremost jewelry house in Greece. They're like the Cartier of Greece. And his workshop was actually behind my house. And then his daughter turned it into a museum. So it's a foundation as well. to help support emerging jewelry designers. And it's just such a beautiful faith and a great find. You can just turn up there. They have normal museum hours like a lot of museums do. They're usually closed one day. They also have workshops. So if you're interested in trying your own jewelry or learning direct from an artisan, they do run workshops as well. They also have apprenticeships for emerging jewelry artists as well that they help support. They have a gorgeous little shop. Their main store, La La Onise, is one of my most favorite places. And when I was a kid, actually, my dad would always buy a piece of La La Onise jewelry for my mother every Christmas. And I'm 52 this year. So back then, there was no internet, obviously. My dad would get jewelry photocopied back to him. And then we would sit on the sofa and have a cup of tea and I would circle the pieces. that I love from my mom, and then they would mail it to her. And the first time I came to Greece, I actually went to the shop and I bought myself a piece of jewelry to continue that tradition. And I met one of the daughters, a Katerini, and we're still friends today. And I carry on the tradition. Yeah, I love buying a piece of jewelry for myself every year. I think it's really important.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's such a lovely thing to do. What a wonderful story and a wonderful way to carry on that family tradition. What are some of your other sort of favourite places to go to find and also places for the creative minded? What are some of the other places that people should make sure they put on their list if they come?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, definitely Crete. Crete is a country in and of itself to be perfectly honest. The textiles, traditional craft, there is incredible places. My PR agency, we work with a company called Faya there, and they have two beautiful hotels, Faya Blue and Faya Crete and Malia. And they have curated this incredible hand-picked secret that the owners, these two fabulous sisters, put together in East Crete. And they'll take you to workshops and factories where they're still making beautiful, those huge ancient amphora pots. by hand, little bakeries, olives, wine, of course, but loads of little hidden secrets. So Crete is really an incredible place to discover things. Also Paros, where we have two anthologist boutiques as well. There's a gorgeous antique store there called The Antique Store. My friends Lydia and Petros own it. And Petros, he is a generational antique dealer as well as a furniture store owner. Our house has some beautiful ceramics as well as Sifnos. It's an incredible destination for ceramics. It's a beautiful hotel there called Verena. And they have a beautiful shop too that has lots of local ceramics. What I try to do is always direct people also to the Cycladic Museum here in Athens. They have a beautiful shop where you can get a great education of the Cycladic islands as well. Santorini, even though people think that, oh, there's crowds, there's this, everyone's saying that. So it's actually a really good time to go to Santorini because everyone says the same thing and then nobody shows up, right? We have some beautiful hotels we work with there too. Mystique, the Dama is in this gorgeous little village with like beautiful wine shops. And I just think that a lot of the islands also, they replicate what's been around for millennia in a modern way. So I think it's always draw, your eye is drawn to really what you love and then take it out of that setting. When I'm working with design clients, I always educate them on this to feel like, what is that going to be like in my space? And how can I recreate that in a modern way?
SPEAKER_02:What are some of the maybe lesser known places that people that may have been to Greece multiple times before and that still offer those opportunities to engage with some of those sort of ancient traditions and buy some of these beautiful artisan products?
SPEAKER_00:Throughout Crete, there's lots of places and there's places that you can go to purchase ceramics or even contemporary textiles. Working with those artisans, you get so much insight in the cultural heritage, but also supporting their work financially, of course. There's great pottery making workshops and also in Crete, Thithnos, Paros, Also here in Athens as well. There's plenty of places in Athens and hotels like Hotel Grand Breton, which we have a little corner in their shop there. They can direct you to workshops. As I mentioned, also the Lalona Jewelry Museum here in Athens as well has beautiful workshops. That's all about storytelling. So I think when you go home after you've bought something that really is handcrafted and has a story behind it, You're sharing that experience then again with others. I love when people come into my showroom or into my apartment and they always say, oh, what is this? Where is this from? Where is that from? So I guess, as you mentioned earlier, I am the original anthologist by telling those stories through objects. And I think that's the most tangible way of having a memory from a holiday.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And what are there some sort of lesser known places in, say, Paris that people can go that they wouldn't normally even have thought of that to get these experiences or encounters?
SPEAKER_00:Lefkes, which is a small mountainous village, mountains, of course, it's not the Alps, but it's the mountains for the Cycladic. There are some great studios there, small village. It's important also to poke around just at the beginning and the end of season instead of during July and August. Also in the south of the islands, there are some great places that are tucked away. I think if you do a little bit of research and rent a car, that's the best way to see Paros. And then there's hotels where we have our shop, our Peruvian flagship is at Cosme Hotel and Perilio Hotel, which is was really the first proper hotel on the island. They run these beautiful trips as well that will take you throughout the island to some of these lesser-known studios.
SPEAKER_02:Amazing. And I've seen that you've been quoted saying about the importance of us upholding these age-old artisanal traditions. Obviously, as you've explained, it's something that it's such so incredible to be able to take these pieces home and that's a way of ensuring that when you're purchasing from them that those people can continue those traditions. What are some of the other ways and how can travellers ensure that we're a part of that cultural preservation? I
SPEAKER_00:always say collect, don't shop. That's my mantra. And I think that it's really important to support the local community. Sustainability is about being eco or green all the time, right? And this is why pathologists exist. So when you're a traveler and you go to a destination, I think it's so important to be, of course, respectful of culture and tradition. And at the same time, when you are purchasing something that is a tangible representation of a destination, you're making a contribution not only financially, but also to that cultural preservation of a destination, right? That's something that you're going to have forever, better than any memory.
SPEAKER_02:So what are your future plans as far as being an anthologist?
SPEAKER_00:This year, we continue our showroom in Athens. We're doing by appointment here. We're launching some really interesting collections. So we're launching a vintage textile collection, which will be online in the next 30 days or so, which we're really excited about. And I've collected so many textiles over the years, so they're really hard to part with. But I can't keep them all. So we've decided to share them with the world, which I love textiles. My grandmother made textiles. So it's a really important part of me and what the company is about. We'll be opening our seasonal summer shops in Paros. So at Corilio and Cosme Hotel. We're doing a really exciting installation in Crete at Faya Blue, which is a new boutique hotel that opened last summer. So we're really excited about that. We have a big project in Athens that I can't talk about yet, but stay tuned. So that will be done hopefully by the end of the year. We also are launching a rattan furniture line. So outside of Greece, but in Dominican Republic, in the Caribbean. I recently just did my first interior design project, which was at a hotel called Eastwinds on the island of St. Lucia. And I created a rattan and bamboo furniture collection just for them. So we'll be launching that this year as well. Quite busy.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, absolutely. And for people who are coming over to Greece this year over the summertime, what are some other places that you think maybe they should go to? Putting all of that aside, just generally, what are some of your favorite places to holiday?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, Syros should be the top of everyone's list. It's not a traditional beach destination. There are beaches. It is actually one of the only islands that has 50% Greek Orthodox and 50% Catholicism, which makes it really interesting. And in April this year, the Easter's fall on the same time. So they're both April 20th, which doesn't happen too often. And Syros has the most incredible architecture, unexpected architecture, I should say, of anywhere, I think, in the entire country. There are very famous architects that have built their opera house as a mini version of La Scala in Milan, which was built by an Italian architect. And it's really, to me, I think one of the most culturally rich and off the radar destinations. It's also the capital of the Cyclades, the Cyclades Islands as well. I would definitely head there. And then the Peloponnese, Mani, which is where my friends or my family is from. I'm sorry. Mani is south. It's about four hours driving. It is another side of Greece, totally. It is like something you've never seen before. The landscape, the people, the food, the attitude. It's just, it's such a stunning place. So I think exploring more of the mainland too. There's a beautiful little hotel there called Corona Suite. It's actually owned by the same people that have the Cosme and Perilio and Paros and the other hotels in Santorini. And actually, they got married there. It was their own home. They developed it into a boutique hotel, and it's just a stunning place. So if you're inclined to stay on the mainland a little bit, I would definitely go to Mani.
SPEAKER_02:Amazing, fantastic recommendations. Thank you so much for those. And sadly, we're running out of time. I'm going to have to ask you the question that we ask all of our interviewees, which is, what's the most bizarre thing that's ever happened to you in your travels?
SPEAKER_00:When I traveled to Greece in January 2013, I actually fell and broke my rib. I was working on a project in Malaysia, so I had to fly to Malaysia the next day and I was gone for 10 days. And I was in a lot of pain, obviously. And I came back to Athens and I was staying at Hotel Grand Breton at the time. And I went to the hospital and the doctor showed me the x-ray and it was not even a fracture. This was a full on break. So I ended up living at Hotel Grand Breton. So I was the modern day Eloise living in the hotel for three months. And It was an incredible time because it was also the financial crisis. There were demonstrations in Syntagma Square every day. And it was really a time that I was able to explore the city on foot, alone. And that's how I fell in love with the city. I'd say that the ancients found me, Greece found me. And that's why I feel like I decided to stay because I was able to explore a city not as a traveler. not even as someone who lived here. It was really like, okay, forced entry in a way. And I just loved that time because it was so soulful. It was so peaceful. It was winter, which is an incredible time to come to Greece. And I discovered so many things that I normally wouldn't because sometimes when you feel like when you're a traveler, you feel like, oh, I need to do these five things on my list. But when you're in a place for an extended period of time, you get to explore a city a different way. And it actually also happened to me in 2022 in Mexico City. I was actually hit by a wave in Oaxaca and I tore my ACL and I ended up being in Mexico City with surgery for three months. So hopefully no more injuries. Touch wood. Yes. Oh, you've had your fish here. I have. But see, that's my best advice is when you travel, take it slowly. The world is a big place and you should always appreciate every moment that you have on it and the people that you meet and those human connections and the stories that they tell you.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that's so beautiful. And yes, gosh, isn't it incredible that even though through something so traumatic for you and... clearly challenging to deal with medically what came out of that
SPEAKER_00:absolutely yes i'm very blessed to be here and i i do this interview talking to you staring at the acropolis and it reminds me yes of why i'm here every day oh
SPEAKER_02:that's been so wonderful to chat with you and thank you so much for coming on the show and we will put all of the links in the show notes That was Andrea Mitsakos talking about the value of cultural preservation through the purchases you make. And you can find out more about her at anthologist.com. Next up, my co-host, Belle Jackson, takes us to Greece and Bulgaria, traveling by rail on a slow food, slow travel journey of these neighboring countries.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, well, it's been an amazing trip, but it had two parts. So firstly, I was down, I flew into Athens and then I drove down to the Peloponnese Peninsula because I was reviewing the new Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Costa Navarino down on the south coast. So this is mainland Greece. And the Peloponnese has three peninsulas and I was staying on one of those. The main towns in this area include Pylos and Mephone. which are loaded with history from ancient ruins to medieval castles. The super atmospheric Mithoni Castle was built by the Venetians in 1209. Did you know the Venetians were ruling this part of the coastline? I know, right? So they had it for about 300 years until the Ottomans took it over. They came back in, went back out. It's just the most beautiful, beautiful location. And we don't talk about it that much because everybody's so focused on the islands and they tend to stay away from mainland Greece.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's it. I mean, that's the thing that I just love hearing about these sorts of places because, and this is the great thing about everywhere you travel, it's always somewhere a little off the beaten track. And I just love the fact that... You know, that you were in this place that some people wouldn't have even heard of. A lot of people would never have heard of, actually. And also, everyone knows the Mandarin Orientals are great hotels. But what made that one stand out? What was sort of different and special about that one?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's been open for just over a year. It's got 51 suites and 48 pool villas. I was lucky enough to score a pool villa. So when I woke every morning to look out over the pool, I was then looking past it into Navarino Bay, which, because, you know, I love a good history hit, it was the size of the last naval battle fought by sailing ships in 1827, which marked the beginning of the Greek War of Independence.
SPEAKER_02:So cool.
SPEAKER_01:So cool. So, you know, you just had this incredible sweep of beach that you looked at, or the bay, this beautiful deep water bay. And one of the really interesting parts of it is the food side, because I was there at It was all about food. It was basically two weeks of eating myself for second vaccine. So in the year. What about the running? Didn't you do a run while you were there? I did a run. The first day I got up and went for a run with the personal trainer, she did not even break a sweat. It was really like 29 degrees and she was just running along lightly. Where did you run? Where did you run? We ran around the perimeter of the Mandarin Oriental because this Costa Navarino is a region, has been developed. There's already a W Hotel there. You know, there's been marinas developed. There's golf courses and stuff like that. And the Mandarin Oriental is like the next stage of this. So we went for a jog around that. We're literally, we go past, you know, we went through the golf course, but then we're going past these ancient olive groves. And it's still really embedded in that. And the interesting thing about those olive groves is that then the olives and the fruit from these and the oils appear on the table in the restaurant. So even though you're at an international restaurant, it is really grounded in the food from that area. And I spent a lot of time with the executive chef, Bertrand Valgueras, and he has run Michelin-star restaurants in the past. He stayed on site before it opened to find local farmers and fishermen so that he could supply everything from the most spectacular sheep's yogurt I've ever eaten. You know, that very Greek thing of having yogurt with honey and walnuts as a breakfast. It was just astonishing. And local fish, all of the herbs, most of the herbs were sourced from within a 200-meter radius of the hotel. We're not talking kilometres. Yeah, that's great. All the fish came from the bay. Like, you could see where the fish came from. And it's not just
SPEAKER_02:important. I mean, it's obviously vitally important as far as when it comes to food miles and, you know. But also, it means that the food's just so much better because it's just literally so fresh. Oh, my God, the tomatoes.
SPEAKER_01:The tomatoes. You know, we've just come out of winter here in Melbourne, so we've got these– nasty, pale little things. We had a running tomato theme. They are just perfect and precious.
SPEAKER_02:Well, all the acidity from those tomatoes would have broken down all the food that you were eating. I'm telling
SPEAKER_01:myself that. Can I tell you, one of the things, I mean, they have spectacularly great food. They also have a pizza amacase restaurant. So it's like having a degustation of pizza. It was incredible. The pizza is made on site. There's only like 12 seats. You're sitting around a bar where the pizza oven is. They've got a chef from Napoli, which, of course, is the home to the best pizza. And those tomatoes then appeared on it. You have not had a margarita like you would have. It was just incredible. So, yeah, the food, everything is just so… Pizza to rival Italy, you reckon? Yeah. Well, you know, the guy was using those techniques. But he's just using all of the local produce that's there, you know, the anchovies from nearby. Oh, God, it was so good. And we just stuffed ourselves on incredible pizzas and drank local wines, which was really a great experience. And, you know, like all of Greece, you have to make sure you're somewhere fabulous when the sun is setting so you catch that golden light on the water. And I would have said go up to the hilltop spa and watch it from the infinity pool. And you just see... The sun sinking down over the beautiful islands out behind you. Absolutely beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:So the next part of your trip, how did you end up going from there to get to Bulgaria? And how long did that take? Because I have a little bit of insider knowledge of how long that took you. And I was very impressed on you when you first arrived, the fact that you drove that distance on your own. But then you drove back again. So tell us about what the distance was to get from there back. I
SPEAKER_01:did pick up a hire car in Athens and I was thinking, gosh, I haven't driven on the other side of the road forever. But, you know, how bad can it be? How bad can Athens traffic be? With jet lag. With a bit of jet lag. I just had like a coffee that you could stand your scoot up in and I was like, right, that's it. And just thundered on down the road. the highways down to the Peloponnese, which takes about three and a half hours to drive. So it's a solid clip. And you just get into the swing of it. And so I drove from Athens down to Costa Navarino, spent my beautiful time in the Mandarin Oriental, drove back up. And from there, I was on the second part of my trip, which was this Slow travel, slow food adventure. So I ditched the hire car and I teamed up with Eurail, who sells rail passes all the way through Europe. So from there, I was catching local trains from Athens to Thessaloniki in the north of Greece and then on to Bulgaria.
SPEAKER_02:Amazing. So how does that Eurail pass work? We did touch on that a little bit because you said that those kids were on those similar passes, but tell us a bit, obviously it works for 15 and 16 year olds, so it must be pretty easy to use.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, you get an app. So they're, of course, intuitive with the app. But what it means is you can plan your route. And let's say you buy a pass. The pass that I had was a first class pass for unlimited train travel for 15 days. And you've got either a month or two months to use. So you've got 15 travel days in a one or two month period. So you can hop on and hop off during that day or you can use it on overnight sleepers as well. And it goes to 30,000 destinations across 33 European countries. So you can do– it's designed to do cross-border travel and take the pain out of it. So what I reckon that that mum did was probably help her kid plan his trip, you know, from Brussels and Paris and stuff like that. You load it into the app and then you activate your day travel as you go. So it's really quite amazing. It does sound really
SPEAKER_02:easy. And– And it's all about slowing it down, right? So you put a slow travel in there and then you don't have to drive. But what about when you're actually in those places? How do you get around then?
SPEAKER_01:Well, the aim of it was to try to keep the carbon footprint down. Australians, we've got to make that initial flight over anyway. But once you're there, using public transport means you know, using the metros when you're in the cities, trying to avoid using taxis. So walking from the train stations to the hotels. And the great thing about, you know, when you're on rail is you don't have to check in or anything like that. You just get to the station five or 10 minutes beforehand, get into your carriage and you're gone. You know, it doesn't have that can I say, incredibly onerous level of bureaucracy that airports have done because, oh my goodness, I'm fried for the amount of passport controls and customs checks and all of that sort of thing. The only time we did have a check was when we crossed over the border from Greece to Bulgaria. So, I mean, the whole thing kicked off in Athens, which has just got such an incredible, huge energy. You know, it's got the Acropolis and all of those other ancient Greek sites, but then it's got Fabulous art galleries. It's got a really vibrant street scene. And in the warmer months, which we're still in, everyone's on the street, sipping coffee, eating simmet, which are these sort of knots of sesame seed bread rings. And there's a really strong slow food scene starting to happen here. And then from there, we trained up to Thessaloniki of a couple of hours. And look, what I love about Thessaloniki, and when I put stuff up on my Instagram, I had heaps of people saying the same thing. Love this place. Love it. It's so layered. It's Greek, but then it's got Balkan undertones. And then you see the Ottoman or the Turkish influence in the architecture. You see it in the food. And food, Thessaloniki is the most famous for being the home of the bulgatsa, which is that layered, custard-filled pastry that's usually eaten for breakfast. And it's home of the souvlaki. Yay! So thank you, Thessaloniki, for bringing that to us. You know, don't mind a little. I don't know about you, Kirsty, but yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And look, interestingly, Thessaloniki's also got a strong Jewish history. And you'll find that in such restaurants as Olympos Noosa, which was a brewery. It's been a cinema. It's been one of the best restaurants in town for 17 years or so. And, you know, we were exploring some of the dishes from, you know, from all of those different periods of history and the people that have brought those dishes fruit traditions together. And this trip, you know, we did things like we went to an incredible village called Rachi, which is south of Thessaloniki. And there we met farmers who raise Greece's indigenous black pig. Stay with me here. They feed them on olives to create this unique meat. Think of it like, you know, how Spain has the Iberico pork, which they feed the pigs acorns. So this is like the Greek version of it. It's not well known. It's something that the pigs were almost extinct. They'd pretty much been hunted out. They'd been bred out. It was cheaper and easier just to get that sort of your standard sort of domestic pig. But this is a really unique, it is indigenous to Greece. And so we met the owners of this incredible pork farm. And then we went to a local winery and we sat beneath these wild chestnut trees where the winemakers and the farmers shared this incredible food spread out on long tables, gorgeous local wine, pork being cooked on an open flame fire. And it was just magical. And did the pork taste like olives? It was, you know, I'm not a big pork eater, but it was the best I've ever eaten. Wow. Absolutely hand on heart. It was astonishing. And then you had more beautiful tomatoes and more gorgeous feta and the wine matches perfectly with it because everything is from the same tabai. It's from the same soil. So it's all in absolute harmony. It was just a magical experience. magical experience. You're making me
SPEAKER_02:very hungry. And from there, you cross the border to Bulgaria. So tell us a bit about what makes Bulgaria such a great place to visit.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I've got to say the last time I was in Bulgaria was a really long time ago. I was backpacking and camping and it was a whole different ballgame. It's really overlooked, a really, really overlooked part of Europe. But what you'll find now is Ryanair flies in there. So you'll find Brits are flying into winter for the cheap skiing. It's really one of the cheapest destinations to ski in Europe. And the Black Sea resorts are party towns for the kids. But we're all about the food and wine in the capital, Sofia, and the second city of Plovdiv. So, Sofia, you're in the land of gold-topped domes of Orthodox cathedrals, cathedrals. You know, you can pick up a little Soviet war memorial sold in the street market. So it's still got all of that history behind it. The streets are dings of trams everywhere. So I felt very at home being a Melburnian. And we went looking for– we were looking for Bulgarian food. So we went back to super traditional foods like so many different types of white and yellow cheeses. I found it really fascinating. The– Everybody eats a salad called shopska salad, which is kind of like a Greek salad, but they grate white cheese over the top of it. It was actually invented during the communist era as a national salad because, you know, Greece has got a national salad. Bulgaria needs its own national salad. I don't know what Australia's would be. And they are also masters of the slow, slow, slow cooked lamb dish, which is perfect for this Slow
SPEAKER_02:food, slow travel adventure. Yeah, maybe a bit of beetroot. A bit of beetroot and egg on a bit of four-leaf.
SPEAKER_01:See the Australian stuff? It wasn't a big beetroot thing. I was kind of like, it was kind of there. But also too, so we were there coming into autumn in the harvest. So things like those root vegetables are going to, because it's so seasonal, that's going to be your winter. You're going to see all of those root veggies coming on in the winter menus. But we were still in the last days of summer. It was great. It was sort of hovering around the 30 degree mark. No, I'm talking about
SPEAKER_02:Australian's national salad. You were asking
SPEAKER_01:what? Oh, the
SPEAKER_02:beetroot? Yes. Speaking of the beetroot. Beetroot, beetroot, bit of beetroot, bit of boiled egg, you know, bit of boiled egg. Mayo, put a mayo
SPEAKER_01:squeezed on the top. There we go. Yeah, the Aussie burger. Why would you have like a beetroot and pineapple on a burger?
SPEAKER_02:Anyway, back to it. Tell us a bit more about Plovdiv because it sounds amazing. It sounds like it was such an incredible city to end your trip on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's about... three hours from Sofia by train. And it's got this incredible history. The hotel I stayed at, the Vizualisa Hotel, was a former cigar factory because there's a lot of tobacco grown in Bulgaria. And it's set up on the hills overlooking, looking across to another hill where the gorgeous old town is built. So it's a university city and so it's already vibrant, but it really took off when it was named the 2019 European City of Culture. And that prompted the city to renovate its 18th century old houses, which you wander through. It's a real fire burner, so like I was hitting my step counter. And these gorgeous old townhouses, which then they've got crafts and traditional musical instruments and things like that. So you go in and explore them and you meet the people that are playing, you know, flutes or they might be– blacksmithing or embroidery and stuff like that all through this old town. But the whole city is still built around ancient Roman ruins as well. So it's got these just literally layers. You look down, you think you're looking down a hill, but you're actually looking down because there's a series of Roman columns built onto the side of this the side of the town. It's just gorgeous. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:it sounds amazing. And it sounds like that whole part, the Bulgaria part of the trip would be suited to quite a few people because obviously, I mean, obviously foodies, but people that love history and culture and, you know, that sort of immersive cultural experience as well. Is that sort of the key, you think?
SPEAKER_01:I think that, yeah, if you're looking for history and culture, it really gets into depth with that. That's its key thing. I mean, it's got fabulous cobblestone streets full of outdoor restaurants and the people are so generous and warm. I was actually really surprised at how warmly we were welcomed. And every time you said you're Australian, everyone's like, oh, that is like mind-blowingly far away. But, you know, they're They're really innovative. You know, they've got natural wine bars, you know, with their local wines because there's a lot of indigenous types of grape in this area. But I think the history really is key for this area. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's been so great to hear all about your adventures, Belle, and we will post the stories as they're published in the media in the coming months, probably starting with how Belle took three and a half days to get home. And we'll also put the restaurants in the show notes. And for more information about Eurail, visit eurail.com and also visit Belle's Instagram, globa underscore salsa. That was Belle Jackson talking about her rail adventure from Greece to Bulgaria, and you can find all her tips about where to eat and sleep in our show notes. Next week, we're talking to two remarkable women adventurers, one who was almost at the end of a journey to walk the length of the earth, and another who has paddled the length of Australia's longest river. And for those who haven't heard, we have a trip to Thailand to give away. Our friends at Avani Hotels and Resorts have partnered with us to celebrate our 100th episode, kicking off the party with a tropical holiday to give away. You can win four nights for two people in a deluxe room at Avani Plus Khao Lak with daily breakfast and dinner, airport transfers and a Muay Thai boxing class. And all you have to do is go to the world Awaits Instagram competition post, like it and tag a friend and follow both the World Awaits and Barney and you're in for the win. Entrance can be located anywhere in the world and entries close on the 31st of July. Thanks for joining us on the World Awaits Winter Series. See you next time. That's
SPEAKER_01:a wrap for the World Awaits this week. Click to subscribe anywhere you listen to your favourite pods. Thanks for listening. See you next week.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
