Mt. Parnassus

The Greek countryside is so easy to love. I took this shot of Mt. Parnassus (in central Greece) on Sunday when we were exploring Byzantine churches with Glenn. Parnassus towers above the ancient site of Delphi and is home to two ski resorts.

Stolen twice!

Last Thursday Rob and I visited the National Gallery in Athens for our Museum Thursday excursion. You might remember reading about the Picasso painting I blogged about, well, it was stolen this morning along with two others from the gallery. Since Rob and I were just at the museum I decided to do a quick Internet search on the story and found this website: http://www.cyprusnewsreport.com/?q=node/5141. Compare their photo of Picasso's Female Head with the photo I took and posted on my blog of Picasso's painting just four days ago. Yep, they stole my photo! They even copied a part of my description of the painting for their article. Perhaps I should send the author a nice little note. ;)

Another Spontaneous Sunday

Rob, myself, and our friend Nick had the opportunity to join Glenn Peers today on a trip to the Boeotian city of Orchomenos. Glenn is a Whitehead Professor this year at the American School and specializes in early Medieval and Byzantine art. He happened to have a rental car for an extra day after traveling through the Peloponnese with his family so he invited to join him in search of a 9th century CE Byzantine church. It was a very interesting church with a lot of spolia (reused material from earlier buildings) as you can see from the photo below.

Because of very low lighting the wall paintings inside the church were hard to capture. Glenn seemed to think that the paintings pictured below were done later than the 9th century.

Orchomenos also has a theater which dates from the 4th century BCE and according to inscriptions and dedications it was used for musical contests held in honor of the Graces (goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility).

Domenicos Theotokopoulos...

...also known as "El Greco" was a well-known painter born in 1541 in Venetian occupied Candia (present day Herakleion) Crete. While in Crete El Greco painted post-Byzantine icons but the Italian Renasissance drew him to Venice where he studied under the Venetian painter Titian. His paintings during this period were known for lavish color and spindy figures.  In 1577 El Greco left Italy for Spain where he was hoping to help paint the Escorial Palace except the King of Spain, Phillip II, felt El Greco's work was somewhat bizarre. He eventually settled in Toledo, Spain and painted commissioned art to earn a living and while here he received the nickname "El Greco." Needless to say Rob and I have enjoyed seeking out El Greco's paintings throughout our travels (Crete, Syros, Paris). The oil on canvas below is called  St. Peter c. 1605 and it hangs in the National Gallery in Athens.

PS-There may be future blogs displaying El Greco's work as I (Katie) am planning on meeting my friend Jill in Spain at the end of this month :)

Museum Thursday

Today Rob and I visited the National Gallery for Museum Thursday. It's focus is on post-Byzantine (1453-present) Greek and Western European painting and sculpture. The painting below called Female Head was painted by Pablo Picasso in 1939. Picasso donated it to the Greek people in honor of their brave resistance during the Nazi occupation. It is a portrait of the photographer Dora Maar (Picasso's companion between 1936 and 1943) who documented the complete production of Picasso's well known work called Guernica.

Clear Liquids

A few days ago Rob and I attended a "Clear Liquids from the Balkans" party. It was a unique gathering of liquids from locations such as Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Poland, Cyprus, and Bulgaria.

Although I am generally not a fan of these types of liquids I did try a Limoncello from Kalamata, Greece that was quite nice (even though it was a bit on the yellow side). Rob had a fun afternoon of exploring anise based drinks found outside of Greece. In Greece these drinks would be called ouzo, but outside of Greece they have such names as arak and raki.

Happy 2012

New Year's day was once again a cause for celebration at the American School. We had a fantastic dinner with friends followed by Bob Bridges' "Clear Balkan Liquids Party!" Check back tomorrow for some photos of that.

Our dinner consisted of roast beef accompanied by broccoli, bulgur, potatoes, black-eyed peas, Waldorf salad, spinach salad, bread and plenty of wine to go around.

Our chef, Takis, cooks with the seasons and always prepares the most outstanding dishes!