Athens | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

Mar

Train travel through Greece & Bulgaria with Eurail

Dream assignment: train travel through Greece and Bulgaria with the sole purpose to eat, think and travel deeply and slowly.

This journey started in Athens and ended in Ploviv, Bulgaria, with European rail pass company Eurail. With chef Ella Mittas and photographer Sarah Pannell, no mouthful went uninspected or undocumented. Also with us on the trip was videographer Paulo Magalhães , who has just released the trailer for his upcoming documentary about the furthest corner of eastern Europe. We visited restaurants, farms, vineyards, villages and the primary and secondary towns of the neighbouring countries.

The short for Paulo’s upcoming documentary is now out, and I love it! To keep the story going, Ella cooked a menu inspired by the journey for a group of media here in Melbourne at Julie restaurant in Abbotsford Convent last week, using trahana, a fermented grain and yogurt and a fabulous moussaka, which as its own, fascinating backstory.

You can also get a taste of our travels from my recent story for adventure.com https://adventure.com/off-the-eaten-path-slow-food-bulgaria/

Dec

Travels in mainland Greece with ABC Radio

Whenever anyone talks of holidaying in Greece, the islands tend to get all the glory. But what about the mainland?

Athens has everything to offer as a global city and holiday destination, but to my mind, the real story is Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki. The home of souvlaki, bougatsa and the frappe, Thessaloniki has done the impossible and makes instant coffee taste good! It’s the birthplace of Kamal Ataturk, and has been corralled into empires from the Hellenic to Ottoman, so expect great history, fantastic food and a waterfront location designed for post-prandial perambulation.

I joined Philip Clark on ABC Radio‘s national evening program, Nightlife, to tell of the wonders of mainland Greece. You can listen to our chat here, and tune in to ABC Radio every Monday night for his Monday Night Travel segment, which goes out to the world from 10pm.

To listen to the interview, visit this link: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/nightlife-travel—greece/104675428

On this trip, I drove from Athens airport south to the Peloponnese peninsula, to stay at the new Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino – I’ll post a review here shortly. Then I drove back up to Athens (Athens traffic – ayeeeee!) and from there, joined Eurail, the European rail pass company, using their tickets to travel from Athens north to Thessaloniki, then crossed the border into Bulgaria, on to the capital, Sofia and then to its second city, Plovdiv. I have stories coming up in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, which I’ll post here as they’re published. To learn more about Eurail, visit eurail.com

Aug

Free things to do in airports: ABC Radio interview

Waiting in airports is one of the downsides of travel. But is it? I reckon airports are magical places, and there are so many free things to do in airports.

This week, I chatted with ABC Radio Melbourne’s Sunday program about the best things to do in airports over the world – and many of them free or just the price of a cup of coffee.

Sure, you can scroll on your phone or put on your headphones and tune into a movie. Or… you could wander through a museum dedicated to Hellenic history (Athens), admire the great Dutch Masters (Amsterdam), have a cup of tea at Harrods (Doha) or dress up in traditional Korean hanbok and try a few handicrafts (Seoul). What could a be better way to spend your time?

Even our Australian airports are worth discovery – I love that in Melbourne, you can drink coffee from some of our most famous cafes – I’m thinking of St Ali here, and snack on food by our top chefs, such as Movida and Cafe Vue by Shannon Bennett.

Click here to listen to my interview with Lisa Leong on ABC Melbourne.

Oct

Terminal boredom: free things to do in airports

I don’t mind wandering airports – empty or busy, I find them a fabulous use of time. I love the exotic layers you’ll find in the big, Middle Eastern hubs, as yogawear-clad Australian girls sit alongside men in Oman’s national dress of gleaming white dishdasha, or hikers unlace their heavy boots beside the perfectly manicured Parisian couple. I like finding the local cuisine – often a tricky quest amongst the increasingly globalised food courts found in most airports – and the essential souvenir.

However, if shopping for sherry vinegar from southern Spain or 80% chocolate from Ecuador is too boring for you, I offer you my contribution to the Sydney Morning Herald/The Age’s Savvy Traveller section, which lists some of the coolest free things to do in airports around the world.

Top of my list is Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport (AMS), which has a longstanding collaboration with the country’s most important art gallery, the Rijksmuseum – long before art in airports became A Thing.

Too tame? Dress up in hanbok in Seoul, pat a Giant Flemish bunny in San Fran, chase butterflies in Singapore or cruise an archeological museum in Athens.

To read my story in the Traveller section, click here

https://www.traveller.com.au/long-delay-or-layover-find-free-things-to-do-at-the-airport-h26j08

Nov

New groove in ancient Athens

A magnet around which the city revolves, this is the view of the Acropolis from the top floor of my hotel, New Hotel in Athens.

It’s ironic that the more I travel, the less I post on my poor blog. I’m just back from nearly two months in the Middle East, working from my base in Cairo.

Cairo’s my second home: I’ve lived here, and return most years to watch it race toward change – some good, some absolutely dire. This year, I also took a walking tour through Palestine’s West Bank and a brief island hop in Athens and the beautiful island of Hydra, about 90 minutes by ferry from the main port of Piraeus.

I got a lot of love from the @Traveller instagram account, and just spotted this clip in the weekend papers of my shot of the Acropolis, which I took from the top floor of New Hotel, Athens, a chi-chi little design hotel.

Sure, you can book the penthouse to soak it up, but the breakfast room is also currently on the top level, so we can all enjoy one of the world’s great landmarks.

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Train travel through Greece & Bulgaria with Eurail

Travels in mainland Greece with ABC Radio

Free things to do in airports: ABC Radio interview

Terminal boredom: free things to do in airports

New groove in ancient Athens