Palaio Faliro

Once a week we go to Palaio Faliro for a nice long walk. We take the tram to Edem which is the start of this suburb adjoining ours. We then start to walk.

On our left, the sea.

This is a small garden on sand, which I suspect was planted by locals.

Lots of palms

The children's playground

and a municipal outdoor gym

These outdoor gyms are great and are to be seen everywhere. I have used the one which is round the corner from where we live, and it's a great workout

We continued on our way

some colour on the verge

more

hello there! There are so many stray cats in Greece. They are everywhere, and even though the municipalities provide food and water, there are still lots of people who go out expressly to feed them.

The chess playing pavillion - only one group playing today

Beautifully shaped bay - Piraeus in the distance

so many people on the beach

This is part of the Palaio Faliro square - the rounded building used to be a restaurant but it's the municipality's cultural centre now

We turned left

a couple fishing

looking back

this is the next phase of our walk

a monument commemorating volunteers from Constantinople (Istanbul today) who fell fighting the Germans in 1940

this submarine is in remembrance of those who fell while serving in submarines - their names are listed

Behind these two umbrellas is a guy, a bee keeper, who sells various produce

We had reached the Flisvos marina, our destination

It's a big marina, not as big as the one in our area, and it's full of life. Cafes and restaurants line the main avenue and they're packed

you can sit right by the water

we took another left turn, and it's quieter here

Neraida, a cruise ship that the rich and famous used to travel on, now a museum

We decided to walk up that pier

Isn't that an image of tranquility?

We retraced our steps, and reached our destination, the yacht club

or, to be more precise, its restaurant - not many people sitting outside, but the inside is fairly busy. We come here on average once a week, because the food is excellent. I had fried anchovies and fava.

This is our view: it's very calm and peaceful

even when the activity begins - the launching of the small boats. 

It's for children. Today, it's adolescents, but we've seen children as young as six launching their boats, sailing away, and then when they come back, washing them and hauling them away - all by themselves.

There's always at least one rescue boat, sometimes as many as three, that accompany the small boats.

After a long, leisurely lunch we started walking back. We chose to walk through the small park for part of the way

But soon, rejoined the path along the sea and saw the little boats in the distance.

Zooming in - here you can also see two of the rescue boats.

Further along we stopped by the beekeper's stall, looked at his produce, honey, beans, seeds and nuts

bee products like propolis, turkish delight, nut butters. We bought a few things and having retraced our steps, eventually arrived home.