...Greece

Here is possibly the worst photo of the Acropolis in Athens. The timer is obviously longer than we thought. I look like a mum doing a parents race on sports day.

Ah wonderful Greece. Economic decline, schmeconomic decline. It's an amazıng place. We quickly blended in by making sure we smashed our dinner plates after every meal. Gets a bit messy when you haven't finished your moussaka ... But enough of this. What on earth have we eaten?

Ermm, more meat. I estimate that the amount of chicken I've eaten in the course of three weeks could equate to about five whole ones. I'm considering supplementing my diet with steroids, greasing up my limbs and entering myself for miss universe. Here is what was supposed to be a light lunch in Athens.

Salad. With meat, chips and bread.

An open kebab. Thankfully they gave me a doggy bag. After Finn had finished his, he announced that one kebab would've done us both. And yet I couldn't help noticing his plate had been licked clean.

Although readily available in Greece, we've been off the borek and on simit, a ring of tough or crunchy bread which is usually eaten for breakfast. A healthy alternative to borek but luckily I found an unhealthy version, one filled with chocolate.

If you eat too much simit, your head will become a giant simit. Let that be a lesson to you.

Athens is an amazing city and had many of the things we love about London. On our first day we headed to a bustling fruit and veg market where you could buy a kilo of oranges for 60p. If we'd had a kitchen, we would've stocked up on the amazing looking vegetables.

Veggies in an Athen's market

All this looking at food was making us hungry. We were rewarded for fighting through crowds of dithering old ladies who had no sense of space and who should have had a licence to steer a shopping trolley with a happy man and a grill at the end of the gauntlet (bizarrely all to a sound track of 'Lady in Red'). We settled ourselves down on some steps opposite his stall to devour the massive smokey sausage baguettes he'd just made us. The next thing we knew, he was running across the street with two cups of sweet white wine for us. And we both fell a little bit in love with Athens.

Sausage baguette man. Light at the end of a tunnel of old ladies

The mother of all sandwiches

After a poke about in Athens, we headed to Thessaloniki, a vibrant city in the east and convenient place to break up the journey to Istanbul. On our last day I mentioned to Finn that although I'd enjoyed our Greek food experience, I felt I hadn't had 'the meal'. The Greek gods heard and sent us to Mangio on the waterfront and the utterly charming Constadinos, our waiter and an ex-professional basketball player.

Our lovely waiter

He ensured we had some of the best food we've tasted. There was too much to mention but the highlights for me where the fried aubergine balls...

A plate of loveliness

...and a Crete speciality of melted feta which was so good, I made sure I got the recipe. So here you are:

Take a block of feta and break it up into pieces in a small ovenproof dish. Scatter one chopped tomato and a chopped mild green chili over the cheese. Cover with slices of a stringier cheese (I think mozzarella would work well) and put in the oven for about 5 minutes on a medium temperature or until it's all melted. When it's done, drizzle a generous amount of olive oil over it and sprinkle dried oregano. This is what it should look like.

Utterly delicious fetariness

But it's all about the taste so if it tastes amazing but doesn't look anything like this, don't worry.

On to Istanbul and time to visit some 'old favourites' including the best kebab in the world ever.