Of course I loved the Ummayad mosque, the beating heart of the old city and number three in Islam’s pecking order after the Kaaba (or is it the mosque in Medina?) and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The vast marble-paved courtyard is usually chocka with Shiite pilgrims from Iran who flock like crows to see one particular shrine in the east wing. Just outside the mosque walls is Saladin’s tomb, surprisingly low-key considering how thoroughly this Kurdish warrior thrashed the crusaders. The mausoleum stands next door to a “putting on special clothes room” - aka a cloakroom where western women have to dress up like monks in hooded robes. They look at you and say - “size 2″! In the main prayer hall the head of John the Baptist is another big draw. And in the middle of the complex is the fabulous courtyard, some façades blanketed in extraordinary mosaic, serenely spacious, colonnades down one side and ablution fountain in the centre - all in all, a push-over conversion.

Even more astounding is the fact that this mosque started life B.C. as an Aramean temple to the storm god, then became a Roman temple to Jupiter, next a Christian church, and finally in the 7th century (that’s extremely early days in the Islamic calendar) started to function as a mosque. Sign of those tolerant times was the fact that both religions worked side by side for decades until there were too many Muslims and the Christians were forced to move on. If you’re in Damascus, don’t miss a last glimpse of the mosque as the light fades and the minaret takes on wonderfully garish hues.

Not far away is another great Damascene institution, Bakdash. Founded in the 1890s this ice-cream parlour is seemingly on everyone’s itinerary. I’d first heard about it when talking to Lucy and Greg Malouf (authors of Saha, a book on Syrian and Lebanese food) in Melbourne last summer, who said the elastic ice-cream was tops. So there I headed, armed with various guide-books that said just the same thing. The secret ingredient apparently is the ground root of a kind of orchid which replaces egg. I went, I saw, I tasted and I have to say I was slightly disappointed. But the pistachio topping was ace and the almost studious atmosphere at the tables in the back parlour quite extraordinary.

There’s something captivating about the light in this city. When I was there it was autumn and the sunlight still strong. There are moments when shafts of light slip through apertures in the ceilings of a caravanserai or sneak into shadowy souk passageways to create pure magic. In the evening the heavy brass lanterns are hard to better, often perforated to make dizzying patterns of light and shadow. Moroccans, eat your heart out, the Damascenes did it first. In fact I can’t wait, as I’m soon to return to Cordoba, the Ummayad’s first European site, via Morocco, in the 8th century. Damascus gave me a strong sense of this Andalucian city, so time to see it again.

Finally - well for this blog anyway - there are pomegranates. Juices of deep crimson, darker and thicker than blood, a liquid that you feel pumping through your veins. Divine.

As a huge pile of work sadly limits the extent of my blogging, the best I can do (again) is post some snaps with quick commentary. Number one to mention, the most moving and most appalling, is the concrete separation wall (NOT fence which it is often euphemistically called) which climbs the hills of the West Bank, dividing inhabitants from their land, olive groves and even families. From what I saw, this Israeli construction is particularly atrocious in Bethlehem - what an irony. The pics of it are in high contrast to the serene nave of the church at the heart of the town above, which is what most tourists come to see.

My taxi-driver, Ashraf, had been one of the dozens of Palestinians besieged in this church in 2002 - “we ate leaves and drank dirty water”. This is an example of the striking Palestinian spirit that resists, despite the fact that these Bethlehemites live in a virtual island encircled by the wall. Ashraf, for example, is driving a taxi to help fund his university studies, hopefully taking him on to better things, while the wall itself has inspired incredibly inventive grafitti - some from visitors (including the British street-artist, Banksy) others from the ‘inmates’. I use that term knowingly, because this is what is feels like when you leave Bethlehem through the cattle-mustering structures of the checkpoint - you’re leaving a prison. But a prison for innocent people and now, inevitably, integrated into daily life. As one Palestinian artist I met said, “A checkpoint represents time, not space” - i.e. you never quite know how long it will take to get through. What he didn’t say was how humiliating that could be.

But back to trips. A couple of weeks ago I was in York (see the massive Minster above - though I never got inside) for the first time in my life to participate at the York Food Festival with a Mexican friend, Juan Galindo, who just happens to be a fantastic cook of all things Mexican - and currently lives in York. The old town centre had been transformed for the 10-day event - lots of local producers showing off their wares & a full-on programme of taste workshops. We gave two sessions: one on the saturday about Mexico’s infinite range of moles (that’s highly elaborate sauces) and another on the sunday about desserts - which became one big tamale session. Beforehand I helped Juan in preparing a mound of fresh tortillas and a pipian - a sauce that is normally green due to pumpkin seeds but that here was reddish thanks to tomatoes, but still delicious and textural. That’s the beauty of moles - they are infinitely variable.

The tamales we made using masa, the Mexican maize flour which has undergone nixtamalization (try saying that - fast) which means soaking the corn kernels either in lime or in ashes. This results in greater digestibility and nutritional properties - an ingenious system that goes back thousands of years to the early Mesoamericans. Once the masa has been turned into a dough, we added lots of different fillings using pear, chocolate, bananas etc (the choice is yours) as fillings, then carefully wrapped them in corn husks and tied them in string. The result were pretty little parcels that then sat steaming for a couple of hours.

For the mole session we showed off a selection of dried and fresh chiles (including Scotch bonnets, which Juan had ordered through the local Indian specialist food-shop - they are as close to the fiery habanero as you can get), as these are a major component in the subtley layered flavours of moles. Ironically, that same day, my book on Mexican food, Viva la Revolucion!, was praised by Dan Lepard in his Guardian column - introducing what looks like an excellent recipe for Chilli Chocolate Fudge Cake. His inspiration for this was the mole poblano recipe in my book. So viva Dan! A pity it hadn’t come out a few days earlier, as we could have included it in our Mexican desserts.

Anyway, between Juan’s demonstration of steaming tamales accompanied by hot drinking chocolate (an Aztec invention, though the beans came from Mayan territory in the south) and the tastes of moles on reheated tortilles - most people in the audience seemed happy. And I was delighted to discover medieval York - in the sunshine no less.

On saturday I’m off to Syria, Jordan and the West Bank - a lengthy and exciting journey into the heart of the Middle East. Funny that over all these years of visiting Islamic countries from Indonesia to Mali via Oman, Egypt and north Africa - I’ve never set foot in the Middle East proper. I can’t wait - but the blog might just have to!

Two fantastic proms for a start. The first was the extraordinary West-Eastern Diwan orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim, a truly formidable man. He set up this musical bridge, together with the late Edward Said, between Israeli and Palestinian performers in the late 1990s, and since then it’s gone from strength to strength. Now the performers come from all over the Middle East and, somehow, produce unheard of harmony. Apparently the only drawback is arranging everyone’s visas on time.

Earlier this year I saw Barenboim play a remarkable solo concert of Beethoven’s piano concertos at the Festival Hall - utter brillance at the same time as great humility. This time he was conducting at the Albert Hall, that massive Victorian extravaganza with domed ceiling, dreary paintwork, tricky acoustics and a ground floor filled with massed aficionados who stand for the entire duration. The concert was extraordinarily moving, from Haydn to Schoenberg to a wonderful Brahms symphony no. 4. Then came the masterstroke - following thundering applause - an encore of Wagner, a composer who is still banned in israel. It brought the house down. I wondered what the young musicians talked about afterwards as they packed up their instruments and in preparation for the next concert of the summer tour. Politics? girlfriends? falafel?

Last week’s concert was the Berlin Philarmonic conducted by Simon Rattle who I’ve never managed to see before. You really can’t miss him on the poidum thanks to his curly white mop of hair, and he’s not one to be discreet. Rattle dances, punching the music and conjuring the musicans, pulling them forward while they, arguably the world’s top orchestra, play absolutely impeccably - and beautifully. If the man in the next-door box had not been so greedily chomping a plate of crisps, I would have floated into another world. Yet again it was Brahms, this time his 3rd, then Shostakovich’s !0th, a more raw and moody piece. All fine stuff.

In between those classical highlights I had the unfortunate experience of a Van Morrison concert in the grounds of Kenwood, which adjoins Hampstead Heath in north London. Oh woe, oh misery. I knew it, but as my partner had free tickets & we hadn’t anything else on, we trekked up there, all the time keeping an eye on the threatening skies. So why is Van Morrison still playing? I never liked him particularly and he certainly hasn’t improved. Word was out that tickets were gold dust. Rubbish. There were dozens of empty seats and the craftiest people had set up picnics & mini-cocktail parties OUTSIDE the ropes. That’s one thing about Britain - people really know how to party whatever the weather or venue. But even then, why bother? Dreary, soulless, repetitive music, despite backing from some talented musicians. Droan on Van Morrison, but I won’t be there. The best bit was actually our long walk back to the car through a spookily dark Hampstead Heath, along shady paths through the trees, with just a few drops falling and an opaque moon flitting between the clouds.

I can’t miss mentioning the launch of a friend’s captivating book, An Indian Odyssey. Based on the Indian epic, the Ramayana, it is a new rendering-cum-travelogue, seen through the quirky and perceptive eyes of Martin Buckley. A must for any Indianophile, as it leads you not only into the spiritual world of this great classic but also harks back to the 1980s, when Martin worked in Mumbai. My best memory of the ‘making of the book’ was meeting up with Martin in Delhi a few years ago, and being taken for a spin on his antiquated Enfield motorbike. Roaring through central Delhi’s avenurd late at night was a treat, one up on auto-rickshaws any day. And when the doorman at my rather chic hotel tried to stop us tearing up the driveway, we merely braked and removed our crash-helmets - and all was sweetness and light. That’s bourgeois India still, a dual system, one for white tourists the other for dark Indians.

Then there’s a brilliant Turkish film, just out to deservedly rapturous reviews: Times and Winds, by Reha Erdem. A wonderfully realist, at times funny and touching tale of three young boys dealing with the trials and tribulations of adolescence and difficult families. Their remote rural villlage is somewhere in Eastern Turkey, but we never know where (much to my travel-writer’s frustration). A recurring image is a pencil-thin minaret, high above the little village, with a watery expanse in the background and a changing twilight sky. Quite magical.

More great cinema with Man on Wire - a gripping documentary about the eccentric but completely focussed Frenchman, Philippe Petit, and his heart-stopping highwire walk between the Twin Towers back in 1974, which was totally illegal. Fantastic work by a British director, James Marsh, a mix of interviews with the protagonists or ‘team’, footage and photos from the time and dramatic re-enactments. All enthralling and incredibly poetic. It also shows the creative, anarchistic spirit that came straight out of the 1968 movement in France. Petit, a magician, says “I have no limits” - you can see an interview here but it’s nthing like the film itself - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vztE8eeYFE

Another outstanding Man, but this time it’s ex US President Jimmy Carter, in Man from Plain. Extraordinary that a film about a book-tour can make such compelling cinema. It’s basically showing what this highly moral (and very Christian) man is trying to point out re the Middle East. His pro-Palestinian thesis has of course got certain American lobbies hopping, particularly as Carter uses the word ‘apartheid’ in relation to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Followed from TV studio to car to swimming pool to bookstore, he comes over as an impressive, intelligent man, open-minded and analytical. Well into his 80s, he is indefatigably touring the US to spell out a reality which is so rarely heard. If only America’s next president could come anywhere near that….

Nostalgia aside, this Suffolk outing threw up some contrasts of the GBH (Great British Holiday - not grievous bodily harm) genre. On our way, we stopped at Colchester to have a look at a rather remarkable exhibition of Chinese terracotta figures - not quite warriors, but almost. They were displayed inside the castle museum, which was absolutely packed with families - good sign, those Essex kids are interested in their Roman heritage. In the park outside, we grabbed a mediocre sandwich - then the heavens opened. Reason no. 1 for avoiding a GBH, though other punters seemed well prepared. Maybe that’s an integral part of sandwich in the park?

Southwold is an easy drive from Snape, so that was an obvious outing. Down by the pier the beach-huts were hopping, despite the clouds massing on the horizon and generally over Suffolk.

Extended families sat outside in their deck-chairs or on the beach, lapping up the few chinks of light, drinking, chatting, laughing. I don’t quite know how they do it - but “We do like to be beside the seaside” went the refrain. Nearby, a Punch & Judy man in a boater waited patiently by his stand for an audience to roll up, all rather touchingly old-fashioned.

Further on, past the iconic lighthouse, the beach-huts became larger and smarter and the clientele distinctly posher while a few brave souls even entered the water.

At the far end of the beach which, incidentally, is no longer shingle but sand (this seems to have happened within the last few months) we caught the little rowing-boat that crosses the river to Walberswick for 80p, and reached the lovely old Bell Inn which I remember from aeons ago. Now this is one of the big attractions of a GBH, finding a pub that retains its atmosphere and that isn’t serving Thai food. This one did the trick.

Further south along the coast, one of the most beautiful spots is Dunwich, a wild expanse of heath high up on the cliffs above the sea. In the distance, the grey seas churn but the colours of the heather are incredibly vivid, subtly changing hue with the light. This summer the heath is dramatised by three wave-like sculptures. Made of natural, local materials and entitled Storm Surge, the triptych marks three points of predicted coastal retreat over the next century. Very worrying, but congratulations to the National Trust for sponsoring such an enlightening installation.

A few more wet moments (time to read at least), a white church with a ceiling of carved angels, an excellent photo exhibition by Graham Murrell at The Maltings, an architect’s ironic, post-pop installation of squeaky toys in a garden shed, and some really top food (back at the Station Inn at Framlingham - see an earlier blog). And impossible to forget the sea-bass fillets resting on a HUGE bed of samphire that I devoured at a village pub - but that one should remain a best-kept secret. Leave it to the locals.

So, the conclusion? To go? yes, but only if you’re prepared.

A pretty eccentric, very hands-on set-up, divine food, superlative views and a mixed bag of Aussie guests - plus a barefoot bushman who took us way out into the bush to some extraordinary rock art sites. Then came a boat-trip along the spectacular King George’s Gorge, one of those red sandstone marvels of the Kimberley region, rich in minerals like silica, manganese, potassium and iron ore, and about 350 million years old. That’s peanuts for Oz.

Further inland lies El Questro, a vast privately owned wilderness park full of wildlife, fabulous views of Mt Cockburn and plenty of natural surprises. The Chamberlain Gorge, similar to King George’s, except far far inland, was one of them. Here’s a rock wallaby that lives on the escarpment, bouncing from ledge to ledge to escape predators and sleeping in the crevasses.

And here’s a particularly illustrious boab tree, a sibling of Africa’s baobab trees (in fact Oz has one species, mainland Africa another, and Madagascar 6 - some of which I’ve seen and they are quite quite spectacular).

Then I moved on, northeast of the Cockburn range, to an inspiringly authentic cattle station - Digger’s Rest. What a place, full of relaxed, easygoing and a few eccentric people (it made me consider how psychologically healthy life in the outback must be surrounded by such immensity and grandeur) plus hundreds of animals - cattle, horses, goats, dogs, chickens - and two pet emus. Here’s one, fleet of foot in a photograpic blur on his way to peck around the bush cabins…

Riding along the King River, a lushly beautiful sweep of water in what can often be severely parched landscapes, was a real treat. One croc spotted, and of course more boabs, a majestic tree I’ll never tire of admiring. Nor of Oz either.

And here’s old-time Melbourne - lest anyone forget it was Australia’s biggest city during the 1860s gold-rush. It still has some beautifully intact architecture, including a few art deco gems, though it lost the population race to Sydney long ago.

Tomorrow I introduce Viva La Revolucion! and my minor theory of gastrocommunication to the Melbourne public. It’s pretty daunting as this city is one of the world’s great foodie capitals, with a long list of excellent restaurants and general gastro-sophistication. What I can contribute is my knowledge of Mexico & of Mexican ingredients, but there’s a long pause before I enter the kitchen. Greg Malouf, the great Australo-Lebanese chef & food-writer, follows my talk with his own, together with his ex-wife and co-author, Lucy. I’m particularly keen to hear them speak & hopefully meet them too (postscript - I did, & much enjoyed them).

I wrote the above words nearly two weeks ago. Somehow I got caught up in a very downunder swing into action, roaring across this vast continent and above all loving the stirring emptiness of the Kimberleys (that’s the north-west), the Aboriginal (and Bradshaw) rock-art hidden in the bush, horse-riding in the glow of the early morning as temperatures begin to soar, listening to the cackling and screeching of Aussie birds and being moved to silence by natural formations - deep red ochre gorges slicing into the coastline or the outcrops of Mt Cockburn. The latter is a severely underestimated natural icon. Uluru is always the one on the postcards, but the sprawling serrated mass of Cockburn (pronounced Co’burn), also of glowing red sanstone, is just as extraordinary. Here’s just one of its multiple outcrops -

And finally I found myself on the Tiwi islands, camping under the southern skies, almost white with stars, and listening to the rustle of bandicoots. When we arrived at our camping pitch, our Tiwi (Aboriginal) guide called out to the spirit of the lake - the Rainbow Serpent - and it certainly felt like we were taken under her (because it’s female) mythical wing. And then, culmination of my foodie interest in this part of the world, I ate some yuwurli, a long, translucent worm that lives in the mangroves. Somewhere between an oyster and jellyfish - tasting of the sea and very salty. To be continued….and here is the gastro-moment, captured for all…

An addendum on Melbourne, which I never finished earlier in this blog. On my last day there I introduced Viva la Revolucion! at Books for Cooks, an inspirational bookshop in Carlton specialising only in food books, with a good secondhand section too. What a fantastic emporium, and what inspiring owners, Tim White and his wife Amanda, an accomplished cook who prepared three of the recipes from my book. Unfortunately I was too busy chatting to the gathering to have time to taste the wonders and then had to run to the airport - but it seemed like they were much appreciated. And, surprisingly, gleaned from the 35 odd people attending this mini launch, it seemed there are a few places in Melbourne to source Mexican products. So, yet again, what can I say but VIVA!

As for the few daring Brits, well their amateur input was short and sweet, muscles and flab included. Younger Mongolians took to the arena too, usually in ubiquitous jeans plus visible edge of Calvin Klein underpants (ALL of them had this - does CK have a franchise in Ulan Bator or something?). All cheerful stuff with plenty of applause and big smiles.

In the back ground at the only food-stall (my intereste never wanes), a whole pig turned on a spit - at least I got a snap of THAT, or of the remaining shreds. But I do wonder how a charity can justify a cavlacade of 4WDs burning up increasingly precious fuel from London all the way to Mongolia. They said it was for children’s education and funding herds of cattle after the loss of millions to drought over the last few years. But hey, what about the environment? Isn’t there a greener way of helping Mongolia? It did seem a bit dated.

The night before, I indulged in more mental travel, in this case to India in the scintillating company of Zakir Hussain, whose music I discovered at a Delhi music-shop well over a decade ago. What an extraordinary concert and what a generous-spirited man he is. Held at the Barbican which I love, not for its brutalist architecture but for the wood-panelled concert hall (very acoustic friendly) and brilliantly stepped seats with decent views wherever you sit. Hussain himself, god of tablas played with five other musicians and a punchy group of acrobatic dancer-drummers from Manipur, in north-east India. Sarangi, violin, sitar and a regular Western drum-kit (played brilliantly by Hussain’s younger brother, Tawfiq Kureishi) gradually upped the tempo, while the audience, about 60& middle-class Indian, revelled in it. One extended family dressed to kill in front of me celebrated the music by passing crackling packets of crisps and biscuits back and forth. Nearly three hours later, standing ovation over, it was out into the London night. Come again, Zakir Hussain.

A few years ago I explored the eastern side of the Pelopponese, mainly Napflio, a favourite hang-out for weekending Athenians, also Monemvasia, one of those picture-postcard-perfect villages in an extraordinary site, but now entirely holiday homes dotted with a few classy boutiques and small hotels. Here’s a snap of Napflio, which we passed through briefly on the way back -

It hasn’t lost its attractive Venetian style (thanks to a former occupier - and there’s even an island fort in the gulf), but the backstreets are now overloaded with tourist-junk shops and the harbour strip with over-priced cafés. Fan-humidifiers blast out clouds of cool steam while Athenians shake the ice in their Nescafés frappés = the surprisingly satisfying local drink. The best thing on this side of the Pelopponese is the ancient theatre at Epidaurus - fabulous, but there was no time to return on this trip.

Bottom line of that little digression into the past is to point out that the western side (Koroni, Methoni, Pylos) is, for the moment, far less spoilt. Koroni itself is delightful, with a reasonable line-up of tavernas along the harbour and, high above, an incongruous convent at the heart of the crumbling citadel. Here, even the wizened old ladies in black are welcoming, usher you into the little church then point you to steps up to the vertiginous ramparts - views assured.
Here’s Koroni

and here’s a view from the citadel.

As dusk descends and the temperatures drop a few degrees (though let’s not exaggerate), a truck full of fruit & veg steers its way down the narrow streets to park beside the tavernas while, at the other end of the quay, a man grills corn-on-cob - echoes of Mexico. Our dining destination was Zorba’s - pretty unoriginal as names go, but it had decent fish and succulent dolmades.

Food is rarely exceptional in Greece, it’s repetitive and not exactly refined, but what it does claim is unbeatable Mediterranean freshness. So here, close to Arcadia, we really indulged in our villa lunches: plump. sweet tomatoes, fruity, viscous green olive-oil (bought at the Harakopio village grocery in recycled water-bottles for 2.5€ - incidentally I’ve just read about a Cretan olive oil on sale in the UK for…wait for it…£28!!!), deliciously fresh, crumbly feta (same supplier - from an enormous tin in his counter fridge), juicy, pungent garlic (yes, same man - he was good) and goat’s yoghurt that was so acid it needed a tablespoonful of jam to be edible (same man again). And then there were the slender, delicate, pinkish pistachios - thousands of them. I’ll confess to an addiction. For me, a saucer of those little things plus a chilled glass of red wine (excellent stuff from Monemvasia) consumed at dusk to a deafening background roar of cicadas is pretty near perfection.

After crossing the peninsula through rolling hills and tiny villages where old men sat outside cafés clicking beads and watching one car an hour go by, we reached Methoni, another bastion of Venetian then Ottoman rule. The fortress is vast, its ramparts encircling a now overgrown terrain of ruins and a church, and jutting out at the end, the Bourtzi, a 16th century island forrt once used as a prison. Very picturesque and unexpected - obviously highly strategic for the Venetians.


This time we ate excellent cod baked with peppers in a restaurant garden near the fortress, Klimataria. We’d been tempted by a relatively upmarket seafood restaurant down on the beach, but it remained bizarrely deserted, so we steered clear. Go with the flow no?

Another day we headed for Pylos and the adjoining Bay of Navarino where in 1827 a combined fleet of Brits, French and Russians (those were the days) trounced Ibrahim Pasha’s Turkish fleet. Today, this almost completely circular bay is edged by a nature reserve and a beach. The flat warm water is understandably a favourite with local families, but I was far far happier back at the ranch, or rather the villa, watching the mood slowly change over the Gulf of Messina and the olive-trees shimmer in the fading light, listening to cicadas and devouring pistachios.

That is… until I was bitten by a Greek scorpio! Ouch. Aaaarrrgh. Agonising pain that lasts nearly 24 hours. But it did give me a quick insight into the Greek national health system: a 24-hour clinic in a nearby village with a young woman doctor, English-speaking, and happy to help. And I survived to tell the tale.

Here’s the lovely Temple of Athena Nike up on the Acropolis - without the hordes. And here are the hordes…

Those halcyon days are long gone and today Athens is working desperately to keep up with the rest of Western Europe. Characeterless modernity rules though the once atmospheric Plaka has become even tackier than Montmartre or Covent Garden. But what every self-regarding city needs is a contemporary architectural masterpiece - as Bilbao, Valencia, Sydney and many others well know. So here is Athens’ bid for glory in the form of the spanking new Museum of the Acropolis, at last nearing completion.

Theoretically it’s four years late, as it was initially intended for the Athens Olympics in 2004, but pretty well everyone agrees how unrealistic that aim was. Now projected to be inaugurated this autumn (though still with no exact date - plus ça change), it now opens its doors to the public for a couple of hours each morning. A kind of work in progress. This in itself seems an intelligent idea, giving Athenians and tourists a preview of the architecture, if not of the actual exhibits. Some pieces are in place, though most sit in huge wooden crates awaiting the slow-moving team of expert unpackers.

The spectacular design is by the Swiss-French architect, Bernard Tschumi. Austere, very masculine, its swivelled roof sits in a prime position just below the mount of the Acropolis. Glass dominates, giving endless perspectives over the hills and urban sprawl of Athens. As most exhibits are sculptural, solid walls become obsolete - and the surrounding cityscape becomes an exhibit in itself. The Centre Pompidou in Paris was one of the first world museums to do this in the late 1970s and Tshumi’s design develops this concept without the irony.

I remember Tschumi’s work 20 years ago at Paris’ Parc de la Villette, and he hasn’t lost that rather hard 1980s aesthetic, despite a small concession to ‘green’ concerns in the heat-absorbing glass and the incredible amount of natural light. Otherwise the structure is angular, geometrical and very hard - sometimes over-present.

And here’s the room at the top, a luminous space with fabulous views to the Acropolis (hazily visible in the pic) that’s designed to accommodate the entire Parthenon frieze, although half of it is still in the British Museum (dubbed the Elgin Marbles). Cleverly, the Athenians have replaced the missing panels and some segments with plaster casts - so well executed that you wonder if it’s worth getting those original back. Discussions are apparently ongoing between Greek authorities and the BM but the return of the marbles would create a tricky precedent - most of the contents of Western European museums could then be reclaimed. So why should Athens be any different from, say, Cairo or Baghdad?

This beautiful set of sculptures from the Parthenon pediment actually sits in the Acropolis metro station a few yards away from the museum. They may well be reclaimed by the museum - a shame, because how fantastic it is to absorb such ancient beauty in what would otherwise be a pretty mundane moment in your life. Well actually not so mundane, as the Athens metro is pure joy: well designed, clean, packed with shiny marble surfaces, no advertisements… Transport for London take note.

A last tip on Athens for anyone heading that way: don’t miss the collection of Cycladic Art at the private museum of that name. The sleek marble sculptures of human figures dating from the 3rd millennium BC no doubt inspired countless modernist artists from Brancusi to Picasso. Simple, stunning, highly sophisticated - sadly, unlike the rest of Athens.