Opa!!!

We went to the Atlanta Greek Festival last Friday evening at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Annunciation on Clairmont Road. If you’ve never been, you need to make plans to attend next year. The outdoor four-day festival, now in its 38th year, offers some of the best Greek food. I had Pastitsio (Greek Lasagna), DH had the Souvlaki plate and Thing One and Thing Two shared an order of Greek chicken. We also ordered a side of Greek potatoes, which were seasoned with lemon, oregano and a few other delicious spices.

After watching Greek dancers in full costume perform on the stage, we went inside the church to buy a sampler of Greek pastries, including Kourambiethes (Greek wedding cookies) and Kataifi, which resembles shredded wheat, but much better tasting as it’s filled with nuts and honey. My favorite was the Amygdalota cookie, which is an almond cookie.  But the Baklava pictured below was pretty hard to beat. We ate these in the Kafenion, or coffeehouse area.

To burn off all those calories, we walked around the various shops, looking at scarves, jewelry and paintings. This year, they had two new exhibits: a room about Greek culture and another about the Greek Orthodox church. We ended our visit by going inside the cathedral which was completed in 1970, the same year the church was designated as a cathedral. Tours were given every hour and it’s always impressive to view the intricate mosaics. Pictured below is the 58 foot dome ceiling mosaic called Jesus Christ Ruler of All, by Italian born Sirio Tonelli.

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