Greek cats

Greece is for sure not the only destination where we have been where there is an abundance of cats. Rome, Istanbul, and almost all cities in Morocco had their share of stray cats. But this was the first place we went to with two animal fanatic little ones.

In our first morning in Athens, it was clear that this was one of those cities where we could find a cat in each corner. At that first moment, I even started to take a photo of each cat saying I was making a collection of it. This soon showed to be a miscalculation as with each sighting of a fuzzy tail, I heard Pedro say “Mum mum, a cat for your collection, hurry, your phone!”. This demand would only subside after the necessary photo would be taken and recorded or the cat had disappeared. At the beginning this was fun and it was like our thing and we were both sad when a cat ran away before we could take a photo of it. But towards the end of the first day, specially when we were heading to dinner in Monasteriaki, and there was a cat every 3 steps, this became a too bif of a task! In addition to all of this, Inês a naturally obsessed one with all cats and dogs, tapped me  (and her dad) on the shoulder repeatedly and pointing to the cat she had seen only stopping when we had also acknowledged the presence of such cat (or dog) multiple times (no, one time would not be enough).

But this is the thing of travelling as a family. I had always found curious the number of stray cats in certain cities and always captured them in my travel photos, but things seem to gain another dimension with kids. A trivial curiosity became almost a quest and even when I  declared that the collection was now completed (already in Naxos, the Island), they were still pretty amazed and calling for all cats that we found. Here is only a part of our collection.

The first photo

I had never seen so many black cats. Superstitious people, beware

The ruins seemed to be one of the favourite spots. I guess one of the reasons was because people (and kids) were forbidden from such areas

One of the regulars near our hotel

More black cats

"Don't look at me like that, I own this chair!"

In Naxos, when everything (ourselves, the overall atmosphere and even the cats themselves) was a lot more relaxed, they got to pet a few of them! And even after one hit Ines on the hand as she was trying to reach him/her, she did not waiver in her efforts. For us, this even turned out to be a great way to entertain the kids, as one of our rooms had a balcony close to the street where a few cats would usually hang out so sometimes if we needed to entertain them a bit, they could stay in such balcony (yes, it was a safe one) and just look for them. The only “downside” from this was that whenever they saw one they kept calling us “Mum, Dad, come come, I can see one! Hurry hurry!”. Always the most exciting thing ever!

Something that ended happening quite often. All of us on the floor to pet the 🐈s (and me trying to capture the moment)

Almost without exception Pedro would pet the cat and then say "Oh, he is so cute!" 🥰

This would be the balcony from which they could look for the animals below - 2 to 5 minutes of relative peace 😅

A curious note to end this (already surprisingly long) post. Already at the island I noticed that one of the ears was damaged (cut on its tip) and thought (“Jesus, the street life for cats here must be harsh!”). But then I saw another one with exactly the same mark, and then another, and then noticed that the large majority of them had the same ear cut at the edge! Wondering about it, we asked in our hotel about this and got to know that this was done to mark all sterilized cats. An efficient, yet brutal way, of making such a distinction!

Most cats showed this cut in their right ear! Cruel or just practical?