Cetan Monistiraki

A Cretan Monastiraki...
**Chania isn't 'Little Venice' and Monastiraki really is in Athens, but Chania has it's own versions which are equally fascinating.......**
Anyone want a Howitzer? On a flight from the UK to Athens a couple of years back I read a page in the airline magazine about spending a day in Athens. I remember only the Monastiraki flea-market section and spent most of the rest of the flight re - reading it. When I reached Athens I 'did' Monastiraki. I still do sometimes. Utterly Besotted. You can buy almost anything.....
Monastiraki Flea Market, Athens. A veritable collectors paradise in part of ancient Athens
I am one of that very large group of people who find a pile of anything old and maybe a little well used utterly fascinating. Especially if it seems utterly useless. I could spend hours, maybe days in flea markets mentally finding a use for almost everything I set eyes on. If you turned me loose in Monastiraki flea market in Athens at the start of a holiday, you could safely enjoy your own two weeks and collect me at the end, still wandering around finding a use for everything. And enjoying every minute of it..... Better, because I don't need to go to Athens, I can 'do' Monastiraki right here on Crete. In Chania...

Here in Chania....
Cretan Monastiraki, Kisamou 121, Chania, maybe a ten minute walk from the main KTEL bus station. It doesn't look like the one in Athens on the outside, but believe me, if you are addicted to old anything, you could vanish in here for days! It has everything imaginable. From the very old to the fairly new, but you do have to remember that there is no junk and that everything has a price....

Photographic equipment; weaponry (no howitzers here though); antique furniture; coins; medals; WWII fragments; used telephone cards; books; magazines; record players; looms; and some really classic bed frames! Everything you can find in Athens is here, in one place and no air-fares.... It may not look like a million outside, but inside is a veritable Alladin's cave.

Grecian pots and urns, together with an ancient trekking cart with wooden wheels stand outside in a sort of announcement of the nature of the business, but neither gives a good impression of the sheer range of old goods inside. I particularly like the display of old and genuine relics behind the counter at the entrance. Ancient Rifles and pistols; lamps of all descriptions; WWII forces helmets - Greek, Italian, British and German are the genuine and are worth about 100 GBpounds in good condition. These are. Ancient flat-irons and blow lamps set off a really fascinating display.

Further down into the long shop is a side room full of antique furniture; chandeliers and other ornate light fittings; telephones and that ancient and well worn standby the HMV wind-up gramophone - complete. When I visited last there were three in store. Two were original and expensive. The HMV logo of the Terrier dog supposedly listening to his masters voice exactly as I remember it from Kindergarden. The third was only half as expensive, although still not cheap because as Adonis Papaderakis pointed out, the woodwork was not original, although the works were. I often wonder about this in the Athens Monastiraki - there are so many of these machines there that every ancient Athenian must have owned one! And is that a Mona Lisa I see there....

Adonis Papaderakis - A bit shy!

There is an endless array of items for for sale here and probably something for everyone. My wife Pam checks here for genuine loom spares such as heddles - the string loops which separate the threads and bamboo reads which fit the beater. Some of the actual looms on sale will go to other countries - even to America as the call for hand-woven goods reduces the numbers dramatically. The day I took these photos was an impulse visit with holiday-making friends.

Adonis has promised to let me return with my better camera and plenty of film to produce a better guide. If you are interested in collecting or obtaining individual items of anything old and are in Crete have a look in here. Be aware though, the Greek authorities will not allow the ad hoc export of ancient artifacts and icons and the penalties for attempting to do so illegally may well include an ancient jail...