Little Greece in Queens

On Friday we took the subway into Queens to explore Astoria. This area is often referred to as Little Greece and is rumored to house the largest population of Greeks outside of Greece. After walking around the outskirts of the area, we found a restaurant to eat at that had fabulous food. George and Sammie really enjoyed their saganaki! We also toured one of the three Greek Churches in the area. It was stunning. All of the walls and the ceiling were covered in gorgeous iconography. We also had the chance to shop at a Greek market where George found a little slice of heaven in the olive bar and 7 different types of feta they had at the deli. Next to the market was a Greek music store that was full of music, movies, and toys imported from Greece. We saw the Greek version of one of Erin's favorite toys, but didn't get it due to the price (apparently inporting baby toys from Greece is not cheap!). We did buy them a CD to listen to that was all kid songs. On the way to the market, we stopped at a bakery called Ya Ya's Kitchen to sample the baklava and the koulourakia, which were good but not as good as yiayia Rena's! On our way back to NJ we stopped for another stroll through Central Park. We thought about taking a ride on one of the horse drawn carriages until we saw the price. On our walk we passed by a pond, a small festival, the chess and checkers house, the Dairy house, the Children's and the Central Park Zoo. I was hoping that the zoo would be open, but we arrived about half and hour after they closed. Then we sat on a park bench and watched the people go by until it was time to head back to the rental house for dinner.