The six o'clock café

Before we run any trip in Greece, we find the café that opens at six. There is always one. It has plastic chairs, a television nobody watches, and a table at the back where the same four men have been arguing about football since before you were born.

We take our groups there on the first morning, because it is the fastest way we know to explain where you are.

What to order

Greek coffee, metrio — medium sweet. It arrives in a small cup with a glass of cold water beside it, and the water is not a garnish; it is half the drink. Do not stir. The grounds are at the bottom and that is where they stay.

If you want a frappé, ask for one, and do not let anyone tell you it is not Greek. It was invented in Thessaloniki in 1957 and it is more Greek than most things on the tourist menus.

What to do

Sit. That is the whole instruction. The café is not a place you go to do something; it is a place you go to be somewhere while the day starts around you. The delivery van arrives. The priest comes past. Somebody's grandmother is walked to the bakery. The men at the back reach a conclusion about the referee.

Nobody in Greece has ever been in a hurry at six in the morning. It is the one hour the whole country agrees on.

Why it matters

A week in Greece can go by without a single unplanned hour, and that would be a waste of a country that is, more than anything, good at unplanned hours. The six o'clock café is how we make sure the first one happens on day one.

Every one of our tours starts there.