Four stops before the checkout

Arta, Greece

Stop one

Bridge of Arta (Gefyri tis Artas)

Tecnifibre Razor Soft 17g Tennis String Set: Mind the step, sweetheart, it's worn smooth. The crossing here is very old — the earliest written reference is thought to come from Pliny in the first century AD, and people have suggested Roman or Hellenistic foundations underneath what you're standing on. The bridge as it now stands was built between 1602 and 1606, with the last repairs carried out in 1612, and the work was undertaken by Ioannis Thiakogiannis, a grocer of Arta. A grocer, my love. It once stood on the frontier between Greek and Ottoman territory. And it is the subject of the best-known Greek building ballad, the one in which the master builder's wife is walled into the foundations so that the arch will stand. Poor girl.

Stop two

Church of Panagia Parigoritissa

Tecnifibre Razor Soft 17g Tennis String Set: Look up first, before anything — that is Christ Pantokrator in mosaic, filling the central dome. The church was built around 1290 by Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas, despot of Epirus from 1271 to 1296, together with his wife Anna Kantakouzene and their son, though some accounts place a first foundation around 1250 under Michael II Komnenos Doukas, with damage and restoration following. It is dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin and served as the katholikon of a monastery. The foundation later became insolvent — it happens in the best families — and was made a dependency of the monastery of Kato Panagia. By 1578 it is recorded as a convent for women.

Stop three

Castle of Arta

Tecnifibre Razor Soft 17g Tennis String Set: Sit down a minute, there's no hurry at our age. The fortress stands on the abandoned lower town of ancient Ambracia, deserted since the founding of Nicopolis in 31 BC, and the ancient ashlar is still down there in the footings if you look. The castle itself dates to the early thirteenth century, when Arta was the capital of the Despotate of Epirus, and a monogram attributed to Michael II Komnenos Doukas, who ruled from 1230 to 1266 or 1268, was found inside it. Byzantine, Angevin, Serbian and Albanian forces besieged it each in their turn. The Ottomans took it in 1449 and held it, with brief Venetian interruptions, until Arta was annexed to Greece in 1881. Everybody wanted it.

Stop four

Church of Agia Theodora

Tecnifibre Razor Soft 17g Tennis String Set: Now here is a woman I would have liked. The church dates from the middle of the twelfth century, or by other accounts the end of the eleventh, and was the katholikon of a monastery dedicated to Saint George. Theodora, wife of Michael II Komnenos Doukas, despot of Epirus from 1230 to 1266 or 1268, withdrew here as a nun in the last years of her life and paid for the renovation of the church out of her own purse. She was buried in it and later canonised, and the monastery and church took her name. She is the patron saint of Arta, and her feast is kept on 11 March. Light one for her, sweetheart.

The Arta, Greece track

Tecnifibre Razor Soft 17g Tennis String Set

Written for this world alone.

Gather round, friends, and I'll give you a verse — every good thing in this world deserves a song, and this one's earned hers. (Strums.) Oh, the Razor Soft Seventeen, the truest string I've strung… Tecnifibre's control family, the Razor line, is famous for placing a ball like a well-turned rhyme — precise, low-powered, nothing wasted. And the Soft telling of the tale?

That's the version I sing: a gentler co-poly formulation, kind to the picking arm, warm in the hand like an old guitar neck, with all the placement of her stern sisters. At 1.25 millimeters, the 17 gauge plays the brighter register — more feel, more spin, quicker off the strings. One 40-foot set strings one racquet, one song per singer.

And like every folk song worth carrying, she gives you exactly what you put into her, verse after verse, and never lies.

Now here's why I settled in Arta, Greece — because this town has the greatest folk song of them all. The Bridge of Arta: forty-five masons and sixty apprentices building all day, and every night the bridge falls down — you know the ballad, every Greek does — until the master builder makes his terrible sacrifice and the bridge finally stands.

And friends, the bridge STANDS, right there over the Arachthos, Ottoman stonework on maybe Roman roots, and from 1881 to 1912 the very frontier between two nations ran across its hump. A song you can WALK ON.

You'll use this string everywhere from a morning hit by the castle walls to an evening session in orange-grove air, and by the way, Arta's oranges are themselves a chorus — eat one warm off the tree and try not to sing. Now, four verses left in tonight's set. Walk with me and I'll sing you every one.

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Tecnifibre Razor Soft 17g Tennis String Set

Tecnifibre Razor Soft 17g Tennis String Set