Constantine I of Greece

Music

Urban music and Western influences

In urban centers, the elite and middle class favored Western dances like waltzes and polkas at home gatherings, while lower social strata in ports developed rebetika music performed in tavernas using bouzouki, baglama, and guitar. Military bands also frequently performed Western music in public squares and streets of major cities.

Daily life

Simple Peasant Home Architecture

Most rural peasant homes were single-room cabins built of wood or stone with a roof of thatch or tiles, housing both the family and their domestic animals. Furnishings were minimal, typically lacking tables and chairs, with bedding stored in a corner and meals eaten while sitting on the floor around a common dish.

What it cost

Coffee and diet of the poor

In the mid-19th century, luxury items like a cup of coffee cost 2 grana, a price that laborers often paid daily as a digestive despite their poverty. At the same time, many workers lived as mangiafoglie, eating pasta only occasionally because it was expensive relative to their daily wages.

What people wore

Festive attire with gold and coins

On feast days, well-to-do men wore crimson velvet jackets embroidered with gold, while women often accessorized with strings of coins and silver chains.

Getting around

Travel by horse in interior Greece

Travelers in the interior of Greece typically moved on horseback, with distances calculated by the hour rather than by miles. An average hour of riding covered about 3 miles, and a normal day's progress was between 20 and 25 miles.

At the table

Modest Diet of Ordinary Families

Poor families in Greece often survived on little more than a handful of bitter olives, onions, or salted fish with bread.