But, help is at hand. And while it can't give you the sounds and sunshine of Greece, the Taverna Kaminaki can certainly provide the taste.
As you walk through the door of the restaurant in Church Road, Stockton, it can also provide the sights - as long as you don't look back at the old Co-op dairy across the road.
Inside, you are back on a Greek street, watching the chef at work in the kitchen.
A friendly - and very Teesside welcome - greets you, but don't let it alter the fact that the food is as good as any Greek food I have eaten in this area.
In fact - it is better than many of the tourist tavernas I have eaten at on my Aegean holidays.
While many restaurants in Greece stick to the tourist staples, you'll find quite an expansive menu at Kaminaki.
Starters can include anything from dips like taramasalata, hoummos and tzatziki (£2.25 each) to garides zorbas (king prawns in tomatoes and peppers and topped with feta cheese) for £6.25; papoutsakia which is stuffed aubergines (£3.25) and spetsofai, sausages in peppers, herbs and red wine, (£3.50).
For the main course there are old favourites like souvlaki (from £8), moussaka (£6.25), stifado, a beef and onion stew (£8.95) and kleftiko the traditional slow cooked leg of lamb (£9.95).
But there are also dishes you may not have tried, like monkfish bourdeto, a speciality of Paxos (£12.95) and Moschari Psito Methismeno - beef stuffed with celery, carrots, garlic and Cephalotiri cheese for £9.95.
After studying the menu for some time, we decided to take the easy way out and plumped for a mezze - a mixture of all the best that the menu has to offer, which worked out at about £15 each, excluding drinks.
We got creamy taramasalata, hoummus and tzatziki with plenty of warm pitta bread, kalamari, fish platters, vegetable dishes, souvlaki, keftedes (meatballs) and stifado - not forgetting the good old ubiquitous Greek salad.
It was all Greek to us - and we loved it.
Especially coming from Stockton, where, for decades the nearest you got to a Greek dish was moussaka with Cheddar cheese, chips and frozen veg.
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