As mentioned our flight was late and we arrived in Athens at 11:30pm. Amanda did a little skip through the airport at the thought this was her 30th country, but she would have to leave the airport first. But by the time we got in the taxi, who didn’t take card, went to the ATM and got to our hostel, the charm had worn off and we were both much too tired to celebrate. We found little notes all over our charming hostel. Our rooms had notes and our beds had notes. Because we got in so late, we weren’t in the same room but we were able to move over in the morning.
Up in the morning we could fully appreciate our hostel. It was basically like staying in an old Nonna’s house, except the bedrooms were filled with bunk beds. The beds were mismatched but fit a certain style and had bright pink sheets (at least ours did anyway in the pink room). There was a living area with couches decorated exactly like your grandparents sitting room and a tiny kitchen. Everything was thought of as though something actually lived there. Products for days in the bathrooms and a fully stocked kitchen. For breakfast there was an odd selection of cereal, toast, a huge bowl of whey and hardboiled eggs. We decided to sit in the outdoor tiled area which was like a forest of pot plants. There we decided on our strategy for tackling Athens. We only had 2 days to see a lot. We found a cheap pass which gave you entry to a number of historical attractions. We planned our days to most efficiently see all these attractions and also see the other things we wanted to.
Our first impressions of the city the following day were met with graffiti saying tourists f*** off, which *insert sarcasm* definitely lifted the spirits. Over these two days we got the impression that Greece has a weird relationship with tourism. 30% of their economy comes from it but there are large swathes of the population that hate tourists. It felt like Greece needs tourism to survive but it really resents that’s that fact.
For our first stop we wandered on to the Archaeological Site of the Lyceum of Aristotle. I think we were expecting more. It looked like there were more things to see but they weren’t a part of our pass so we missed them, which was a disappointing start but a cool ruin (that you can view from the street). Next the first olympic stadium. We didn’t want to pay so we looked from the outside. It was cool but didn’t seem like much to see.
After that we headed to the Temple of Olympian Zues, a temple begun in the 6th century BC, but never completed. This was more like it, a very classic Geek temple with those pillars. You could get close to them and there was only a little bit of scaffolding. There was also a cool bath-house where you could match the ruins with a floor plan on the map. Directly outside this was Hadrian’s Arch. We took a photo of the Acropolis through the Arch. Hadrian was a Roman emperor while Athens was a part of the Roman Empire. Hadrian loved Athens, he was one of the so called “Five Good Emperors”. His name will come up a fair bit.
A note on the Acropolis, this is a collection of Ancient Greek Temples on top of a rocky outcrop in the middle of Athens. It includes the iconic Parthenon, and used to have a 9m bronze statue of Athena before it was stolen. As it includes such grand structures and sits on a tall outcrop the Acropolis dominates the view of Athens and you can see it from basically anywhere in the city, especially because most arch ways frame it.
After that we were getting peckish so we headed down to a popular street and got the most traditional Greek street food we could find (that had good google ratings). It was a bit confusing because it was all in Greek, but once we figured out they were just yiros (spelt gyros in Greece) we were good. We wandered up the hill to the acropolis, on the way we found a few cool shops. One where the lady hand sculpted birdies, she had classes to teach others and Amanda was very tempted to go but we didn’t have a lot of time. Another was an art gallery that had a bit of an art-punk style with very dry humour.
We got to the entrance of the Acropolis and the line was huuuuuuuge. We decided to go tomorrow instead and get there earlier. We instead climbed up the lookout just next to it, Areopagus hill, and had a nice almost-360 degree view of Athens. It didn’t stop, 2-3 storey buildings as far as the eye could see. I hadn’t seen anything like it before.
We walked down and found a market strip. Lots of stalls with the same thing that seemed quite tacky & imported but there seemed to be a few hidden gems. We wound our way to Hadrian’s Library (See! Hadrian!). This was a cool ruin right in the middle of bustling streets. We avoided the scammers trying to put wristbands on us and entered. In there we saw some cool arches and columns but also tortoises! Just outside of Hadrian’s Library was Monastiraki Square, we bought some cheap strawberries and got some cool photos of the Acropolis.
After the refreshing strawberries we walked down the main street we found our next stop on the pass, the Archaeological museum of Kerameikos. It had a museum of statues and other artefacts, as well as archaeological ruins from a town. We pretended we were townsfolk who lived in the town and were seeing it as it would have been. However, it was getting veeery stormy and we were worried we were going to get saturated. We were not prepared. We headed back to the streets and found a rooftop bar (with rain protection) to watch the rain. Amanda had an excellent Salmon with picked salad. I had some nice lamb. In Venice aeporeol spritz are everywhere, and we never got one so we had a hankering. We ordered some even though the weather wasn’t conducive. We ate our meals and had some entertainment watching the Irish ‘prepare’ for a football game by doing the very Irish activity of drinking and singing in the pouring rain. After a long day we walked home, avoiding the rain, and had a more restful sleep than the night before.
The plan was to get up really early, go to the Acropolis and get in before everyone else. Unfortunately everyone else had this idea and the line was even longer than yesterday. We decided to not do this and instead head to the Roman Forum. The highlight was an ancient weather and time tower. Next we followed a similar theme and went to the Ancient Agora. This was the centre of Athens in ancient times and you can see all of the ruins. We listened to a Rick Steves audiobook which took us on a pleasant (free) guided tour through the Agora. We weren’t the only ones with phones listening to his knowledgeable remarks. The marketplace (Stoa of Attalos) was also fully reconstructed as a museum so you could see what it would have looked like back in the day. On the top of the hill there was the Temple of Hephaestus, this was the most intact original temple we had seen and it lots of cool depictions carved into the edge of the roof. The part I found most interesting in the whole tour was trying to work out how the timeline of Athens interacted with the Roman Empire. When were they separate, when were they a part of the empire and what happened after the fall of Rome. There is such a long history with so many different ‘stages’. Very similar to how I felt visiting the welsh castles.
We were getting peckish. We walked down the streets a few times trying to decide what to eat. We felt like South East Asian but none of them were open. Eventually we decided to try something a bit different, if a bit touristy, and got a ‘Naanwhich’. Basically a yiros which was made from a piece of Naan bread and butter chicken. We thought it was a pretty cool merging of culture. We made our way back to our hostel to do our final washing, going past a weird Alice in Wonderland cafe on the way.
After that unfortunate but necessary diversion we made our way to the National Archaeology Museum. It suddenly started pouring, fortunately we were in our rain jackets but we still ended up soaked. We spent a few hours there, listening to some more Rick Steves about all the pieces. Amanda posed in front of a statue of a Greek god. Immediately after Rick Steves said that it was disrespectful. She felt really embarrassed but we do now have a ‘forbidden photo’ (not posted here out of respect).
It was getting later, we picked up some pizza bread for fuel. It was now or never, we headed to the Acropolis, the weather still being a bit miserable. The Irish were still out, this time ‘celebrating’ their loss in the rain. As it was raining the line to get in was non-existent, we headed in and wandered to the side of the hill with the Amphitheatre, occasionally having to take shelter from the rain under trees. Eventually the rain started easing so we walked past the Temple of Athena to get to the top of the Acropolis. Once up there the weather cleared and the sun shone through. Amazing! We tried to get some good photos even though we look like drowned rats. As there were relatively few people around while there was so much rain, but we had to be quick before the rest of the tourists realised it had stopped raining and made there their way to the top. As the Acropolis overlooked Athens we could also get some nice photos of the city. Feeling successful, we made our way down and got frozen yoghurt for dinner/desert before tucking in ready for Santorini.
Tune in to the Harps 