Amazing Athens

We brought the heat with us to Athens! How did they do it back in the 4th century BC with all those heavy robes? I’m barely staying alive in tank tops and shorts that end up being drenched with sweat in our 95F temperatures!

We found a great hostel with a private room and great air conditioning in the Plaka region called Student & Travelers Inn. The location is perfect for visiting all the touristy sites and having a place to quickly escape the heat from during the middle of the day. And it has a shower curtain! It might sound silly but not all showers have shower curtains here. It’s pretty common in other 3rd world countries to have to move the toilet paper so it’s not drenched after showering but it was Jen’s first experience. So we really felt like we were living it up 😉

Our first day we headed out to check out the National Archaeological Museum. It was a really interesting museum with plenty of artifacts from places that we had been to including Akrotiri and Crete. It wasn’t quite as nicely done as the Heraklion museum in Crete and I was a little surprised by that but it had a lot of great info and displays nonetheless. From there we wandered the streets and found ourselves in the National Gardens cafe drinking glasses of wine which was lovely. As we continued on we were able to witness the changing of the guards in front of the Presidents mansion which was pretty cool to see! There are only 100 guards in Greece that are trained in this position and it was very highly respected. We got to talk to another guard who watched over the safety of the sidewalk and street and made sure the guards were presented correctly. He straightened their jackets, guns, socks, tassels, etc. Once satisfied with his work he went back to his station across the street. Each of these guards serve 9 months in this position and rotated to different stations around the city though the duration. We moved on to the original Olympic Games Stadium called Panathenaic Stadium which was built in the 4th century BC and renovated for the 1896 games. It was also the ending location for the Athens marathon in the 2004 Games. Being the Olympic lover that I am, I was pretty excited to see the rings flying high above the stadium!

Athens has so much incredibly rich history, it’s really like walking through the pages of National Geographic Magazine. Walking along the marble steps, paths and roads it’s almost overwhelming to imagine all that must have happened on those smooth, polished stones over the centuries!

Yesterday we tackled as much as we possibly could including an early morning 8 am arrival at the Acropolis (bus loads of people arrived by 9am). The place was completely overrun by package tourists by the time we left! I was happy that I was able to get some fun photos prior to the chaos and heat. The 30 Euro ticket included 7 areas which was great value for the money. We sweat our way through the ruins of Ancient Agora, the Monastiraki Flea Market and Olympieion before finally finding a great little restaurant with stunning views of the Acropolis and a liter of house wine. After 11.5 miles of walking, that wine was 100% worth every sip!

I’m planning on going back out and exploring some more areas of Athens when the heat starts to subside. I think this would be a great city to stay in for a long period of time and rent an apartment. There are so many nooks and crannies that look super cool and are worthy of time spent in. The prices in the touristy areas would keep me from staying too long (many of our meals were more expensive than what I would pay in San Francisco!) in an area like Plaka so if you want to stay for a while, choose a different neighborhood and visit the touristy areas on your own.

Jen left this morning to head back home and I’m officially on my own from here on out! I booked a train ticket to Meteora and will stay there for 2 nights before heading to Thessaloniki and finally head my way to Macedonia!

(Photos aren’t uploading via my app, stay tuned to see them in the gallery soon!)