Athens!
Athens – what a (great) surprise.
We hadn’t really intended to go into Athens on this trip – we have a couple of nights in the port city/suburb of Piraeus, built into our trip in case there was any problems (weather cancellations) with our ferry before our flight home tomorrow. We’d thought we’d spend a calm day mooching around Piraeus, avoiding Athens in the height of summer. But the hotel staff this morning suggested that there really wasn’t too much to do in Piraeus so we decided to head into Athens.
We hopped on the metro (7 mins from our hotel) which is the end of the line, so no problem bagging seats, and had a comfortable and cool 20 minute trip into the heart of Athens (a return ticket was circa 2.50 euros) and what a good decision it was – Athens was wonderful: not the hot, crowded, dirty, polluted city I had feared. We got of the metro at Monastraki, happened to look up, and saw the Acropolis towering over us from afar!
We headed into the Psirri region, which ended up being my favourite, a chilled, quirky part of the capital – quite probably recently “gentrified”, but still retaining a uniqueness and charm. Street art was in abundance, so Becky was in her element and we spent a couple of hours ambling aimlessly through its streets, taking in the ambience and culture, never feeling threatened or at risk.
We wandered from there through Plaka, and then up to into Anafiotika – a still lived in labyrinth of white houses and tiny alleyways
… and views:
This area was a fortuitous find – we discovered it whilst looking for more street art like this:
Whilst I do like a good story, and history is a great source of many a fantastic tale, neither of us are too much into ancient ruins (although that, perhaps, does not bode well for me: after a day traipsing the hot streets of Athens, I certainly feel like an old ruin) and after lunch, rather than visit Hadrian’s Library, The Agora or other sites of antiquity, we headed over to the Olympic stadium from the birth of the modern Olympics in 1896. The heat was immense, so we didn’t go in, but it was spectacular to look at from outside.
We wondered back through the cool green oasis of the National Gardens, saw Greek soldiers in their “fancy” uniform guarding the Parliament building before sitting down for a refreshing ice cream – it was hot, although I do think that a month “in country” has helped us to acclimatise and cope with the high temperatures in the city: it didn’t feel overwhelmingly hot, but that ice cream was welcome!
I really enjoyed our day out in Athens – it felt like a bonus day and the city itself was much “better” than I had expected. Very different from the laid back nature of the islands, but I’m very glad we went.
