Athens Adventure, Part One

I've decided to tell you all about our long weekend in Athens in three installments because well, there's a lot to tell! Here's part one.

Thursday, March 22 and Friday, March 23

Let's begin with Thursday, our travel day. We got up early, made a massive breakfast and made our way to the airport. We made it through security quickly and over to our gate - when it was announced. We waited about half an hour for them to assign it and once they did there must've been quite the rush to line up because when we got there, the queue was ridiculously long. Because the airlin works on a rush seating basis, the closer you are to the front of the line the better. But, they announced that they would give priority boarding to anyone who offered to check their bag instead of carrying it on. So we did. It meant we might wait a bit on the other end, but we got to sit together for sure this way.

Anyway, we walked out of the terminal and boarded from on the tarmack which always give me the giggles. Quickly we were up in the air and we had an uneventful, smooth four hour flight. And considering we had more leg room here than on our trans-atlantic flight six months ago, it was nearly first class!

We arrived in Athens shortly after 5 local time. We went through customs quickly but it was odd to not have to fill out declaration cards. We didn't answer any customs questions, it was just a quick scan and stamp of the passport and away we went. Our bags were out already when we got to the carosel so really, checking them made no difference in the end.

We made our way to the metro station and after asking two ticket people who both weren't all that helpful, we found the right train. It took forever to leave the station and when we did, ours was the 15th stop. We transferred to go one more stop in another direction and came out at the Akropoli station. There, when you exit the stairwell on the street level, turn to your left and look up, you're right under the Acropolis. What a feeling that was! We were definitely in awe and a little bit of shock I think. As much as we've seen already in the past six months, we really felt like this was truly foreign.

Brandon's awesome sense of direction had us quickly finding our hotel and we checked into our room. We had a king sized bed which let me tell you was such a thing to marvel at compared to our tiny bed at home. So much space! There was also a small balcony but we were on the wrong side to see the Acropolis while sitting out there.

We cleaned up a bit and went out to find supper. The street in front of the metro station has all sorts of cafes and restaurants and we eventually, after being told more than once that this place or that place had THE BEST food in Athens, we chose a place. We decided to just order starters and began with a sharing platter. There was all kinds of stuff on it including small triangles of cured beef that were amazingly tasty. There was also fried cheese with fig jam on it, olives, tomatoes, falafel balls and dips of all sorts. We talked to the waiter about what to orer next when a miscommunication of some sort happened. Somehow in the translation we ended up ordering a stuffed pork entree to share. We only found out we'd ordered it when we called the waiter over to ask for a plate of calamari. But oh man, that was a mistake in our favour. That may have been the most amazing pork we've ever tasted. It was stuffed with some kind of fruit and all sauced up...sooooo good! The calamari was pretty good too even though it was technically our dessert!

We ate at the place beside this one.

Calamari!

After the bottle of wine we shared and all the food, we didn't much feel like going too far from our bed. So we picked up some baklavas at a little sweet shop and put ourselves to bed.

Friday morning we had a really good breakfast at the hotel. It was included in our stay and it was listed as an American style buffet. There was bacon and tiny sausages, fried eggs and these little square frittata type things, and also traditional fried dough balls served with syrup that were really good. And there was also yogurt. Wonderful, creamy, tasty yogurt that you could add preserves or honey to. We ate lots and then made our way to the Acropolis. We took our time heading through the park and up the hill and thouroughly enjoyed the sunshine. To be in shorts, t-shirts and sandals was glorious!

The view of the street from our balcony

The part of the park that we entered at was the Theatre of Dionysos. I still need to do  my research because I don't really know what the purpose of this theatre was. Signs also said the Sanctuary of Dionysos so I think it was a place of worship. Though you can't see all the stone seats now, ou can see how far up they would've gone into the hillside. Many of the seats still have beautiful carvings on them.

The Acropolis hill

Theatre of Dionysos

The highly carved side of one of the seats

We continued up the hill along the wall and saw an ever expanding city as our view. It's much, much bigger than either of us thought it was. We saw stones with inscriptions on them that date as far back as 190 B.C. We stopped to take photos of another theatre that would've been fully enclosed when it was in use and then we headed into the main acropolis area. Before we went up through the first gateway, we picked olives off the trees and tried them. Now, Brandon doesn't like olives at the best of times. But being brave, he went first and tried to split it open to get the pit out before he popped it in his mouth. It rather exploded and spurt juice all over me. And they sure didn't taste any better than they looked sprayed all over my shirt! It was the most bitter suck-all-the-mosture-from-your-mouth thing I've ever tasted.

Olives!

And so, up the slippery, polished marble steps past massive carved columns to the top of the hill we went. And there to the right - the Parthenon. And to the left - the Erechtheion. I don't even really know what to say about all of it. Knowing these structures have stood for more than 2000 years is humbling. You can't get too close and there's intense restoration work going on, but it's all pretty amazing. And the longer you look, the more you start to notice things. Like the detail in every surface. It's not hard to understand why the stone masons in Scotland took inspiration from places like this. The tops of the columns, the lintels on doors, floors, walls - all decorated to the glory of the celebrated god or to Athens herself. We were lucky that it wasn't too busy and we were able to wander and spend lots of time up there.

We leaned that the Acropolis hill was the site of a battle between Athena and Posidon. Both wanted to claim the city for their own so they both made an offering to the people. Posidon struck the ground with his trident and from the rock sprung up water. But it was salty like the sea and not useable. Athena offered up the olive tree and the citizens saw it as a better gift because it gave them wood as well as olives for food and oil. From then on, Athena was the protector of the city and the people worshiped her and erected these temples for her. Posidon was also worshiped in the Erechtheion building, but to a lesser extent I think. I thought this temple was more interesting than the Parthenon because that's the one that always gets the most attention. It would've been amazing to see them when they were in their glory though. Maybe someday we'll go back and see them all restored.

We made our way down the hill and into the Plaka district. It's the oldest area of the city and almost fully pedestrian only. There are cafes everywhere that spill out into the street and as you walk down the small terraced alley ways you feel like you're going to come out into another century. We took our time and just meandered around all the small streets till we found our way to a couple of main roads. There's a massive shopping area and we grabbed a quick sandwich wrap that wasn't very good. But we also stopped into a bouzouki shop where amazingly, turns out the guy has a Greek bag pipe in the basement! He brought it out to show Brandon but he didn't offer to let him play it. That would've been so cool.

With not too much effort, and thanks again to Brandon's amazing map skills, we found The Poet Sandal Maker's shop and found our perfect pairs. I read about this place online and knew that we just had to go there. The namesake owner of the company has been making leather sandals for more than 50 years, a trade he learned from his father. Loads of famous people have shopped there over the years including Sophia Loren and John Lennon, and there were photos on the walls of other stars like Sarah-Jessica Parker and Bob Saget. There were more sandals in that shop in various states of manufacture than I think there are in most modern shoe stores and these are made all by hand. The Poet's son runs the business now and there were two other men working there too. We sat and talked to them as they finished up the pairs we bought with nails and glue. He told us all sorts of things. From the reason the economy is so bad and how the riots were the fault of the police, to how Pepsi is now adding embrios to their mixture to enhance flavour. It was an experience for sure and we're very excited about our new sandals. Mine are the Spartan or Sofia Loren style and Brandon's are called Diogenes. I regret very much that we didn't take photos while we were in the shop.

A small church

The modern shopping street, Ermou

Flea Market

We wandered some more through the Plaka and through the flea market where we were asked - and told - many times to buy all sorts of things. It was fun though stressful and eventually we found our way back to the hotel. There was a note waiting for us asking if we would switch rooms because the air conditioning wasn't working. We'd told them about it on our clean the room card that morning. So we moved two doors down into a room with two single beds - boo - and yet another air conditioner machine that blew hot air. Turns out at this time of year there is no air conditioning in the rooms, only warm air. I guess 22 degrees is still winter! It would've been nice if they'd explained this to us instead of making us change rooms, but oh well. We went to the rooftop garden and sat in the hot tub for a bit. It wasn't very hot water and it felt nice to relax. The only problem was that the hotel charges 5 Euro for towls and an access card that turns the jets on for 15 minutes.

We came back to the room with the intention of getting dressed and going back out but we promptly fell asleep! Apparently the sun wears you out. After about an hour of nap time we did go in search of supper and then we went to the Acropolis Museum. No pictures were allowed of course, but it was fabulous. All of the artifacts and statues from up ont he Acropolis have been fixed up and displayed. Many of them are arranged exactly as they would have been originally, especially the pieces from the top of the Parthenon. We learned more about what we'd seen earlier in the day and a lot more of it made a lot more sense. One really neat feature was the glass floor inside and outside of the building. When they began work on the museum they uncovered a large portion of ancient walls and artifacts from the old city. They covered it all up with this glass floor to make it viewable to the public. There was a sign saying that it should be open to the public for up close viewing by 2010, but obviously the funds must've run out as it's all still closed up.

The museum is just behind our hotel so it was a quick walk home for the night and we stopped to buy some snacks and drinks. We took them up to the roof garden and enjoyed the warm evening. Brandon caught my cold and the cold medicine we bought in the morning really helped, but his sneezes got more and more violent throughout the day. Hopefully with a good sleep he'll be better in the morning!