Aphrodite- the goddess of love, Apollo- the god of music, Dionysus- the god of wine, Hermes- the god of travel, Poseidon- the god of sea or perhaps Zeus- the king of all gods, who wouldn’t have read
stories of these ancient Greek mythological figures? Yes, it was time to pack
our bags and head to Greece, a home to all these and to many
more! The next couple of days we would be soaking up as much Greek history as
possible in one of the oldest and most historic cities in the world: Athens.
We had come up with the plan to go to Greece somewhere between the planning for Iceland and waiting for the flights there to be affordable. That’s right, once again we had to postpone the Nordic adventure due to its quickly mounting airfares, and we needed a brand new plan. As Iceland left us with only cold chills, we looked somewhere south. Greece was on everyone’s list of places to see and we thought we could combine the cultural Athens with cruising the islands- and we were all sold! Now we were off to an exciting adventure with our Greek crew of five crazies (us, Rachael ‘n Christian and Christina (later known as Dirty Smit!)).
We had come up with the plan to go to Greece somewhere between the planning for Iceland and waiting for the flights there to be affordable. That’s right, once again we had to postpone the Nordic adventure due to its quickly mounting airfares, and we needed a brand new plan. As Iceland left us with only cold chills, we looked somewhere south. Greece was on everyone’s list of places to see and we thought we could combine the cultural Athens with cruising the islands- and we were all sold! Now we were off to an exciting adventure with our Greek crew of five crazies (us, Rachael ‘n Christian and Christina (later known as Dirty Smit!)).
The
rendez-vous was at the Athens airport and we touched down around
11pm. The rest of our crew was already waiting for us and we were all ready to
get going. The shuttle bus for Athens downtown was just about to leave
and we thought to ourselves how nice and
smooth this would be. Well it was until it wasn’t: we got dropped off
somewhere before downtown on an endlessly long boulevard and the bus driver wouldn’t budge
a single meter. It was only us five and another Dutch traveler, who
obviously was infuriated by the situation as well. Without a word in English, the driver kicked us
out letting us understand that this ride was over. After exchanging a few not so nice words with him, the cops
came and said it was due to the demonstrations on the downtown plaza. It was
late and we couldn’t believe that we were left with one choice only:
walking. We dragged our luggage and ourselves on the nocturnal streets of Athens towards (?!) our hotel. It was already about 2am when we finally arrived...
OK, not that ideal start to our hopefully still ideal holiday. We were hoping that a good
night’s sleep and good breakfast would fix all that, and that Athens would welcome us again the next
morning. The first thing we wanted to do was to get to the Acropolis and take
our time there. We made our way through the old historic neighborhood Plaka
(alias Neighborhood of the Gods) that is located on the hills of Acropolis. We got
lost on its narrow little streets that were full of small restaurants built on
the sloping alleys. As we arrived to the Acropolis it was pretty crowded (as expected) but probably not as packed as during the peak season.
The
Acropolis itself was impressive (UNESCO world heritage site), although under
some restoration and construction. We wandered around the site admiring all the
archaeological wonders: the Erechtheion (an ancient Greek temple), the Porch of
the Caryatids (the porch of the maidens), the temple of Athena Nike, the Propylaea (the grand entrance
to Acropolis) and the Parthenon (the temple dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena),
a significant representative of Greek history. We were also captivated by all
the ancient stone theaters; the theater of Dionysos or the Odeon of Herodes
Atticus, where they still organize concerts and other musical events.
To get some
perspective to how exactly widespread the city is, we wanted to walk up the Mount Lycabettus. Since there was so much to see, we choose to get there
by foot, passing marvelous sights on the way, such as the temple of Olympian
Zeus (colossal ruined temple) and the beautiful National Gardens.
Multiple
stops and steps later we got to the top of the hill Mt Lycabettus and a whole
new view opened for us. For the first time we could actually see how enormous Athens is, and how far we had walked. Not
only does it offer the magnificent views but also couple of other things namely a
chapel of St. George and an open-air theater that hosts a number of concerts on
international level.
Exhausted
and a lot wiser about Greek history, we got back to our hotel that was located
between Psiri and Plaka. The hotel had a rooftop terrace overlooking the
Acropolis so we decided to wait till the dusk to get a glance at the lit up
Acropolis, especially the Parthenon- and it was so worth it!
Tummies screaming for food, we headed out for our
first real dinner in Greece and strolled around the streets of
Psiri, the area known for bars and restaurants, to look for a nice place to
eat. With a bottle of Ouzo we cheered the first night of our Greek adventure!
The next
day we had still the entire Agora to explore. The ancient Agora of Athens (also
knows as Forum of Athens) is in the heart of the town and used to serve as a
gathering place for almost any sort of event. The columns and remains of Roman
Forum, and numerous other structures on site were basically radiating ancient
history. One of the most beautiful buildings on the site though was the temple of Hephaestus, which still stands pretty much in
its original shape and form to date.
As
fascinating as it all had been, it was time for a little upgrade of
fascination: The Island hopping! We grabbed our luggage from the hotel and headed to Piraeus harbor to catch our boat towards the Cyclades! We ended up having few extra minutes at the harbor, and so we filled up our bags with fresh cherries, strawberries, Souvlaki (!) and bunch of party drinks! As we were the early birds at the boat, we took over the best spot on the entire boat- the back deck's corner table! Now we were truly ready to go...;).
