178 Athens

Day 50, 18-08

Horrrrible sleep last night, very restless and got about 2 hours in as we had to get up before 4 for the flight to Athens! We all didn’t sleep well, and stumbled out of bed and into the taxi to the airport. After finding out my tax return place wasn’t open (-lame-) we took off for my last stop, Greece! We fly into Athens but for the next few days we will be luxuriously doing nothing around the Greek Islands! Greece was SO hot, as in 30 degrees at 7am heat. It is definitely a notch up from France and Italy. We took a taxi to our Athens hotel – Baby Grand, almost in the centre of town. Luckily we could check in early. Really cool amazing hotel The Baby Grand with lots of funky art, colour and decorations personalised to each room. We started a walk around – we were meaning to get lunch at a restaurant street 10 mins walk away but the heat drove us to a place 50 metres from the hotel – it was all too much! Had the most amazing kebabs though – for 2 euros! I got chicken gyros (cut off the spit) wrapped in a delish pita with hot chips, fresh tomato and lettuce and a great red tzatziki sauce, sooo good. Walked down to the main square, through the Athens Flea Markets which run off it selling all sorts of junk, clothes and shoes, and came back sweaty as sin. Athens is a very dirty and quite intimidating place – lots of snarly sick types around and quite run down, in the area we are in anyway. It was now shower and nap time which was just what we all needed. At 5pm we met in the hotel’s ‘Moet bar’ to meet up with the other Topdeck people. Our tour leader Zoe is very enthusiastic and seems really cool. Everyone else on the trip is from Australia or NZ! Surprising but also not at all… We got the d low on the next few days here, etc etc, and had dinner afterwards with a girl Anna from Melbourne. She has been here for a day already, so took us down past the main square again to a cute food lane. We picked a restaurant and had a delicious traditional Greek dinner with a view of the Acropolis on the hill above. I had “lamb in the oven” – a fair hunk of roasted tender meat which came with Greek tomatoey rice. Early as night tonight – we need to all recover before a big week ahead of us!

Day 51, 19-08

After a delish breaky we met the group at 9.30 in the Moet bar. We set out on a 2 hour walking tour of Athens, including Hadrian’s library, Temple of Zeus, the ancient Odeon (theatre) which is still used now, a couple of old Greek Agora ruin (markets), and of course the Acropolis site. It also included the rock of the first ancient jury trial (Agamemnon fought at Troy, and came back to Athens from war with a mistress. So his wife killed him. Agamemnon’s son was obliged to avenge his father’s death, however this would mean he would have to kill his mother. After a decent think, he decided to kill his mother. The god’s now wanted to punish him, however because he had such a torn decision they put it to jury. The jury ended up half half, 6 for and 6 against the death of his son. So they asked Athena, protector of Athens, if he should be killed or not. She decided he should live. ANYWAY this was the rock of that first ever jury trial for ancient Greece). We saw the Olympic stadium; location of the first ever modern Olympics (1896) and learned the story of the messenger who ran all the way from Athens to Marathon to announce the Greek's victory over Persia in the Battle of Marathon. The distance was 42km which is how the measurement lives today, and this stadium is also the end point of the annual Athens marathon. After a walk around all these places the group split and we went back to this amazing yoghurt bar – choose your yoghurt (Greek traditional) and toppings to be mixed in (mango and orange honey) such an amazing sweet treat! Cannot wait for more of this. We then went back to go inside the Acropolis on the top of the mountain – housing the Parthenon and the head pillars. Phoebs and I were going to go to the museum which is highly recommended but the line was long and we had short attention spans in the heat.  The Acropolis was pretty spectacular and impressive but also VERY hot out of this world and sleepy and everything else. We spent just under an hour up there then walked back home stopping for a much needed chicken gyros kebab from the same place as yesterday. Man they are just sooo good and satisfying. It was then straight to the pool – Zoe told us that one of the Baby Grand’s sister hotels had a rooftop pool we could use with a view out to the Acropolis. Sounded like my piece of pie. The Athens Imperial hotel was slightly fancier than ours aimed at not so young a client. The rooftop pool was small but amazing, it was pure bliss lying out in the sun and having refreshing swims. Came back to ours just before 5pm, had a nap, then met everyone again for our initiation dinner at 8. Zoe took us to a local Greek taverna in an area we never would have found by ourselves – really cute and fairy tale like up an alley way decorated with fairy lights and vines and lots of little restaurants. The restaurant we were at must be regularly booked out by tours/ groups as there was another Topdeck group there. There was live Greek music played by two old men on guitars, and 2 sets of dancers for the two dining rooms which came to entertain in between meals! It was such a cool experience. Had amazing and filling appetizers of meatballs, pastries and salad, main was chicken souvlaki and dessert was some sort of ice cream cake concoction. Overall a very nice night and a good chance to meet the rest of the group.