01/08/09-02/08/09 – Athens
Since we had to leave the boat on Saturday 1st August, we had decided that we should spend Saturday in Athens, staying the night and then flying home on Sunday evening. This would give us a chance to explore Athens (apparently there’s a bit of history there) as well as extending our holiday that little bit more. 
Unfortunately, being (almost) a good Swiss citizen, I was upset not to be spending Swiss National Day in Switzerland, but what could we do? So with this plan in mind, we left Aegina at the ridiculously early time of 08:00 on a flying dolphin over to Piraeus. From there we jumped in the taxi my mother was using to get her to the airport, and asked the driver to drop us off at our hotel for the night – the Hilton Athens. Since it was only about 10:00 by this point, our room was not yet ready so we decided it would be a good idea to get over and see some of the warmer sights before the day got too hot. Nathalie seemed to want to stay in the air conditioned hotel, so we left our stuff with her and headed out.
Luckily the hotel was close to a metro stop, so we headed straight there (not that easy considering the 
things appear to be deliberately hidden!) so that we could get to the Acropolis
quickly. The Athens metro is extremely nice and clean, as well as being pretty cool compared to outside – but there again I wouldn’t really expect anything less from a system that’s only 5 years old! We got to the Acropolis station (cunningly called Acropoli) and headed up. We bought the standard tourist ticket for most of the major sites in downtown Athens, which gives access to the Acropolis and also the Theatre of Dionisyus, the Ancient Cemetery of Kerameikos, the Athenian (Ancient) Agora, Roman Agora and Tower of the Winds (Horologion of Andronicus) and the Olympeion (Temple of Olympian Zeus) – all for ?12!
We headed up to the Acropolis (unfortunately with the entire contents of a HUGE cruise ship, the Ruby Princess, that was visiting Athens that day) via the Theatre of Dionisyus. Even though it was not even 11, the sun was getting extremely hot and the crowds did not help. We did however manage to get a good few snaps of the main sights of the Acropolis. We then headed down again to the Ancient Agora to have a
look around there. Thankfully it was less crowded so we could spend a bit more time reading information instead of rushing around. After that it was about midday so we thought we’d better head back to the hotel since our room would be ready and we were approaching the hottest part of the day. We stopped off at the Haagen-Dazs restaurant for a bit of a cool off and sugar fix (we were both feeling a little tired as had already had quite a long day!). On the way back to the metro station we stumbled across the Roman Agora and Hadrian’s library so popped our heads round the gates to have a quick archaeological nose around.
Once back at the hotel we checked in properly and headed up to our room for a couple of minutes before heading straight for the outdoor pool – the best place to spend the hottest hours of the Greek 
day. Nathalie had to leave shortly after so Becky and I dozed and swam the afternoon away until it was cool enough to head back out to catch up on the sights we’d missed and grab some dinner. We walked from the hotel down to the ancient Olympic stadium which was refurbished for the inaugural modern Olympic games in 1896. We then headed over to the Temple of Olympian Zeus just around the corner and attempted to get some arty pictures taken – let us know if you think we succeeded!
At that point we were getting a little weary so decided we would head towards Plaka to find a taverna for dinner. We were fully aware that this would be likely very expensive (relative to normal Greek prices) and probably not as good as other restaurants, but Plaka is a lovely place to wander around for an evening and I wanted Becky to see it – so off we went. Conveniently the national gardens and parliament lay between us and Plaka (well kind of anyway) so we headed off to do a bit more exploring before dinner time (it was only 20:00 at that point, a bit early for Greek dinner).
After wandering through Plaka and checking the menus at each and every taverna we came across, we settled on a nice big taverna with a large outdoors area underneath some trees in a slightly quieter
courtyard. This allowed us to have a nice quiet dinner instead of being harassed by passers-by and street sellers all evening. We decided to do the standard Greek thing of ordering several different dishes and sharing them between us – something we tend to do anyway even when not in Greece. Unfortunately (as is normally the case) we over ordered because everything looked so good. The waiter felt it is position to tell us that this was probably too much food but we dismissed him – he clearly didn’t know us (or more specifically me). After dinner – which was extremely good, and of course far too much – we had a digestif of Mastiha and headed back to the hotel. We thought it would be a good idea to walk off some of the excess food so it took us a little while.
Once back at the hotel we decided to have a nightcap at the hotel bar called Galaxy, on the roof offering 
a night time view over Athens and the Acropolis. Unfortunately they neglected to mention their ‘no shorts’ policy anywhere, but since we were staying in the hotel, a quick change later and we were back up there. The view was very impressive (unfortunately the camera shot from my phone does not really do it justice) but that is what everyone else also clearly thought, so there was no chance of finding a table outside. We had our drink (I had a Gingerini – I would highly recommend no one ever try one – I couldn’t even finish it!) and then headed downstairs to get a bit of a rest before hitting the rest of the sites on Sunday.
Sunday morning saw us heading down to the hotel gym and pool. An impressive layout of machines including a water bike, which was novel, meant that we easily let a couple of hours slip by and before we knew it we needed to check-out. We did so, and left our luggage at the hotel (the airport bus left from
just outside so it was ideal for us to go sightseeing and then return to collect our luggage on the way to the airport) and headed into Athens. This time we were heading straight for the Kerameikos Cemetery, which was a bit of an adventure finding – mainly because you have to navigate through an impressive flea market to get to the main entrance. The ancient cemetery is impressive, as is the accompanying museum showing all the artefacts that they have managed to salvage and preserve.
After visiting the cemetery we had one more stop on our list, and that was the Acropolis Museum which was opened about a month ago. We were starting to run short of time, so decided on taking the metro to
get there. This lead us back through the flea market where we picked up some authentic souvlaki (not sure what kind of meat to be honest) which were very tasty! We were quite concerned after the metro kept us waiting for a while, and the queue to get into the museum seemed huge, that we weren’t going to make it around the museum. As it was, we only had about 40 minutes, but we zipped round as the experienced whistle-stop tourists that we are and think we managed to take in most of it. The museum is very impressive, in a huge building (with plenty of room for expansion as new artefacts are found) which is raised off the ground to show the ancient ruins below that were found while the building was constructed. Since it costs a whopping €1 to enter, I would highly recommend anyone visiting to go to the museum – possibly leaving a bit longer than we did to see everything!
After the quite exhausting run through the museum, it was time to head off to the airport and home. Once we were all checked in and waiting at the gate (the flight was delayed) we were called over to the gate staff over the Tannoy. A little worried as to why, we were pleasantly surprised to find that Swiss had deemed us suitable for an upgrade to business. So we had a nice flight back to Zurich in full comfort while taking full advantage of the extended drink offerings in business class. The only dampener (literally) when we landed was that it was 17 degrees and raining – oh well, there go the tans!
All in all, a fantastic holiday and one that I would do again in a heartbeat. Now to look forward to the rest of the summer stretching before us. Vienna and Paris beckon.
For all the photos of our trip, checkout our photo album by clicking here.
For the scrapbook entry showing the route of where we travelled, click here.
To view all of our Summer Holiday 2009 posts, click here.