Yep, I'm a little tardy on updating. So here goes:
Lauren and I took a trip to Greece from 10-18 July. The trip was Lauren's Christmas present. After the long wait was finally over, we made the trek.
We arrived on Sunday and proceeded to just walk around town getting an idea what was where and started our plan for the week. We ended up having a nice dinner in Syntagma.
Monday we trekked to the top of the Acropolis. What an amazing sight. Seeing the Parthenon, Athena's temple, among other things was amazing. It was hot, but was worth the trek. We then had lunch at a place near the Acropolis, then headed to the Temple of Zeus. The heat was taking its toll on us, so we headed back to our hotel for some pool time. We went back to Syntagma for dinner.
Tuesday we went back to the Acropolis museum. Unfortunately it was not part of the mega Acropolis ticket. We toured that and enjoyed the statues and other artifacts that have been recovered from the Acropolis site. We went to Monistraki for dinner.
Wednesday was our one-day cruise to the surrounding islands. Our first stop was Hydra, which was about 2 and a half hours from Athens. We spent about an hour in Hydra. The port area was beautiful. The only way around the island is mule. We didn't hire a mule as we didn't have enough time. Next stop was Poros. There isn't a whole lot to do on Poros. We walked around the port area and took a few pictures, but not much to talk about. We departed Poros for Aegina. During that time we had a very nice lunch on the boat. We hit Aegina and decided to take a guided bus tour of the island. We got to see a lot of beautiful sights and enjoy it. The end of the tour took us to a cafe where we got to sample Ozue and some seafood. We arrived back in Athens around 8:30. Since we were short on cash and didn't want to do anything special, we went to Goody's, which is basically the Greek equivalent to McDonald's.
Thursday we headed to Monistraki for shopping and food. Lauren and I both ended up buying some sandals from the Poet sandalmaker of Athens. We went to Hadrian's Library after that, which was pretty awesome. The afternoon was spent by the pool as Lauren was rather worn out from the week to that point.
Friday was a climb of Mt. Lycabettus, which was awesome. The view of the city was amazing. Unfortunately with the haze it was hard to see, but we still got a great view. After Lycabettus we had a good breakfast and headed to the hotel to relax. That afternoon we headed to Cape Sounion to visit the Temple of Poseidon. The drive was about an hour and a half long, but it was a really good time. The view was amazing from the Temple. We got back and crashed as it was a long night.
Saturday was our last full day in Athens. After a quick breakfast, we headed to Monistraki to do a little shopping and ended up finding the ancient city of Agora. We toured that for a while, but it was so hot it was hard to keep going. We left there and headed to the Benaki Museum. It was similar to the other museums in Athens but had a lot more modern items. We left there and headed towards the hotel. I decided to head to the ancient Olympic stadium. It was amazing. 85,000 seats, all marble, and an amazing view of the Acropolis. We headed to dinner early since we had to get up early enough to get on the plane the next morning.
Unfortunately Sunday arrived and we had to depart. A week of heat, fun, and sun was worth it. It was even better when we were upgraded to business class on the flight from Athens to Atlanta. That made the departure a little easier to swallow.
It was an awesome trip. We had such a great time and I will always remember what we saw and what we did. I highly recommend visiting Athens if you get the chance. But don't spend a week there- venture out to other islands and other parts of the country. There's a lot to see and do.
