The Time We Were Really in Athens

For many weeks, from the time Tania and I conceived of our idea to explore Greece together, it has been completely surreal, even downright impossible to believe that we were really going. Whenever we saw each other, we would greet each other with wide eyes and even wider grins and some approximate countdown to our adventure.

Our planning was diligent. I developed an itinerary to maximize our two weeks and Tania poured over Air BnB listings and reviews to arrange accommodations in each of our stops. Then, finally the time came to rendezvous in Athens.

I took the blue and white theme very literally. My outfits matched the flag for most of the trip.

I touched down a little before 4 am, with roughly 13 hours to kill until Tania’s arrival. Needing to do laundry and desperately in need of having my unibrow addressed, I picked up our rental car and made for the city, with a dead phone and nothing but instinct and some confusing road signs to guide me. Eventually, I found myself in front of a Laundromat a stone’s throw from the Acropolis, and three hours to kill before it opened. I tried to sleep in the car a little, without much success (it is here I feel compelled to mention the car was a mini). I did, however, succeed in dozing between cycles in the small plastic chair inside the Laundromat.

View from above the Ancient Agora, just below the Acropolis.

My search for a place to get my brows done led me to a spa, which offered, among other things, fishy pedicures. I was intrigued and practically frothing at the idea of the foot massage that followed letting the fish snack on my feet. Once again, in an increasingly terrifying state of hygiene, I decided to also chip in an extra 10 Euros just so I could go in the hammam steam room, thus necessitating a shower. I left an hour an a half later, feeling utterly divine… and still sporting the bushy brows I went in with. (Thank goodness I’m blonde).

The fish munched on my feet for about 20 mins. Warning if you are very ticklish: DO. NOT. ADVISE.

Finally the time had come to head back out to the airport to collect Tania. With just a little difficulty in locating the car, I then made my way back through the late afternoon traffic in the center of Athens. Let’s just say I quickly found myself thinking nostalgically to when I found driving on the left side of the road to be a challenge. Fun fact: There is so much traffic in Athens (and so little regard for traffic rules) that people are only permitted to drive in the city’s core every second day. People with odd numbered license plates can only drive in the center on odd-numbered days of the month, and even license plates on even numbered days.

 

Pastitsio- noodles and meat with a thick bechamel top. Our meal the first night in Greece.

Because it had been dark the first time I drove into the city, I had a second chance at first impressions as I re-entered the city with Tania. The sun bore down on us as we worked our way through crowded, narrow streets. The buildings, most beat up and heavily graffittied rose up around us, several stories tall, surrounded by small verandas with sun-faded green and tan awnings. I told Tania it reminded me more of the Latin American places I had visited than the European ones, and she admitted it reminded her a lot of Mexico City. I have no doubt that palm trees added to the illusion for me. Something happens in my brain the second I see palm trees that sends a warm, gooey feeling throughout my limbs, putting me into vacation mode and making everything more charming.

This pic is actually from Chania, on the island of Crete. Surprisingly, it was one of only a couple I took of the palm trees throughout Greece.

Arriving in the neighbourhood where our first Air BnB was located, the people sitting around outside storefronts and residential buildings in cheap white plastic and wicker lawn furniture watched us intently as we lugged our bags in. Inside we crammed ourselves and our bags into a lift the size of a linen closet and squeezed through the apartment door, permanently obstructed by a bookcase on the other side. There, our host gave us a rundown we would become familiar with: Don’t drink the tap water. Don’t put toilet paper in the toilet. If you want to take a shower, flip this switch 15 minutes beforehand. We were both a little embarrassed when we couldn’t figure out how to flush the toilet and our host had to explain that we needed to tug the cord hanging from the ceiling beside the shower curtain.

In Greece you do not throw toilet paper in the toilet. You must throw it into wastebaskets provided in the stall. Let's not talk about how many times force of habit took over and I remembered after it was too late and had to flush guiltily, hoping no one would know the difference.

The next day we woke up to a beautiful, blue-sky, 30+ day (Celsius, American friends). We set out on foot for the center of the city, stopping along the way to try our hand at a Greek bakery, and lusting over delicious-looking fruit in a random little street market well outside the tourist quadrant. On the outskirts of the main market is a flea market. Here, antiques, paintings, spare parts, books, and other random odds and ends are laid out on tables, crates and old couches. Pot-bellied men smoking giant cigars hock their wares from dusty carts while smaller, dark-featured men sit cross-legged on blankets on the ground, with their selection of goods laid out in front of them.

Here's a vendor after my own heart... though every book he sells is quite literally all Greek to me.

The veins of the main market stretch out in every direction lined with souvenir shops and cafes, buzzing with activity. T-shirts, jewellery, beauty products, musical instruments, olives... all wares spill out into the cobblestone pedestrian pathways, while men and women stand at the entrance, doing their best to entice you to come in and purchase their goods. We bought some souvenirs, like the tourists that we are, and made our way up a narrow street, really more of a wide staircase than a street. Flanked by bohemian restaurants and their backpacking patrons, as well as a few stray cats, we huffed and puffed up towards the Acropolis. 

This kitty has got the right idea.

The first of many climbs in Greece; gentle to start :)

After a long wait in line (to purchase tickets) and a short climb up through stone switchbacks, we finally arrived at the top. Extending miles in every direction, Athens appeared strangely uniform with its dusty eggshell residential buildings and white houses with their red tiled roof-tops. The Parthenon, impressive from a distance, stood proudly before us, a remarkable testimony to centuries of human history. 

Athens, almost as far as the eye can see.

The Parthenon- constantly undergoing renos to reinforce and conserve it.

People crowded around each of the structures on the Acropolis, for a multitude of photos and selfies, while simultaneously trying not to slip on the slick marble. From there, we descended through the Ancient Agora, stopping by the museum to see rows of headless statues and Grecian urns, some painfully reconstructed piece by piece. Periodically, shrill whistles pierced the afternoon air, warning people to stop touching or back away when they were getting too close to the ruins. 

I call this one The Torso

CHARIOTS!

By the time we made our way back into the market it was late afternoon and we were famished. We allowed ourselves to be “lured” in by one restaurant flaunting its TripAdvisor awards, and it totally paid off. A lunch of tzasiki, greek salad and delicious mousakka (despite my distaste for eggplant) was capped with fresh pistachio ice cream.

SO. MUCH. YUM!!
Also, while this looks like the pastitsio from before, it's not. It is mousakka- eggplant pie with layers of potato, spiced meat and eggplant capped off with a generous layer of bechamel.  

Re-fueled, we took to our feet again, walking to Athens’ famous Syntagma square, past the Greek parliament building and the National Garden, getting caught in the rain on our way to the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian’s Arch.

Post-caught-in-the-rain selfie at Hadrian's Arch.

Temple of Zeus (costarring the Acropolis in the background)

By then it was late evening and we returned to our humble little abode exhausted but content, and so, so ready to hit the road...