Athens
Last week I went to Athens on a 5-day vacation. Athens was chosen because a) my aunt and uncle were going to be there during that time, and b) I needed to use the 2 free night’s voucher at the 5-star Athena Grand hotel I won at the Sheraton Hotel Christmas reception. I could only get the hotel stay for Monday and Tuesday night, and there was no reason not to extend the trip to include the weekend, so I booked an economy hotel for Saturday and Sunday night.
The options for travel to Athens were plane, train or bus. Bus was eliminated immediately because 12 hours on a bus sounds like hell. I’ve also come to the conclusion that trains are also kind a pain in the ass. This left the plane. Although the plane ticket was 4 times more expensive than the train ticket, I felt it was worth it to eliminate 12-14 hours traveling (each way). A flight from Sofia to Athens is only 55 minutes. Only 2 airlines fly the route – Olympic and Aegean. Both are the same price, but Olympic had slightly better departure and return times (leave Sofia at 9am Saturday and return 5pm on Wednesday). I decided on an economy hotel mainly due to its proximity (50 meters or so) to our 5-star luxury hotel.
The flight down was on a small (60-seat or so) turbo-prop. The nice thing about flying on National (i.e. government subsidized) carriers is that they still don’t understand airline economics. This meant that on the 55 minute flight we were served breakfast and drinks. Sweet. The Athens airport is quite new, having been completed in time for the 2004 Olympic games. Despite being outside the city, the planners did a good job at providing easy options into the city. The options were bus, metro and suburban rail. I opted for the fastest option – the suburban rail. One ticket was 5 euro and allowed travel for up to 90 minutes on all public transportation which was important because I changed for the metro at the downtown train station to get me to my hotel (albeit only 2 stops). The economy hotel, appropriately entitled “Economy Hotel”, was fine. As with all European hotels that I’ve been to, the room had two small twin beds pushed together to look like one big bed. Apparently Europeans (well, Eastern and Central at least) all prefer sleeping on hard surfaces because the comfort level of every bed I’ve slept in is only slightly above “bed of concrete”. Even the Athena Grand had the two, rock hard, twin beds. The Economy Hotel also provided a free (but simple) breakfast buffet.
I checked in, dropped my stuff off, and headed out to experience Athens. My first stop was the Archeology Museum – the museum that “every visitor to Athens sees” (according to their promotional literature, anyway). The museum was quite impressive. It had large collections of sculptures, pottery, jewelry, etc. from various eras of antiquity. Unlike almost every other museum I had been to, visitors are allowed to take pictures at this one, although I only took a couple pictures. I can’t imagine a time when I would whip out the photo album to look at an ancient vase that had been glued back together from 40 different pieces. A couple hours later – after seeing about the 40th sculpture of a naked guy – I was ready to go.
Saturday afternoon we climbed up to the top of Lykavittos Hill – the tallest of 7 hills within the city. At the top were excellent views of the city. Also at the top was a small church and a restaurant. I took a quick peek inside the church, but didn’t go in. Orthodox churches (Bulgarian or Greek) all look the same inside (to me, at least). On the walk down I ran into a mother cat and her 5 kittens. Of course I had to stop to play with the kittens.
On Sunday I bought tickets on the “#400 Public Sightseeing Bus.” Tickets were 5 euro and allowed access to the sightseeing bus as well as all public transportation for 24 hours. The bus was ok. It was, in fact, just a city bus, meaning the windows were not adapted to seeing panoramic views of the sites as I would expect a “sightseeing bus” to have. A recorded message said a bit about each site before arriving – including how the Archeology Museum was something that “every visitor to Athens sees.” I did about half the sightseeing bus and saved the second half for the next day (although mainly just to get back to the hotel without having to walk). On Sunday I also hit the War Museum. The museum was so-so. I felt it was much too small and covered only a very small part of Greece war history (mainly WWI and WWII). The highlight of the museum was the collection of planes and artillery on display outside.
Sunday evening I met up with my aunt and uncle, just arrived from several days in the Greece islands (well, one Greek island), and we all went out to dinner. We agreed to meet at their hotel the next morning at 9:30am and begin seeing some of the famous ruins.
I made it by 9:30am and we headed off to see the sites on and around the Acropolis. When we arrived we found out the sites were all free on this day (cha-ching – that saved me 12 euro). We weren’t quite sure why, but we hypothesized it might have something to due with Pentecost. We hit all the major sites on the Acropolis – the Parthenon, Erechtheum (with columns known as caryatids), Theatre of Dionysusin, Theatre of Herodes Atticus, etc. They were all pretty interesting. Even relatively early the crowds were quite heavy on the Acropolis – perhaps because it was free today.
Afterwards we hit the Greek Agora (as opposed to the newer Roman Agora located nearby). There was also a small museum in the Agora with artifacts from the area and maps showing the progression of the Agora area through time.
My Uncle Keith had some good recommendations for restaurants so we were able to eat well for all our lunch and dinner meals. Most of the restaurants were in the Plaka area of Athens. Plaka is an old neighborhood with small and very confusing roads. This meant that a typical quest for a specific restaurant would go like this:
1) identify where we are on the map and identify where on the map the destination restaurant is 2) walk 50 meters and realize we no longer have any idea where we are
3) walk in a direction we think is correct
4) stop and look at map again
5) realize our direction was not correct so change directions to what we now think is the correct way
6) pass a guy who looks like Anthony Quinn in “Zorba the Greek” who is trying to persuade us to eat in his restaurant
7) take a right at Zorba the Greek’s restaurant thinking we now know where to go
go too far and realize we are lost again
9) look at the map and head in a new direction
10) End up passing Zorba the Greek again from a completely different direction. He seems as confused as we are to see each other again
11) Ask for directions from a local
12) Follow directions then realize they were wrong
13) Listen to Kat make fun of my navigation skills
14) Accidentally stumble across restaurant
During the few days we were together, my aunt and uncle were kind enough to pay for most of the meals. For this, I thank them very much.
Monday night I transferred to our 5-star mini-suite hotel room at the Athena Grand hotel. I highly recommend this hotel. The staff was very nice and professional. The breakfast buffet was excellent. The room was nice, although the beds were the standard “rock hard, twin beds pushed together to look like a full sized bed.” Irritating. The free in-room collection of soap, shampoo, conditioner and body wash was excellent. The whole collection was available from the front desk for 18 euro or for free from the maid cart in the hallway when no one was looking.
On Tuesday we hit a museum focusing on traditional Greek musical instruments and also the National History museum. The instrument museum was small, but interesting (and most importantly, free). The history museum was decent sized – situated in the old parliament building. This one cost money but I was able to use my student ID card to get a very reasonable student discount. I would like to thank Boston University for not putting an expiration date on their ID cards.
I left Athens on Wednesday afternoon, but was able to hit the Benaki Museum – sort of a hodge-podge of artifacts from throughout Greek history – before leaving. The flight home was on a Boeing 717 (rather than the turboprop on the way down) and was uneventful except that I left warm and sunny Athens for cold and rainy Bulgaria.
