I woke up in the morning from perhaps the best sleep I have ever had. The kind of deep, rich sleep that you experience only on holiday. Where it is possible to get up, but you don’t really have to. It was pretty hard to roll out of bed, but we managed to do it, and go downstairs have a light breakfast in the hotel dining room. The hotel had an interesting feeling. It was an older building but not old – maybe a popular destination in the 50s and 60s. The decorations were a little dated, there were little cracks in the cement here and there, but it was absolutely clean and the service was top notch. I couldn’t explain it – a little bit of a lonely feeling, but also comfortable. We certainly couldn’t complain about the location – soon we were walking up to the entrance of the Acropolis area. We were there right at opening time, and there were already some tour groups assembling. A tour group went in first ahead of us – about 50 people, and then we went in next. Other tours were still getting organized down the hill, so it was just us and the tour ahead of us. They stopped soon after entering so the guide could explain something, so we jetted past them and we were officially the first (and only) people on the Acropolis. Good morning, Parthenon!
I’ve always wanted to see the real deal, especially after working at Glen Ellen and Benziger wineries for so long. At the top the sun was just coming up, and it illuminated the structures in a pretty dramatic way. I went crazy with the camera, and I didn’t have to worry about waiting for tourists to move out of the way. It was a good way to experience that area. I finally stopped taking pictures and instead just kind of breathed it all in. The hillside had a beautiful panoramic view of all of Athens – the Greeks who built the Parthenon had picked a great location. Up there we also bumped into a lot of cats who had made homes among the ruins. So cute! As we left there was a flag-raising ceremony attended by some Greek soldiers. I guess it is a daily event, but I think we were the only ones to observe it that day.
Our next stop was to journey across town to see the NationalArchaeologicalMuseum. We decided again to walk it instead of taking the subway, and again it was a good idea. The streets and neighborhoods were a little dirty, a little old, and full of flavor. I stopped now and then in shoe stores but still, no luck. We walked by huge street market filled with vendors who looked like they had never seen a tourist. I took pictures of graffiti and we both stood outside bakeries and oohed and ahhed at all the delicious breads. I bought a Fanta flavor that was apparently an Orangina rip off, but it was refreshing.
Finally, we made it to the museum, and after an initial wrong turn we found the entrance and went inside. The museum was much more interesting than I expected. There are way too many museums in Athens, and we decided to try to narrow it down to one visit. I’m glad we picked this one. It was quite large. We walked through several wings, each divided into different periods of Greek history. We couldn’t cover all of it, but it was very entertaining, and really a beautiful collection. It made me want to re-watch the movie ‘Clash of the Titans’.
After a quick toilet break (no seats!) we walked all the way back to our hotel, and had lunch at a small café nearby. Fried cheese, souvlaki, meatballs, and some ice cold Mythos beer. Again, sitting in the café spacing out was one of our primary activities. We wrapped things up at the café, and went back to the hotel where Kuniko did an excellent job packing our suitcase for the last time. Our secret was that our suitcase contained an empty duffel bag, so we put all our smelly dirty clothes in there, and used the suitcase to protect our souvenirs and other valuables.
We cleaned ourselves up, and then went downstairs to check out. Our stay in Athens was over, and even though we had less time here than we had originally planned, I think we both felt like it was the right amount.
The taxi ride to the airport was pretty long, nearly 40 minutes. It was a flat rate, since it was arranged by the hotel they probably got a kick-back for setting it up. Once we left downtown Athens the scenery really changed – it was much cleaner, and I think we were traveling through the high rent district. We passed the US embassy among others, and there was a dramatic drop-off in the amount of graffiti. At the airport we had to kill about four hours, so we did that by patronizing a bar and drinking plenty of white wine. Once you kill 12 hours doing nothing, 4 hours is a piece of cake.
When we finally checked in there were all kinds of problems in the line. A guy in our line had eight or nine big heavy cardboard boxes that we wanted to ship as luggage, and that took forever to process. There was a big Chinese tour group checking in, and they were loud and pushy, and littering everywhere. A little kid from the group apparently had to go to the bathroom, but his mother didn’t want to leave the line, so she sent him over to piss in the wastepaper basket near the desk. American tourists – maybe I was being too rough on you earlier.
Finally we got through the security gates, did some final souvenir shopping at duty-free, and made it on our plane. It was a short hop to Istanbul, but apparently there was some kind of problem at the Istanbul airport. Our plane took forever to taxi in, and then we took a bus ride all the way to the terminal, went through security, and then took another bus ride to our connecting flight to Osaka. We barely made it – and I was sure at that point that we’d never see our luggage again. But remarkably, they made it through this leg just fine.
The flight was very smooth to Osaka, and we breezed through immigration and customs, caught a bus right away to Sannomiya, caught the next train to Nishi Akashi, and we were sipping sparkling wine and eating cheese and crackers right after we arrived.
This trip was definitely the longest and most ambitious yet. Every day was fun, and we could only laugh at the few problems that we had run into. At some points it felt like we took three separate trips back to back – it didn’t feel like one cohesive journey at all. Maybe because we used airplanes so often. It was a great trip for both of us, and the last long journey for a while. I can’t wait to start planning the next one.
