The shower was probably the second best shower I have ever taken in my life.\u00a0 I stayed in there and really enjoyed the hot water and soap.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure it wouldn\u2019t have been nearly as good an experience if this whole travel disaster hadn\u2019t happened.\u00a0 After we were both showered and changed into clean clothes, we decided to hit the town and see the immediate neighborhood.\u00a0 We were tired from the overnighter, but more excited to be in a new city.<\/p>\n
We knew from the beginning of the trip that Athens would probably be the hottest city that we would visit, but actually it wasn\u2019t much different from everywhere else we were.\u00a0 As usual, as long as we walked in the shade it was very comfortable.\u00a0 We started off by walking around the Acropolis hill, which was just a block from our hotel.\u00a0 Kuniko had selected well, and the location turned out to be perfect for sightseeing.\u00a0 We figured that tomorrow we\u2019d do some serious sightseeing, so today we\u2019d just get the lay of the land.\u00a0 There were already hordes of tour buses parked in the nearby parking lot, and tours were lined up to go up to the top of the hill and see the Parthenon.<\/p>\n
One place that didn\u2019t seem to be so busy was the Ancient Agora, the ruins of a some famous temples and public buildings.\u00a0 We bought a ticket book there that allowed us entry into the other famous sightseeing places that was good for four days, so we were all set for the next day of adventures.\u00a0 Ancient Agora was just what I had expected when visiting Athens – pillars, columns, statues of Greek gods, and temples.\u00a0 It was nice to walk around, and there was this terrific sense of freedom without having to worry about our suitcase.<\/p>\n
From there we walked back towards our hotel.\u00a0 Along the way we frequently saw some tourist \u201ctrains\u201d – small tourist trams full of tourists who didn\u2019t want to walk.\u00a0 The train was decorated like something out of Traintown USA, and I thought it would be a little hard on my dignity to end up on one of those.\u00a0 But we saw them all over the place during our stay, and most of them were full.<\/p>\n
We stopped at a small caf\u00c3\u00a9 for some cold beer and a snack (a vegetarian Greek sandwich) and also tried to find a supermarket to do some shopping for later.\u00a0 Unfortunately we couldn\u2019t find the supermarket, but we did get a good look at the streets outside of the main tourist areas.\u00a0 The parts we saw looked a little depressed, and I was struck by how much graffiti there was.\u00a0 On our taxi ride into town we noticed an unusually high ratio of sex shops, and I guess all of these things point to some economic problems.\u00a0 We always felt safe when we walked around Athens, though.\u00a0 Right now tourists are their most precious commodity.<\/p>\n
Back at the hotel we took a two hour nap.\u00a0 We could have slept a lot more, but we set the alarm and got ourselves out of bed.\u00a0 The bed felt like the most comfortable bed ever, and it was a big challenge to get out of it. \u00a0We managed to escape its siren call, and headed back out to another shopping district to take a crack at finding me some business shoes.\u00a0 My shoes back in Japan were about ready to die, and I have only one emergency pair left in reserve.\u00a0 Unfortunately we couldn\u2019t find any shoes that fit, and it seemed like the ones that they were selling would fall apart in a few days.\u00a0 We also were finally able to find a supermarket (we asked two Greek policemen carrying assault rifles) and we could do a little shopping there.<\/p>\n
For dinner we stopped at a restaurant that was advertised all over Athens, the \u201cSmile Caf\u00c3\u00a9\u201d.\u00a0 Despite the cheesy name they served some excellent gyros.\u00a0 It was Kuniko\u2019s first gyro in a restaurant, and I think she really enjoyed it.\u00a0 We got so caught up in the meal that when we left we forgot our groceries, but the server chased us down and gave it back to us.\u00a0 Maybe a bit of the exhaustion creeping in…<\/p>\n
In the evening we did a lot of souvenir shopping, as our vacation was kind of drawing to a close.\u00a0 There were plenty of tourist shops near our hotel, and we found everything we needed and more fairly quickly.<\/p>\n
Lastly, around the corner from our hotel was a wine bar, and so we thought we\u2019d drop in for a glass of wine before bed.\u00a0 We found out that the place had just opened a few weeks ago, and they served only Greek wines.\u00a0 Since we had been so impressed with the wines on Santorini, we decided to opt for their tasting.\u00a0 We each paid 12 euros, and the staff served us a flight of six wines.\u00a0 They poured heavy, and they also served a generous plate of meat, cheese and breads.\u00a0 It was a really good deal.<\/p>\n
We explained that we had just come from Santorini, and asked for a survey of some of the other regions of Greece, and the server did a great job of introducing some of Greece\u2019s best offerings.\u00a0 I had no idea that Greek wines had progressed so much.\u00a0 Each wine we tried was very well made, and two wines (a red and a white) stood out as something I would want to cellar and drink in the future.<\/p>\n
After six glasses of wine each, it was definitely time to wrap up the day.\u00a0 We walked by the Acropolis hill on the way home and admired the Parthenon illuminated at night.\u00a0 Around the area were street performers, students and tourists, and street vendors in kind of a festival-type mood.\u00a0 The neighborhood was starting to wake up and come alive, but we were pretty much going the other direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The shower was probably the second best shower I have ever taken in my life.\u00a0 I stayed in there and really enjoyed the hot water and soap.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure it wouldn\u2019t have been nearly as good an experience if this whole travel disaster hadn\u2019t happened.\u00a0 After we were both showered and changed into clean clothes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-HZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}