Transfer Day - Mykonos to Athens
Two weeks spent exploring the Greek islands, and for all my faults I was itching for a change of scenery. It's hard to deconstruct this feeling. I don't want to take anything away from the islands; they are beautiful and picturesque locales. But maybe just not the best fit for me, sitting in a cafe, sitting on a beach, drinking in a bar are things I enjoy in small doses. There was also an anxiety of how much more expensive day to day costs were, I’d go through a hundred quid and feel like I'd done not much of anything that day.
One of my life's ambitions is to learn to appreciate tea or coffee. I envy the people sitting in the cafe for hours watching the world go by. I’m the person ordering a water or fizzy drink and 30 seconds later it's consumed, adding to the need for frequent pee breaks.
Anyway it's time to move onto the capital of Greece, Athens. Back to the ferry port and grabbing a ticket for a much more reasonable price of 35 euro. It was a pretty uneventful four hour journey which involved me picking a chair by a power outlet and bingeing the last series of Derry Girls on All4, one day I’ll pick more productive pursuits. I joined the now familiar scrum of passengers when the time to disembark approached and like a horde of zombies we shuffled off, having a slight lead I managed to grab one of the last seats of the local bus to get from the port into the city centre.
With an additional transfer on the metro (love a metro) I rolled into the modern hostel and was ready to jump into my running kit and have a look around the city in the slightly cooler evening temperatures. Having the willpower with the strength of a digestive biscuit, the person checking me in mentioned that happy hour was on in the hostel bar and I instantly crumbled, dropped my bag off in the dorm and headed to the rooftop bar, grabbing my bogof beers and shuffled off to find some people to socialise with. Something that had been lacking the last week in my empty accommodations.
I found a group of people that I slid in with and then proceeded to drink more than I have in a while. I then did one of the biggest fopars in recent memory, happy hour was coming to an end, and like all people you try to sneak in another bogof just before the time expires. There were two women in front of me who were getting cocktails that were seemingly taking ages to make with only one person tending the bar. With the cut off fast approaching, anxiety of missing out on the deal and the confidence of alcohol, I asked the person in front if they were getting a cocktail that maybe i could push in front for just some bottles of beer. As soon as those words escaped my mouth the beer confidence deserted me and I heard how cunty those words sounded. Ashamed of myself I apologised and tried to laugh it off but was slightly dying on the inside.
Day 1 - Athens, Walking Tour
Anyway I woke up with the first hangover in years for my troubles. But still managed to make the way across town to fit in the early ‘free’ walking tour.
This is my go to activity when first arriving in a place, they can be very hit and miss, depending on how engaging the tour guide is. But either way they’re a great way of getting your bearings and understanding what is and isn't worth seeking out, something that isn't always clear from reading tripadvisor or blogs. This walking tour was pretty middling on the leaderboard. The guide gave us the history speel and Athens is full of it, but maybe a little dry for me.
Top walking tour stuff
- Barcelona - Someone getting their phone pickpocketed on the metro then holding up the train and calling their phone and making the pickpocketer drop it and run away.
- Uguay - just a charismatic tour guide, full time history teacher doing it for fun on the weekends, gave us dulce de leche
- Valparaiso - doing a tour of the graffiti
At the end of the tour I parked myself in a nearby cafe and decided now was time to work on my coffee appreciation. I ordered a freddo cafe. In my mind, right, come with me, follow me, I thought it would be a coffee with a freddo chocolate bar in it, to cut out the bitterness acting like a gateway to full on coffee drinker. Of course what turned up was a cold coffee. Sometimes you just need to jump in at the deep end, it's been years maybe I like coffee now. Sip, blurgh, yep it still tastes like burnt shit. But I understand why people are sitting in the cafe for so long, you can't guzzle that stuff.
I politely finished the drink and spent the heat of the day on Filopappou Hill opposite the acropolis, having some good views over the city and the monument. The heat was a lot and i didnt last long and returned to the hostel to wait for the cooler part of the day.
Lycabettus Hill was recommended as a good spot for the sunset. It was a steep climb to get to the top and had maybe an hour to kill before the actual sunset, despite getting there pretty early it was already pretty packed, which kind of makes me want to immediately leave, but stuck it out. Sat on the stairs and staring into the distance I found someone staring back at me, that someone being Clarize who I shared a dorm with for a night on Santorini. We caught up and did say id go for dinner with her and her friends, as sunset approached the busyness reached its climax and i moved to a lower area to try and get a decent photo. I lost sight of Clarize and my belly was making some grumbling noises so I Irish exited her (which I felt bad about) and made my way down the hill for some food, a pretty bad excuse for my anti-social behaviour. Not really sure what I ended up having for dinner, but it was super indulgent with the amount of meat and cheese it had in it. I don't think I've ever had that much cheese in one sitting. But pretty good for something I picked at random on the menu.
Day 2 - Athens, Acropolis
I'd picked a tour from GetYourGuide.com the previous day, opting for a shorter one taking an hour and a half, which fits in with my attention span and nice and early to hopefully miss most of the crowds and heat.
The tour guide was great and engaging. The tour had these little headsets where you pop some earbuds in that receive the microphone that the guide is wearing. It's a good idea and I saw lots of tours using them, but the quality of the guide's mic wasn't great and ended up mostly positioning myself in earshot for the most part.
Obviously if you're in Athens you're going to go see the Acropolis, you don't need me to recommend it. But as a non history buff I really enjoyed it, despite the crowds closing in by the tour element finished. I did a few circuits on my own examining the buildings and getting some nice photos.
Some mundane hostel switching took place after backpackers were fully booked. I ended up picking Bedway hostel which was a bit further out than I expected. The receptionist was great though and helped me figure out my next steps. The other bit of luck was it did lead me to discover the Bread Factory, a kind of buffet style school dinner vibe but with counters also filled with patisserie, pastries, all sorts of deserts, truly a heaven that I went back to twice that day, each time getting choice paralysis.
The rest of the day was spent exploring the bits of Athens I hadn't got around to, the flea market and the hipster area. It's a shame I found this area after moving hostels, otherwise I might have booked somewhere closer to this area as Bedway was about a 40 minute walk away.
Truly the day was spent mostly eating, after having a decent sized lunch i’d walked past a Japanese grill restaurant that drew me in. I was thinking of just a bowl of ramen, and then saw the skewers that were coming out of the bar/kitchen. I think I ended up going through half the menu, with a soy eggplant dish making my eyes roll back in my head out of pure pleasure.
I rolled myself back to the hostel, whilst pit stopping for a lemon custard croissant. Feeling a bit stunned with the amount of food I'd eaten over the past few days, I went out for a run, like that would fix everything.
Day 3 - Delphi
After the success of the GetYourGuide tour of the Acropolis, I booked a day trip to Delphi. It was a 2-3 hour coach journey to Delphi and unfortunately the guide pretty much talked on the loud tannoy all the way there and back, where all I really wanted to do was sleep.
Delphis location is high up on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, put me in the mountains and I'm a happy boy. The area was pretty stunning, and we past through a town called that made me second guess taking a day trip and seemed like a really nice place to spend the night at.
The guide on the free walking tour had said he preferred the Delphi archaeological site to that of the Acropolis. I’m not sure I would agree, the setting was beautiful with its olive trees covering the mountain slopes and a ton of yellowing flowers, but the scale of the site was much smaller than I was expecting. It's still impressive but having done the acropolis the day before it didn't hit quite as hard. History buffs will love it, and the museum was excellent having a ton of stuff to explore in the exhibits.
