Athens - Getting into the Greek!

After an uneventful night in Madrid where we were too tired to do anything worth while and ended up having a Chinese feast for dinner, we caught an early flight to Rome. Here we had four hours plus a three hour delay before finally boarding the plane to Athens and arrived around ten at night to our hostel. Had a few hiccups trying to get there as the bus wouldn't take us to the stop we needed to go to because of the strike so we had to get off early and catch the underground to our proper destination. Upon arrival we were exhausted, so were delighted to find out that we'd been upgraded from a dorm room to a studio apartment. Fantastic. We left our things in the room and then went to find some dinner.

The area around the Athens Backpackers hostel where we were staying was very lively with bars and restaurants. All the restaurants have people outside trying to get you in, however we gave into 'Vitro', one of the small restaurants we passed having seen that the menu was great and also they were going to give us a free round of drinks...who could say no to that? For dinner I had haloumi cheese and wrapped wine leaves, which were absolutely delicious. We sat outside where there was a great atmosphere from the buzz of all the diners and some relaxing music in the background. After dinner we went back to the apartment to get a good night's sleep. We only had one day in Athens the following day so wanted to make the most of it.

For our one full day in Athens we booked ourselves on a walking tour run by the hostel for only five euros. Our tour guide was fantastic, he really loved his city and knew so much. We got to see so many things, including some amazing views that looked over the whole city. We learnt a lot and really enjoyed listening to all his stories. I loved all the ancient ruins and also learning about the ancient Olympics. The Royal Gardens were very pretty and it was also seeing the Parliament building where all the riots have been taking place. The only problem with our tour however, that it went for nearly five hours in forty degree heat. Towards the end it was so hot we just wanted the tour to end so we could get up to the Acropolis and then head back to some air conditioning, food and water. We all felt bad for losing our enthusiasm with the tour, but had it been a cooler day I think I would have enjoyed it much more. Still glad we did it though considering how short a time we had in the city.

The Acropolis was amazing, it is so hard to comprehend just how old some of the buildings and structures in Athens are. Europe makes you realise just how young Australia is, we have nothing in terms of history etc compared to things like this so you really appreciate being able to see it for yourself. We took some great photographs then agreed it was time to get out of the sun and to a restaurant to recharge our batteries. Had another really nice lunch of Greek salad, wrapped wine leaves and about a litre of water and then went to book our ferry to Ios for the next day. We found it was much easier to book with a travel agent than online. While they do charge a slight commission, it was so much easier being able to organise, pay and collect our tickets for our trip there and return in the space of about twenty minutes. The websites seem really unreliable and confusing! Athens Backpackers directed us to a very good travel agent so I'd suggest doing this if you are travelling around the Greek Islands.

Our hostel had an amazing chilled out rooftop bar that looked out onto the Acropolis which is where we spent our last night in Athens. It was so nice watching the sun set behind the Parthenon and then seeing it lit up against the night sky. It was a very social area, and we met people from all over the world and just talked about our travels, swapped tips and stories etc. We had dinner at the same place again, our little man who convinced us to come in the first time was very glad to see us and gave us another round of free drinks. I would definitely suggest Athens Backpackers to anyone travelling to Athens who wants a great location, atmosphere, range of activities and a relaxed but fun experience of Athens. This hostel is listed on the Hostel World website. We had another early travel start the next day so got another early night, our ferry to Ios departed at 7am!