3 Days in Athens
Or, The Other Athens, as I’d called it (the real one being Athens, Ohio, home of my alma mater Ohio University). This one was a little bigger and a whole lot older with way better food. Athens itself is a massive sprawling city, and it took an hour to get into town from the airport by train. When we emerged from the train, we saw ruins IN the train station and knew we were in for a historical treat. When we emerged from the station at Monosteraki, we were met with streets full of people out for Saturday night, Athens was poppin’! Our AirBnB was in Psyrri, a perfect area of town with loads of restaurants, bars and shopping. A quick pit stop to drop our bags and we were back in the streets to join the revelers.
With so many street food options, we planned to skip any fancy dinners and keep it local. First up, souvlaki and greek wine! For only $7 I got a lamb gyro and tall pour of wine at Tylixto, which I enjoyed from their upstairs seating where I could look down on the street and people watch. It would be the first of many meals like this; another notable one being at Hoocut. To get the most of our Saturday night, we headed to six d.o.g.s., a super cool all day/all night club-bar-cafe-garden-hangout. There was a DJ spinning, inventive cocktails and a really nice vibe with colored bistro lights across a garden. It was a warm night perfect for sitting outside, and the nice weather stuck around for our entire stay in Athens.
We didn’t waste any time on Sunday exploring. We fueled up with more greek food at brunch and headed to the National Garden. Browsing the flea market on the way, we also stopped to watch the guards at the Monument to the Unknown Soldier. While their most impressive changing of the guards happens at 11am on Sunday (we had missed it), they do a ceremonial march every hour so we did get to catch that. The National Garden wasn’t much further and WOW was it beautiful. There were so may distinct areas and plants. There weren’t many open green spaces for relaxing, as we are used to in San Francisco, so we spent the time walking around. Our favorite sight was the Terrapin Pond where there were hundreds of turtles, some swimming but also climbing over each other to they and sun themselves on a rock.
On a whim, we decided to hike Lycabettus Hill. The highest point in Athens, it’s in the heart of town and provides excellent 360 views. From the hilltop we got a preview of the sights we would be exploring - the Panathenaic Stadium and Acropolis were both visible below us. The hike would be difficult in the summer heat but luckily we had some cloud cover. If you were to visit in the summer, there is a funicular you can take, however it moves through a tunnel so you won’t have a view as you go up.
To cool down afterwards we took part in a favorite European past time, apertivo at a sidewalk cafe. With all of the new Covid parklets in San Francisco, I fully plan on recreating this at home and trying to get everyone else to as well. The evening carried on that way, first with oysters (possibly the best I’ve ever had, from Japan and France), and then more cocktails before we closed the night with a late dinner at another sidewalk spot.
The weather was so pleasant, we just wanted to be outside all the time, which was great because every restaurant had outdoor seating. Greece had only recently dropped their covid restrictions, but we could tell that people were still feeling out what felt safe or not. Many different places had different rules for wearing masks or not, so opting to eat outside made things much simpler.
We found a pass for 7 historical sights for about 40 euro per person which would save us a bit of money on admission fees for all the places we wanted to see. It also helped to guide us because now we had a list of 7 places to hit. The pass was valid for 5 days, which was more than enough. First, we wanted to go to the Acropolis, so we grabbed some traditional greek pastries for breakfast (koulouri) and then set off on foot.
The Acropolis complex has many different things to see on your way up to the ruins. First you see a few sets of well preserves statues, carvings, and columns. Then you pass by a two different amphitheaters, as well as remnants of a few other buildings. Finally you make the final ascent surrounded by ancient stone columns and emerging at the top to greet the Acropolis. The facade of it was covered in scaffolding on one side (as a few of the ancient sights we saw were) but the other 3 sides were unobstructed. The Acropolis itself was epic, huge with carvings adorning the top and unmatched in its scale. I also loved the 6 sisters, which are carytadids (supports for the roof in the shape of women) of the Erechtheum building. The ones at the Acropolis, I learned, are actually replicas while the originals sit in the acropolis museum for safe keeping. That is, except for one which currently resides at the British Museum in London since a British lord sawed it off and took it home to decorate his mansion two hundred years ago.
Following the Acropolis we carried on crossing things off our list. The Roman Agora, Temple of Zeus, and Hadrian’s Library were all cool sights but to describe them is basically to describe ruins of columns and stone foundations with loads of history. The Temple of Zeus was covered in scaffolding, and one of the massive columns (17 meters tall) has fallen completely over from a strong windstorm in the 1800s. There was one sight that was truly impressive to me, and that was the Ancient Agora. It was my favorite of the sights on the pass (aside from the Acropolis, of course) with its variety of sights, the best preserved of all that we had seen.
At the Agora, we started in the rebuilt Stoa of Assaios which was this spectacular long wall of columns and was filled with statues, busts and a museum full of archeological artifacts. The museum was well done and I learned a lot there. From there you can walk to the Temple of Hephaestus, which was built in 415 BC. It’s columns and carvings are incredibly well preserved. The grounds include several other historical features and we spent over an hour walking around here.
For dinner we had Lebanese street food at Feyrouz (which was delicious) and went off in search of more cocktail magic. The bar The Clumsies was once ranked 4th in the world and had a drink that was once rated the World’s Best Cocktail, so I had to get it. It was a Negroni, which I love, but this one just did not impress me. The couple across from us were also unimpressed with their drinks, so that was a bit disappointing all around but c’est la vie.
For our last day in Athens, we were exhausted from walking 10+ miles per day. The heat, the exercise, and just being dehydrated were all catching up to us. We walked to the Panathenaic Stadium to check out the site of the first modern Olympics, and then meandered through the First Cemetery of Athens. The cemetery was packed tomb to tomb with family graves and mausoleums. Unlike American cemeteries, there was no grass or green space to sit so we just wandered around until we were ready for food.
We headed back to our neighborhood for some souvlaki and finally tried Ouzo! Ouzo is a dry anise-flavored aperitif that’s popular in Greece and I really enjoyed. It reminded me of absinthe in flavor, and it turned from clear to white when added to ice. We had a chill last night in Athens, exhausted from so much walking. We packed and I finally got rid of my winter coat (the one I bought in Porto) because summer is here!
