Greece: Athens

Our flights to Greece were on time and uneventful.  Two stops…Vancouver and Montreal…were perfect for stretching our legs, sending last minute texts and Facebook updates, and making sure to enjoy something other than airline food between the long legs in the air.  After something like 22 hours of travel we arrived in Athens to begin our adventure.

The first thing we noticed after leaving the airport and heading out (onto the REALLY nice freeway) in our pre-booked taxi was how brown everything was.  I guess the part about it being arid and hot there sort of escaped our West Coast brains.  Once we got off the highway and into the city things started to get pretty real.

If we’re being honest we both had a little internal panic attack and culture shock.  Outside the touristy Plaka Athens is a big damn urban city with crazy drivers, lots of graffiti and garbage, and from what we could see…no English signs!  Once we neared our hotel we started to relax though.  Much cuter cobblestone streets and a lot of pedestrians made things seem far more manageable.  And once we wandered out of our hotel and got adventurous any fears we had just melted away.

We caught our first views of the Acropolis…

Stumbled through miles of street markets, wandered with teams of other tourists, and encountered the first of many excavated ruins…

Happily enjoyed our first Greek meal…

The tomatoes were so good we damn near cried.  And the feta.  And the olives.  And the tzatziki.  And the pita.  Did I mention the tomatoes?

It’s actually possible that was the best meal of our entire trip…and we ate a lot of good food.

We enjoyed the glorious sun and more beautiful architecture…

And then there was this…

The view from the patio on top of our hotel.  We may or may not have enjoyed our first sips of Greek wine while just sitting there with our mouths gaping open.

Nothing like a sunset-washed Acropolis to start your trip off right.

Even if we did have to get up at 6am for our ferry to Mykonos. *groan*