Attacking Athens
The Guinness
The James Joyce Bar is in amongst a restaurant area of Athens and was busy with people socialising eating and drinking Guinness. It was well decorated with Irish paraphernalia and had plenty of atmosphere. A fine pint of Guinness was consumed before I explained to the French barman, Nickolas, the purpose of my visit.
Nickolas pours me my Guinness
He then poured me another Guinness before choosing a straw out of the box. It contained the name of Luxembourg.
Getting There and around
We flew with EasyJet from Luton to Athens.
After striding out of the airport and across to the station and trying on our best Greek to buy tickets for the metro we were told the metro was closed down. Built for the Olympics and then closed down afterwards – supposedly so that more stations could be built.
The bus driver wouldn’t accept that my son (14) should go half price on the bus. Their excuse – because he’s taller than me. I guess they have a point.
Team Makeup
Another family holiday – though this time without eldest son.
Accommodation
Athens Studios hostel in the heart of Athens, in the Makryanni district, at the foot of the Acropolis. Refurbished straight from Ikea with flat screen TV included – hardly the type of hostel we are used to and most welcome. Breakfast was always delivered to our door in small individual wicker baskets with a napkin over the top to keep the hard boiled eggs warm.
Food
The Greek coffee is thick, black and sweet with a caffeine kick to it enough to wake up even the most weary tourist.
Orange trees in the street
The Greek vegetarian dishes were by far the best. We had salads and beans, dolmades and sausage. Musaca and the other meat dishes were OK but stodgy and lacked inspiration whereas the vegetables were more appetizing altogether.
Sightseeing highlights
Most of Athens is flat but three hills rise out of the plane and on one of them is built the Acropolis. It was a mere hundred yards or so to the entrance from our hostel and from then on you escaped to noise of the streets and wandered around the ruins of ancient Greece. With the guide books to accompany us we took it easy in the sunshine and tried to picture what it all used to look like.
Dionysus Theatre
The Dionysus Theatre, the larger of the two on the site, held some 15,000 spectators. The actors must have had some voice to be able to be heard. The only noise today was the lady blowing her whistle telling tourists off for straying off the approved paths.
It became evident that quite a bit of the treasures had been removed and are now in the British Museum, including the Elgin Marbles. I used to think they were small round glass objects but apparently not. Must take a trip to London to see them one day to see the other half of what we missed today.
Be nice when it's finished
The queues to get off the Acropolis were equally long as those to get in, if not worse. I’d hate to think what would have happened if there was an emergency. I guess the ancient Greeks didn’t have to think that much about emergency planning procedures. The sun shining off the stone was strong and made our eyes hurt. The Parthenon was built to honour Athena in the 5th century BC.
That night we climbed one of the other nearby hills. The view from the top of the floodlit Acropolis as spectacular and one of the highlights of the holiday
Then the next day it was onto Agora, which together with the Acropolis was a place well worth wandering around if only because of its vastness and tranquillity. It has lots of paths and pleasant vegetation.
Quirky moments
We headed off to parliament to see the weekly changing of the guard ceremony. We joined the rest of the tourists amassed on the central reservation of a dual carriageway. Just before 11 o’clock the massed guards marched around the corner. Although there is strong competition worldwide for which national guards look the most ridiculous, these must sure win with their cream woolly tights, white frilly skirts, pom-poms on their shoes and silly looking red hats.
The National Guards
South of the gardens, in the heart of the city, is the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the largest temple in Greece. Only a small section of 15 upright pillars remains today. There were originally 104 pillars. Construction began in 500 BC and it was completed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 132 AD. It was my turn to get told off here. I mistakenly sat down on the grass. You can stand and walk all you like on the grass but not sit down on it. I never did find out why.
Out of the City
We thought we’d go to the seaside. A tram from Athens went all the way to the coast. The ride on the tram was quite exciting at first but then dragged on a bit. Glydfa doesn’t half sound like it should be in Wales to me. It took us about ten minutes to explore Glydfa and decide there wasn’t much there for us. It looked to be uninteresting shops and expensive restaurants and cafes to us. Down at the waterfront wasn’t too much better. There were loads of marinas, tennis courts, scruffy promenades and not a lot else. We did find some rocks to sit on for half an hour and take in the air but not a lot else. I found a sea turtle sanctuary was the most interesting place there but no turtles in sight. The cafe was called in did do soft drinks but at £6 a bottle so we gave tat a miss to and jumped on the long tram ride back to town.
Luxurious lingerie - with new openings?
The next day we headed for the Olympic stadium, the modern one which held the Olympics in 2004. A brave move this as it wasn’t in any of the guidebooks (we had three – one each to stop the squabbling). I’d seen it marked as a stop on the metro line so thought it would be interesting to visit. It was however a bit like the beach – interesting if you were passing but not if it’s going to take an hour on the metro to get there. Unfortunately it’s a desolate place and makes little if any attempt to welcome visitors. You can wander around between the various stadiums but there was no way to go into them. The odd statue was looking forlorn and abandoned and the only sign of life was in the open air pool where a team of synchronised swimmers was warming up.
Athens by night
