Athens, Greece - A golden oldie

Despite the endless experiences that have qualified us to become well acquainted with tedious airport routines, one airport run in particular was greatly anticipated and also welcomed with a sigh of relief. There’s a specific feeling of liberation that comes once you have managed to get through customs, without a rigorous pat down, and get to your plane seat without being jostled by the impatient fellow travellers. When that little light illuminates on the dashboards and the familiar “ting” sounds to inform you to tighten your seatbelt, you know you’ve made it and the lead up was all worth it. The excitement kicks in and you realise in a few short, or sometimes horribly long, hours you will be exploring the soil of a new, rich and exciting culture. This exact feeling was what overwhelmed me once seated on our flight destined for Athens on the 26^th August 2013.

Just over one month before this date, I was finishing up my time at the school I was working at, and although I absolutely loved the job there was a hurricane of tasks and checklists to get through over the coming months.  I knew I had to put on my hard capped boots and safety helmet and trudge my way through the extremely busy weeks ahead. For starters, I had to confirm a summer job and quick smart. We also had to coordinate the moving out of our apartment with the departure for our trip. Which then leads to the organising of the ‘Big Epic Adventure.” Needless to say, it all happened in a swift, windswept moment and our last 2 months in London were over too soon. I ended up getting a reception job for exactly one month and the plans for our trip all fell miraculously and perfectly into place. The one last, and most exciting thing to mention, the arrival of our travelling companions and much missed family, Tim’s folks, Maree and Dave!

They flew into London on the 20^th August, giving them hardly enough time to adjust themselves into the opposite time zone and explore the enormous city of London. We tried our best to give them a little taste of our local and lovable London life. A delicious dinner at our local pub, The Green Man, charmed them as well as added to the epitomising picture of an “English dinner”. Of course, we took them to Borough Markets and rolled out a culinary journey for them to excitedly embark on, starting with good coffee, omelettes, paella, Italian panini, fresh fruit juice, almond croissants, goats milk ice-cream, duck and rocket rolls...

After somehow managing to fit in all of this, we celebrated being together with a special night out to see the theatre production of Billy Elliot. I feel that I have been spoilt with the array of theatre productions that I have seen, and honestly, I have never really been disappointed; the standard of each show I have seen has been amazing! Yet, Billy managed to pirouette his way to the top, and absolutely stunned us all with the excellent entertainment it provided. This was a night that I absolutely adored, and I am thankful to have shared it with special people.

Amongst the cramming in of London adventures, Tim, Terri, Mark and I also had to move out of the flat before we each left the country. Somehow, we managed to do it, handing the keys for the apartment over whilst trailing our suitcases behind us on our way to the airport! It really was a whirlwind of a week and so I bring you back to the moment we are sitting in our seats on the plane, with our most wonderful travel buddies next to us, on our way to Athens!

We were forewarned that Athens wouldn’t be much to see and would be quite dirty. For us, Athens was mostly acting as a stop over point to get us to our next destination – Santorini. So, with low expectations in mind, we arrived in Athens and found our Air BnB apartment. It could not have been located in a more perfect spot and it was air-conditioned, fighting the thick humidity that greeted us at the airport. We enjoyed a surprisingly delicious dinner and followed it up with what would become a tradition of gelato for dessert.

The next day was our only day to explore Athens, so we did it in style and jumped on an open-top bus. It was incredibly informative and confirmed that we didn’t need a whole lot of time to see the city. We jumped out of the bus to then climb up to the Acropolis, perching on the top of the mountain, quite close to the city centre. It was a shock how close it all was; it was almost like these ancient buildings and ruins were randomly dropped in amongst the busy city, and the locals had forgotten their attraction and would just stroll right on past. Well, we certainly didn’t “stroll” on… oh no! The four of us crammed into a cart, carried by a horse and rode our way up to the mountain. It was hilariously squishy, as our knees knocked with each stone we travelled over and our driver spoke not a word of English.

Once we reached the Acropolis, even though we’d seen photos and had been told about it, the enormity and ancientness of the site still had me in wonder. It was a bit of a shame, as the Parthenon was tainted with large scaffolding work. But never the less, we were there, seeing all the history and taking in the views of the vast and heavily populated city that was Athens!

In walking through the streets to and from our homely apartment, we were overwhelmed by the amount of shoe shops that were strung together along the roads. So many shoes!!! With a little bit of time for meandering, we did a touch of window-shopping without forgetting to end the day with a good meal! With recommendations from our host, we sought out a local and traditional restaurant, serving up home-cooked moussaka, grilled meat, fresh seafood and Greek salads… the beginning of our food affair in Europe. The accommodating waiter gave us suggestions as to what to try, and when we looked around at the locals enjoying their enormous plates of food, we knew we had found a treasure.

A stellar start to our trip, and we had no idea that it was only going to get better. We thoroughly did enjoy Athens, and whilst it’s not a destination we would think of doing again, it was one of those things that I had to do – a big, satisfying and well worth tick on the checklist!!