Hi ya! We flew into Athens and arrived at 6:30 pm local time on Lufthansa. It was an 8.5 hr flight from Chicago to Athens and we were impressed with the airline and its service. Two hot meals were served with complementary bar beverages. I had to drink wine for us both (Bob doesn't drink alcohol), it was a really good German Reisling and later on an Italian cab...mmmm mmmm!
We were greeted by Tour Greece with the name 'Wheatley' on a placard and they drove us to our hotel in Athens, about a 30-min drive from the airport. We got a superb synopsys of this amazing city and country. Greece comprises a total population of about 10,000,000 - 5,000,000 of which live in Athens. There are 4000 Greek islands, only 400 are populated. The secondary language is English and everyone we've met including shop owners, restaurant personnel, etc. all speak Engl;ish...yeah!!
We threw our stuff into our hotel room, splashed some water on our travel-weary faces and then a fresh wave of excitement/energy hit us as we realized we had about 1.5 hours of daylight left and we were only a quick walk up the road to the Acropolis and other ruins. We quickly walked up some busy downtown city blocks to some narrowing, cobblestone type narrow roads and residential alleyways. It got more and more narrow but the Acropolis loomed larger than life on the hilltop overlooking Athens. As we made our way up to its base, there were multiple ruins all around us, everywhere we looked we'd see such ancient and well preserved historical sites. We watched the sun set in a cloudless, golden red sky from a sweeping view in the hills we'd climbed over the city of Athens, looking on to the Parthenon and many other archeological sites, with the Acropolis immediately behind us.
We slowly meandered back down the hill and found a great outdoor Greek restaurant where we chose Greek salads and the local appertif alcohol, Ouzo, which takes a lot like Pernod, served on ice. The owner also treated us to a taste of Mascato, I'm unsure of the spelling, which he said was good for your stomach, it was very good, it reminded me of mom's homemade dandlion wine she used to make years ago. Not overly sweet and a wonderful way to conclude a delicious Greek dinner. I even tasted the olives, Stacie, but just can't acquire a taste for those, Bob gladly ate them :-) We'd highly recommend this restaurant in the Plaka district not far from the acropolis, called Ydpia, their website is http://www.ydria.gr/
The busy tourist season has not yet started so we're on a slower speed ferry (still impressively pretty fast, probably a bit faster than the BC ferries) right now sailing to the island of Mykonos. The Mediterranean (per Bob the scholar means 'center of the world') is amazingly calm and beautiful, the water is extremely blue. We'll arrive to the island of Mykonos at about 12:30 pm (we are 10 hours ahead of Pacific time). We're told there will be a general strike on Wednesday but fortunately we're not traveling on Wed so shouldn't hit any snags.
Signing off for now, see you in Mykonos.
With love,
Sylvie and Bob
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is FANTASTIC...keep up the great blogging. I almost feel like I am there..except for the Ouzo. Keep having fun!
ReplyDelete