An Afternoon In Athens

This is day two of our recent trip and, before I go on, perhaps I should explain two things. One, I am posting about our holiday/honeymoon because many friends were generous enough to contribute to our honeymoon (rather than give wedding gifts) and so sent us on it, and we said we would let you know what it was like when we got back. Two, why Paddington? He was given to us when we went to Peru in 2007 and now comes on most holidays with us, for fun. He’s been to Lima, Machu Picchu, Quito, Galapagos, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade (and all stops in between), and now Athens and Split. He is currently in Athens again, acting as a tour guide to Jenine and the godboys on their holiday.

So, here we are in Athens on a Tuesday afternoon, with hours to kill until our next flight at seven on Wednesday morning. What do you do? Well, we landed just before midday, checked into the hotel and then checked into our flight for the next day. We wanted to see the Acropolis Museum and the easiest way to get there was by train. The entrance to the train station is just over the road from the airport arrivals where a long-ish walkway (with travellator) takes you to the booking hall. Helpful staff and machines see to tickets and route maps, and we had a three-minute wait for our train. The train (overground/underground (Wombling free)) was clean, on time, looked after and comfortable, and we were at Syntagma Square in about 40 minutes.

We decided to walk from there, wanting to have lunch in the Plaka beneath the Acropolis before seeing the museum. So, after a walk following the map, we soon found ourselves slightly off the beaten track and having a decently priced lunch at a street café in Plaka. Thus fortified, it was a short walk to the museum. This is just below the Acropolis and is definitely worth a visit if you have time. We were there for over two hours and could have spent longer. There is a lot to read, see and learn, a café for a coffee break and plenty of places to sit and view and ponder. You also have great views of the city through the glass walls.

Afterwards, we walked back to Syntagma Square for a beer in the last of the afternoon sun before heading back to the hotel on the train. The train cost us €10.00 each, each way, but you can save €2.00 if you buy a return. (There are no trains after 23.35 at night.)

The Acropolis museum is open every day apart from five days per year, stays open late on some nights and stays open until midnight on the August full moon and the European Night of Museums. Click the link, and you can get to the opening hours and tickets page from the museum’s website for all the details. Admission is €5.00 with reduced-price tickets also available in some circumstances.

Back at the airport, we suffered that dire meal I told you about yesterday and then cheered ourselves up with a €22.00 bottle of wine at the airport hotel. (That was the cheapest bottle on the list; it’s a hotel that caters for people with expense accounts, I fancy.) The next day, there was an early start involved but, as our room was ten feet from the baggage drop-off – or so it felt – that was no hassle. Awake, shower, re-pack your rucksack because last night you wanted to find something that was right at the bottom and now the room looks like an explosion in an Oxfam shop, check you’ve not left anything, check-out, cross the road, drop your bags and get on a plane. It’s the convenience you pay for at this hotel, and it is worth it in the end.

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Symi to Athens

To begin the week, I thought I’d start you off on our recent journey to Split, in Croatia. Our trip started with four days in Rhodes. Why? Well, the weather has a lot to do with it. We were flying on the Tuesday morning and had our annual health checks arranged for Monday. These are done through a private insurance scheme, but previously we arranged them ourselves and, as you may know, seeing specialists in Greece doesn’t have to be expensive. (Roughly, €50.00 for a consultation and you can arrange to go at your convenience and not wait for months, if going privately.) The thing was, the weather was forecast to be rough on the Sunday when we intended to travel.

This meant, to be safe we should go earlier, just in case the Dodecanese was cancelled. The latest boat we could take was on Friday, and so we went over on the Blue Star. We stayed at the hotel Angela this time, and it cost us €98.00 for four nights. It’s a decent enough hotel, helpful staff, not much on the walls but everything was clean, and it all worked. There is no breakfast, but there are free coffee and cakes in the morning for guests. It’s also right opposite one of the airport bus stops and so very handy. As it turned out, the weather was bad on the Sunday, and the boat didn’t go so, had we not gone over early, we would have missed our appointments, and probably worried that there might not be a boat on the Monday and so missed our flights.

Our four days of wandering Rhodes wondering what to do were worth it. We ate at Mythos Symi, Stavros’ new place (with the previous owners of Indigo) not far from the Plaza. We had a drink at Koukos, a lunch at the Lebanese restaurant, a drink at the Plaza, toured the old town (again), saw our jeweler about engravings on our wedding rings, but his workshop was still closed so he will do them for free next time we are there, and went for a drink at the Symi café in the old fish market. That’s not every day, you understand, but over the four days.

On the Tuesday, we took the bus from Rhodes to the airport (€2.40, I think it was, and took 35 minutes), checked in, sat in the sun for a while and then flew up to Athens. It’s one of those journeys where you take off, grab a sandwich and a cup of coffee (included, as this was with Aegean Airlines) and the next thing you know, you’re landing. We stayed the night at the Sofitel at a gulping €170.00 for the night but well worth it. Not only is it really handy for a 7.00 a.m. flight, which we had on Wednesday, but it’s rather posh. You have three showers in your bathroom, and a bath, gowns and slippers and lots of interesting things in bottles that Neil daren’t use because of his allergies, coffee and a TV and soundproofing. It’s a bit costly for us to eat there, so we made the mistake of eating at the airport over the road. A bit of cold pizza, a dodgy pasta something and two glasses of wine between us and that’ll be €40.00 thank you very much.

So, from Symi to Athens involves: One boat, possibly up to four nights in a hotel, one bus, one flight and another hotel. Later in this story, which will run for a few days, I will tell you about the boat back from Athens. Overnight on the Blue Star with a la carte dining, Paddington and a dead goat bagpipe from Kalymnos. But for tomorrow, we should be in Athens with some info about the Parthenon Museum and airport to city centre travel.

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Symi Saturday Photos

After two weeks’ holiday and then Easter (Happy Easter from Symi!) it’s time to return to the usual blogging – you know: Chatting about this and that (mainly that rather than the other), with a bit of something else, and usually a lot of weather, and much self-publicity and occasional bits of something interesting; that kind of thing. So, before we launch into the old routine on Monday (assuming I remember to prepare a post on Sunday), here are some photos taken over the last couple of days. These are lazy shots, really, taken from the desk (through the glass), or from the roof, but I wanted to give you an idea of the weather and how pleasant it is at the moment. It’s sunbathing weather actually, not that I’m doing any of that. Don’t want to scare anyone. Anyhow, enjoy the photos, and I’ll expect you here on Monday (don’t be late).

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Farewell to Wendy

Today sees the funeral for Wendy who many people will know from Symi Visitor and her work with Solidarity Symi. The funeral will take place at one o’clock, Greek time, at St George’s church in Pedi, should you wish to take a pause at that time in your time zone wherever you are.

I will be back on Saturday with some of my usual Symi photos and return to my more usual blogging on Monday.

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Getting back to the blog

It is always difficult to get back into blogging after a holiday, and even more tricky following the death of a good friend and Symi ambassador. To talk about our recent holiday and what else is going on on Symi seems out of place, but it has to be done. So, today, to ease us back into Symi Dream normality, I’ll just mention a few things I noticed when out for an early morning walk yesterday.

I only walked through the village and up the road a while before turning back at Lavinia Studios (the place I first stayed back in 1996). Since returning last Friday and along the way yesterday, I noticed that the new Chinese Clothes shop is now fully open and being used and investigated by interested local customers; we wish the shop well, and I’m looking forward to taking a look around it soon. George the butcher has closed, and his old premises is up for rent. George is joining the priesthood, and one of Zoi’s sons is starting up a new butcher shop in the new buildings opposite the old pharmacy which is itself under repair, albeit slowly. The folklore museum has its sign-up advertising opening hours of 8.30 to 14.30 Tuesday to Sunday.

The ‘American’ supermarket has undergone some changes during the winter and expanded again, offering more ready-made and unusual items along with its traditional offerings and stock, and Sotiris supermarket remains the same as ever, as does the one at Campos. Lefteris was at work yesterday at 6.30 sweeping and preparing his kafeneion in his time-traditional way, and Nikitas was already in his kiosk listening to his radio. So, everything seems to be either starting anew, continuing as usual or opening up (or preparing to) for the summer and that includes ourselves. Neil is starting back at work at the Rainbow Bar on Wednesday afternoon, three to five as usual, and I am, from today, back into my writing routine of at least eight hours per day on one thing or another.

There will be other shots from our recent trip in the days to come as I thought readers might be interested in, for example, what we did and how we travelled from Athens to Symi on the overnight Blue Star. For today, though, I simply found some random shots from the Rhodes part of our trip to whet your appetite.

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