Athens & Aegina, Greece

On Friday evening, we left for Athens, Greece. To get there from Brussels, we caught (barely) a connecting flight in Frankfurt, Germany with about 2 minutes to spare. Because of our late flight leaving Brussels, we had, literally, 10 minutes to run to our gate to get our connection. We made it, but our luggage didn't.

Once at the airport, we got a bus into the city, then a taxi to our hotel - the Economy Hotel. When we arrived, they had lost our reservations and didn't expect us, but we got a room and besides a very upsetting experience (I'm going to save the details for another post to make sure I don't ruin the details of this trip) - had a good sleep.

On Saturday morning we awoke to a beautiful sunny day, about 22 degrees, and headed out to start this wonderful vacation! We went to the Acropolis (acropolis is a general term, but b/c the most famous is in Athens, it is known as The Acropolis) - where the most famous ruins overlook the beautiful city of Greece. You can see the Acropolis (Acro - top, polis - city, the "top-city") from all over the city - at night it is all lit up and breathtaking! We explored many sites at this location - including the Parthenon (pictured here), the Propolaea, the Erechtheum and many other unknown ruins. The Acropolis is covered in pieces of marble - like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Actually, everywhere we walked, there were piles of marble on the sides of the roads, in fenced in areas and shelves - Athens is a huge puzzle and they are trying to put it all together.

Surrounding the Acropolis is grounds covered in ruins, so as you walk up the paths to the top, the grounds are scattered with parts of buildings and statues. One of the most interesting pieces of this is the Theatre of Dionysus. It is a huge open air theatre dating back to 6th century B.C. The theatre was carved out of the side of the mountain of Acropolis and although there is little left, it was an amazing site! In this picture, I'm reading about the theatre - there isn't much left of it as you can see, but imagine what it was like almost 3000 years ago.


To the left is a picture of the Temple of Hephaestus which was my favorite site and sight! This building is in the Agora district close to the Acropolis. It was lit up at night and was right next to a street of cafes and restaurants.
On Saturday night we ate our first real Greek meal - salad, tzatziki, moussaka and souvlaki - everything was delicious. We literally had Greek salad at every single meal (except breakfast). We tried mostly everything except the octopus which is quite popular in Greece. On the streets, there are vendors everywhere selling Kritsinia which is a round breadstick coated in sesame seeds. They cost about 50 cents and you can choose from soft or hard. I tried one, but Dylan opted for the chocolate filled bread (of course). We ate Gyros for many lunches also- souvlaki in pita with tomatoes and onions - they were cheap and quick to grab en route. The food was really delicious and made the experience more authentic!

On Sunday we went to see the changing of the guards at the Greek Parliament Building in Syntagma Square. It was interesting to see, but the best part was their uniforms. They wear pleated skirts - not like a kilt, more like a linen dress just past their bum - with tassels around their knees and big (actually, enormous) pompoms on their shoes (see picture of fantastic uniforms). The best part of this was the little old man skipping around the crowd dressed like a woman - you could see his thong, panty hose and mini skirt as he skipped by - it was hilarious! He wasn't part of the show, but put on his own act and sang as he skipped by the crowd....he may have been a little simple, I'm thinking!

We headed towards the flea market after this. The largest flea market is on Sundays and goes on for many blocks. We walked through, but didn't buy anything, although we were haggled a lot by people with briefcases full of watches, sheets full of purses and stacks of ripped movies....it really got annoying after awhile. We experienced these vendors everywhere we went!

We ate at an interesting restaurant on Sunday afternoon - it was an 'authentic' Greek restaurant on on the other side of the hill of the Acropolis. There were no menus, just a man who came to your table with a large tray of small plates of food. You pick what you want off the tray and they charge by the plate. We tried eggplant, pork, meatballs, salad (of course) and tzatziki. It was a lot like tapas, except the tray was filled before heading to the next table.

This picture is the Temple of Olympian Zeus which has 15 columns still remaining. Construction began in the 6th century BC and the column that you see on the ground fell in 1852. It was quite impressive!

On Sunday night we walked around the Monastiraki - which is full of walking streets - and took in the sites of Carnival. It is celebrated before lent and people dress up and hit each other with clubs to get the bad spirits out of you. We got bonked on the butt and head many, many times while walking through the streets. They sell plastic clubs (like you would picture a caveman to have) on the streets. There were street DJs, dances, costumes everywhere and it was great to experience part of the Greek culture. This is celebrated weeks before lent, but this was the last weekend - Monday was a national holiday - Monday Pure.

One thing that was very sad in Greece was the amount of stray dogs on the streets. At any given time you can see a half dozen dogs roaming around (as there are 6 dogs in this picture hanging around the entrance to the ruins here at the bottom of the acropolis) - some with collars, some without - looking for food. They weren't dangerous at all (we walked by all of these dogs on the way into this site), but it made me upset thinking about them without a home. Nobody really payed any attention to them (I talked to them, but never touched them as they were very dirty). I asked someone why there are so many and they said there is no animal control in Athens, so if a dog runs away or is abandoned, they just live on the streets. It was very sad! One thing I have to say though is that none of them were starving - they were all overweight! So they definitely get enough food! I saw many dishes of water set out as well, so there are people who do think of them regularly. It broke my heart to see them though because they were beautiful dogs and I would have taken any one of them home!

Another culture shock was the amount of smokers everywhere! There were no places that people weren't allowed to smoke. In our travels, I have never seen a country where smoking is embraced like it is in Greece. The airport, buses, taxis, restaurants, clothing stores...everywhere we went, people were smoking. It was so different to walk into a souvenir shop and the woman would come up with a cig in her hand and ask if she could help me find anything - it was so different from the strict smoking rules at home and even here in Belgium. There is no smoking in any airports that I have been to - except maybe a small glassed in room that I saw in Frankfurt....in Athens, people lit up as soon as they were off the plane and smoked while waiting for their luggage.

On Monday morning we headed for the ferry terminal and went to the island of Aegina. It was about an hour and a half by ferry and was great to see the city from the water. The ferry was very similar to the PEI ferry boat. Once we got there we walked to the beach and took in some of the views of the other islands. Seafood is sold on the streets here and we saw the fish market where sea urchins and octopus were most popular. We walked to the ruins, but the area was closed due to the holiday, so we just enjoyed the calmness of the island and sat on a patio and had our fill of Greek beer! We went around 3pm to get tickets home, and realized that we just made the last boat at 6pm since all the others were sold out. We heard of many people getting stuck on the island, but we were lucky to get seats on the last boat. On Monday night once we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up, we went out for night photos (a must when you're travelling with Dylan) and saw all the ruins lit up at night - it was gorgeous! We walked around for hours taking in the sights and getting our fill of more clubbing from costumed Greeks!

On Tuesday we spent most of the day figuring out my huge problem (next post), but got to travel up Mount Lycabettus by cable car to see wonderful views of the city. Once we got up there, i was shocked to see how big the city really was! There are 5 million people in Athens and 11 million people in surrounding areas. It was huge! The views were fantastic and we got to see the ocean from the mountain which was like a story book setting!

Tuesday afternoon we finally got my situation straightened out and headed for the airport by metro. The metro in Athens is the cleanest metro I have ever seen! It was mostly built for the Olympics, so it is fairly new, but there were staff in every station sweeping and cleaning (I've never seen anyone clean the metro in Brussels).
We arrived safe and sound in Brussels last night around 11:30pm and were exhausted! The change in Frankfurt was quick (we had 10 mins), but it was only 2 gates away so we made it with no problems!

I recommend Greece highly to anyone who wants to experience a different culture. Out of all the countries I've seen, Greece is definitely the most interesting and most fun - whether you want to visit a big city or tropical location, Greece really has it all!