After Santorini, we stopped by Athens for a one day excursion before our flight to Italy. Although it’s on the mainland and isn’t really a tropical destination, we had to stop by to see all the historical sights like the Parthenon, the Acropolis, etc.
When we arrived, it was a liiiitle bit sketchy… quite a bit, actually. Mainly because our hostel was in a weird part of town, but I was so not digging it the first night. When we arrived at our hostel, we walked in to a weird…. roofless hallway with plants everywhere and writing all over the walls. Quite an interesting place to say the least. Luckily, our room had a roof, but it was the last thing from glamorous. Cold, bunk beds, no room to move, and the showers cost 50 cents for “hot water” meaning half-scalding-half-freezing temperatures.
Regardless, we got up the next day with enough energy to tour the town. We started off walking past the Panathenaic Stadium which is the suuuper old stadium that hosted the first ever Olympic games. From the front view, it doesn’t look as big as I would have expected. However after reading the plaque we learned that it actually holds 45,000 people… guess Athens showed me up.
Unfortunately wasn’t open to walk in, strangely enough. So we snapped a few pics and went on our way.
Our next destination was the Acropolis, however on our way there we walked past the National Archaeological Museum, though the National Gardens, saw lots of ancient Greek ruins, and passed through the popular market part of town called “La Plaka,” and eventually climbed our way to the top.
It. was. BEAUTIFUL. No longer the sketchy part of town we were used to before, this neighborhood was adorable and filled with cool, artsy graffiti and lots of little shops and restaurants.
After the hike to the top of the Acropolis, we had the Parthenon in plain sight. It was beautiful, exactly how it looks in the pictures except obviously larger than life. Unfortunately again…. it was closed that day. Hmm.. sensing a pattern. We soon found out that because it was May 1st (may day) EVERYTHING was closed. Cool… the one day we’re in Athens haha. Luckily we just rolled with it and did other things to pass our time.
There was this giant rock with makeshift stairs and no handrails that led up to an AMAZING view of the city and let us take some pretty stellar pics.
See that big hill in the background? Yeah we decided to climb that.
About two hours later we were at the top, loving the view. Not too shabby, right?
By the end of the day we were absolutely knocked out, and since we had a flight the next day, we called it an early night, curled up in bed, and watched Project X. What else would you expect?
