A Long Weekend in Athens
- Rhoda Phillippo Harrington
- Oct 8
- 6 min read
With photographs courtesy of @THarrington
We are flying to Athens from Stansted and our flight was delayed an hour, so added to the time difference, 1 hour to get through Athens customs and another to get into the city, most of our first day had passed in travel. We were staying at Auntie’s Home an amazing find on Booking.com with two ensuite bedrooms, a balcony a courtyard and situated right in the heart of Plaka. The taxi driver dropped us relatively close! and we hauled our suitcases up cobbled streets and a couple of flights of stairs. We set out to find the closest supermarket and thought that it had a strange array of things only to discover there was a downstairs with more of what we really needed after we had made our purchases upstairs. Unlike us Maddy, who was joining us from her European holiday, had a very smooth transition through customs and into the city so once she had settled in we headed across the road to the square for dinner under the stars at Plaki Seafood Bar https://plakiseafoodbar.gr With a view of the Acropolis from every angle we think we will enjoy our time here. We are to discover that the variety of cuisine in Athens is much broader than the pizza, pasta and gelato of Rome!
The next day was huge. Once again the weather was warm and sunny. We were up at the Acropolis by 9am to visit it and the Pantheon. It was quite a climb up there but we were glad that we went early and had our own audio guide from Get Your Guide https://www.getyourguide.com/acropolis-of-athens-l3763/athens-acropolis-skip-the-line-entry-ticket-t331161/ which enabled us to skip the line and do our own thing as it got busy very quickly. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the Acropolis, perhaps Greece's most important landmark and one of the world's most-visited sites. We walked into the Theatre of Dionysus and right around the UNESCO-listed Parthenon Temple, which is dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war. We visited the Propylaea, the temple of Athena Nike, Erechtheion, and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. The views from all sides of the hill are marvellous as are the surrounding mountains and the blue Aegean sea which surrounds Athens.
We headed back to Plaka for lunch at a great bakery around the corner from our apartment recommended by our taxi driver https://www.ergonfoods.com/72h-artisanal-bakery and then walked to the original Olympic Stadium – called the Panathenaic Stadium https://www.panathenaicstadium.gr/en/home/which turned out to be a real highlight and only 10 euros to get in. I ran around the track, we walked right up to the top of the marble seats, visited the hidden Olympic museum and soaked up the history. First constructed in 330BC it was excavated in 1869 and was used as the stadium for the first Olympics in 1896. Thanks to evidence uncovered in archaeological excavations during the nineteenth century, the rebuilding of the Stadium from Pentelic marble is distinguished by its high degree of fidelity to the ancient monument of the second century AD. It also featured as the finish of both the men’s and women’s marathons when Greece hosted the Olympics in 2004.
After a stroll back home we were booked on an ebike ride with Athens by Bike booked through trip advisor. We had booked for the sunset tour but at this time of year the sunset is quite late – it was still really good with our sweet tour guide Elizabet who had not been in the job for very long. She was an amusing guide and we enjoyed our cycle around many of the Athens sites and her funny stories about Greek mothers and her upbringing. We cycled past the Acropolis Museum, Thissio, the Kerameikos Cemetery, Ancient Agora, up to the National Observatory, back past the Panathenaic Stadium, then up Philopappos Hill past the Fethiye Mosque and the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, the Presidential Mansion and the Arch of Hadrian.
We had all worked up quite an appetite by this time – dinner was at the amazing Thes restaurant. https://thes.katalogos.menu/ with all the dishes served with a little bit of surprise and the waitress was first class. On the way there we walked past a very colourful restaurant called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which would be fun if you were here with kids!
Feeling the need to run off the food we have been enjoying in Athens I set out for a run along the bike path which leads out of Athens to the Coast, while Tim and Maddy watched the Super Rugby. Unfortunately my mobile phone battery died so I ended up very lost and what was meant to be a 90 minute run ended up lasting nearly 3 hours as I approached various strangers to try and get directions back to Auntie’s Home – thank goodness our accommodation had a pronounceable name – I must admit to being quite scared and teary by the time I eventually got back. Tim meantime had walked to the last place that he had tracked me on Strava to try to find me. We were all shaken by this so headed out for lunch at Melina Mercouri café https://www.greekgastronomyguide.gr/en/item/kafe-melina-plaka-athina/ in order to recover. I had sardines which were really tasty. Next was (of course) the City Hop-on Hop-Off bus with tickets we had purchased from Get Your Guide. We did the Athens Route and enjoyed the commentary (if not the repetitive Greek music) and then wandered through the food markets which were just closing and headed home for a beer before dinner at a quaint restaurant called A Taste of Home https://alittletasteofhome.gr/ where they describe their food as comforting, modest and honest and it was indeed all of these things!
Amazingly Sunday was our first day of rain and cloud. We grabbed a coffee and went to watch the changing of the guard at The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which was very moving. We caught the metro to Piatrenus to catch the fast cat to Aegina Island so that we could say we had visited a Greek Island! We had pre-purchased tickets and it was a little confusing finding where our cat went from but we soon sorted it out and enjoyed the 30 minute trip.
Although it was raining we managed to explore along the waterfront and had a nice lunch at Tsais another Trip Advisor recommendation and the food and service were excellent as we sat watching the world go by – they served the most delicious octopus. https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Restaurant_Review-g1189162-d2043462-Reviews-Tsias-Aegina_Town_Aegina_Saronic_Gulf_Islands_Attica.html.
We had been going to get back on the Hop On Hop Off bus on our return journey, however we opted to metro back home and change and warm up before heading to our final evening out with Maddy at Metropolis Rooftop Garden restaurant at the to
p of the Electra Metropolis Hotel. https://www.electrahotels.gr/hotels/electra-metropolis-athens/restaurants/metropolis-roof-garden/. The views were amazing as was the food and I managed to get a lovely photo of Tim and Maddy with the Acropolis in the background as the sun set.
I had a little run around Athens the next day (the sun was back out) as I was now confident of my way around and my bearings! Maddy and Tim had breakfast back at 72H then we walked Maddy to the station to catch her train to the airport and headed on up the hill to the beautiful building which is the Acropolis Museum – we just grabbed tickets on line for this and again had an audio guide which helped us work out what we wanted to see. We walked around the Archaic Gallery and the Parthenon Gallery and enjoyed piecing this together with what we had seen up at the Acropolis itself.
We had lunch in the café there before a leisurely stroll home and packing our cases as we have an early start to the airport tomorrow. We had dinner at a restaurant (off the square) and I perhaps ate the wrong seafood or drank too much grappa and ouzo to finish which was a big mistake.
Athens has been a fabulous treat and coupled with Rome we feel immersed in history. Grateful thanks to sister Susanna for the hints and tips about where to visit.
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