A Surprise Trip to Athens

This trip start­ed with an omi­nous vouch­er for our birth­days, with a promise to take us where we had nev­er been before. No hint on what to pack – would it be hot, would it be cold, would it be dry, would it be wet? The only clue we had was: “It’s south of the Alps.” Well, that lim­its it …

So we packed a lit­tle bit of every­thing. Three girls with one suit­case and a hand­bag each. Sur­pris­ing­ly, it all fit and we even had some spare clothes. Thus pre­pared we head­ed off to the air­port one sun­ny Fri­day morn­ing in April, still unaware of where the plane would take us. We had some ideas, of course – Lis­bon, Milan, Athens…

Which of these flights could be ours?

It’s a won­der­ful thing, such a sur­prise trip. I felt like a child again, filled with the same hap­py excite­ment as on Christ­mas Eve when San­ta would hand me a lov­ing­ly wrapped gift in exchange for a song or a poem. And then I would unwrap it to reveal … our des­ti­na­tion:

We would go to Athens! A place so full of his­to­ry – a dream for every (hob­by) archae­ol­o­gist!

This was the first of many sur­pris­es on this week­end. The next one fol­lowed prompt­ly when we arrived at Hotel Astor in the city cen­tre, our room more specif­i­cal­ly. Room 612 has a tiny lit­tle bal­cony that looks over the red and white roof tops of Athens, with a direct view on the Acrop­o­lis. On a clear day you can even glimpse the Mediter­ranean Sea glis­ten­ing in the dis­tance.

From the bal­cony of our hotel room we had an amaz­ing view on the Acrop­o­lis.

On our first evening we set out on a scout­ing expe­di­tion through the nar­row, busy streets of Pla­ka. Just below the Acrop­o­lis, near the Roman Ago­ra we found a nice restau­rant where we had a tra­di­tion­al Greek din­ner with sev­er­al shared plat­ters of deli­cious veg and meat.

Strolling back to our hotel through the even busier alley­ways we dis­cov­ered a hid­den, lit­tle bak­ery when fol­low­ing a won­der­ful, tempt­ing smell that drift­ed through the air. We bought what looked like an over­sized, skin­ny dough­nut and tast­ed as good as it smelled.

The next morn­ing, after a very diverse break­fast at the rooftop restau­rant of our hotel, we left our accom­mo­da­tion with a map and a (quite ambi­tious) plan to explore the city’s rich her­itage.

Bright sun­shine and the promise of a warm day accom­pa­nied us on our way to the south side of the Acrop­o­lis, via the old, wind­ing alleys of Antifi­oti­ka. Munch­ing on more of the strange Athen­ian dough­nuts which are sold by street ven­dors on every oth­er cor­ner, we queued to be admit­ted entrance onto the Acrop­o­lis.

Anoth­er sur­prise was wait­ing for us at the tick­et office. Appar­ent­ly, stu­dents from all over the EU get free entry to all archae­o­log­i­cal sites. A thing unheard of in Ger­many!

Despite the fact that it was out­side high sea­son, the amount of tourists was close to over­crowd­ed. Around the most-fre­quent­ed sights at least. That didn’t keep us from walk­ing between the The­atre of Diony­sus, the Odeon of Herod the Atti­cus up to the Propy­laea to enter the ancient Acrop­o­lis, awestruck, turn­ing our heads left and right in an attempt to take it in all at once.

The Parthenon’s warm hon­ey-coloured columns stood out against a sharp blue sky, lit by the bril­liant sun­light like a famous singer on a vast stage. (You might have noticed I’m get­ting a lit­tle car­ried away here…)

The The­atre of Diony­sus lies at the foot of the Acrop­o­lis and allows for a stun­ning bird’s-eye view on the city.

One of the world’s great­est cul­tur­al mon­u­ments: the Parthenon, ded­i­cat­ed to the god­dess Athena, the patron of the city.

The view from the Acrop­o­lis gets a bit neglect­ed with all this archae­ol­o­gy going on but is def­i­nite­ly worth a look. So dare to turn your back on the touristy scenes for a moment and enjoy the wide panora­mas of Athens.

From the Acrop­o­lis we made our way along the Apos­tolou Pavlou towards Ker­ameikos in the north-west of Athens. Just oppo­site the Agia Mari­na are sev­er­al nice cafés where you can rel­ish some cool shade with a cof­fee and ice cream. All in view of the west­ern slope of the Acrop­o­lis and the Propy­laea.

Watch out for a group of friend­ly Kenyans who will stop at your table to knot a colour­ful bracelet for any­one who doesn’t oppose vehe­ment­ly. It goes with­out say­ing that they expect mon­ey for their ser­vices. They are love­ly, just a lit­tle over­en­thu­si­as­tic.

Ker­ameikos’ archae­o­log­i­cal muse­um and park are def­i­nite­ly worth a vis­it. Being a rea­son­able dis­tance out­side the area fre­quent­ed by an end­less stream of coach­es means it’s also less crowd­ed. From there you can either take the direct route along the famous Ermou back into the city cen­tre or take a lit­tle detour through the ancient Ago­ra with the large­ly intact tem­ple of Hep­haes­tus and the long Stoa of Attalus. Spoil­ers, we did the lat­ter.

As we had to fly back on Sun­day after­noon we only had the morn­ing to dis­cov­er the oth­er side of Pla­ka. Head­ing of ear­ly, we left our lug­gage with the friend­ly staff at the hotel’s recep­tion. Then we made our way to the Syn­tag­ma Square where the Nation­al Guard changes shifts in front of the Hel­lenic Par­lia­ment every Sun­day at 11 in the morn­ing.

Sim­i­lar spec­ta­cle as at the Buck­ing­ham Palace, only with much few­er spec­ta­tors. How­ev­er, instead of tall, bushy bearskin hats the evzones wear fus­tanel­las, a black-and-white kilt-like uni­form, com­plete with fluffy black pom-poms on their shoes. As with the Queen’s Guard in Lon­don, every­thing they do radi­ates exact pre­cise­ness, even it is just stand­ing utter­ly still.

You can watch the change of the guard in front of the Old Roy­al Palace every Sun­day morn­ing at 11am.

Nib­bling on some dried straw­ber­ries and choco­late cot­ed nuts, we took a stroll through the Nation­al Gar­den just behind the Par­lia­ment where the path­ways were lined with palm trees and orange trees. Fur­ther to the south-east, the Pana­thenaic sta­di­um is nes­tled into a dark green pine for­est. First built around 330 BC it was refur­bished in the 19^th cen­tu­ry to host the first mod­ern Olympic Games in 1896 and is con­struct­ed entire­ly of mar­ble. The audio guide avail­able at the tick­et office and the muse­um offer a good overview of the long his­to­ry of the sta­di­um.

Vis­it the Pana­thenaic sta­di­um to learn about the his­to­ry of the build­ing and the Mod­ern Olympic Games first held here in 1896.

Round­ing the south­ern tip of the Zappeio we had a quick look at the ruins of the enor­mous Tem­ple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian’s Arch. I would have liked to spend more time there, but we had a plane to catch. So we wove our way through the streets of Pla­ka full of sou­venir shops and restau­rants back to the hotel to pick up our lug­gage. We bought a deli­cious dough­nut for each of us to take home, they didn’t even sur­vive the train jour­ney to the air­port.

As the plane turned north towards Berlin we got a last glimpse of the won­der­ous city of Athens, it’s green parks, chaot­ic archi­tec­ture and dark red moun­tains sur­round­ing it.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, our time in this vibrant city was over much too quick­ly and we did not get the chance to dis­cov­er all its secrets. That’s no sur­prise when his­to­ry is seep­ing out of every stone and you are walk­ing the foot­steps of peo­ple from more than 2,000 years ago. Even if your inter­est in (ancient) his­to­ry is only periph­er­al you can­not help but feel the echo of so many cen­turies and be amazed by the grand archi­tec­ture of our ances­tors. You don’t believe me? Go and find out for your­self! As a bonus, the Mediter­ranean lifestyle is sure to draw you in.

You have been to Athens before? What is your favourite mem­o­ry of your trip? Share in the com­ments below.