Athens
Athens was the first stop on our Rick Steve's Athens and the Heart of Greece tour. We arrived from Amsterdam the evening before the tour started and were greeted with a gorgeous sunset over Athens from the air. We got our first glimpse of Greek hospitality with our taxi ride from the airport - or should I say impromptu guided tour? The taxi driver spent the entire drive telling us about his city, his favorite foods, and pointing out sites of interest. It was a blast, and the best trip from an airport we have had to date. Our good fortune continued with an upgraded room with a view of the Acropolis right from our balcony. We decided to take advantage of our luck and ordered some Greek starters for a nice, quiet dinner on our balcony before heading to bed. We were excited to meet our group the next day and start our tour!
Traveling holds so much awe and wonder to me - One day you are walking along a canal and smelling the tulips in front of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, and the next you can wake up in Athens to a view of the Parthenon! I will never get tired of that! We had a few hours the first day before meeting the group. We had laundry to do, so we found a nice laundromat near the hotel with comfortable seats, free Wifi and a nice view of a Greek Orthodox church - it wins the award for the best laundry experience we have had so far, at home or away!
After our laundry was finished and hauled back to our room, we set out to explore the great, ancient city of Athens. It was surreal walking through the cobbled streets of the Plaka with the Acropolis looming overhead. We enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the restaurateurs suavely trying to persuade visitors into their establishments, tourists shopping for souvenirs and the delicious smell of spices and grilled meat from the gyros shops. One gentleman who was very persuasive convinced us to come back the next night for dinner, and we were glad we did! He looked so familiar to me, and later I remembered why, as a RS Greece tour alumna had written about him in a prior scrapbook. It is such a small world!
We took a leisurely hike up to Acropolis hill and then down through the tiny cobbled streets of the Anafiotika area, where there are homes piled on top of each other and accented with blue doors and flower pots like you might find on the Greek islands. We also went to Mars Hill (Areopagus to the Greeks!), and it not only had a lovely view but was completely astounding to be standing in the very spot where the Apostle Paul gave his important speech that I grew up learning about in church. This was just a small hint of the incredible history we would be interacting with, and it gave me chills! Lunch was a stop at a restaurant on the plaka for our first gyros (where we learned that gyros actually come deconstructed on a plate for a much higher price by default, unless you specifically ask for it in a pita style wrap), and then it was back to the hotel to meet our group.
We always look forward to meeting the group we will travel with for the next couple of weeks. It never fails that Rick Steves' tours attract interesting, educated and good-humored people. We had another wonderful group on this tour, and fell into friendships right away. Meeting our guide, David Willet (who I will refer to as David W. to differentiate from my David), was also a pleasure. He was an incredible guide - we honestly couldn't have imagined better, being a Brit living in Australia who has spent years living and guiding in Greece, he was able to give us such an interesting and global perspective on the things we saw and learned. He was an expert guiding this tour, knowing the itinerary inside and out and had lots of amazing surprises for us.
After meeting with our group and having a short evening walk, we stuffed ourselves on delicious Greek salad with feta, toasted bread with tzaziki, moussaka and fresh yogurt with local honey for dessert (our new favorite!) as we all got to know one another, before turning in early to rest up to explore ancient Athens together in the morning.
Day 1 in Athens
In the morning we gathered with Fanny, our local guide for Athens. She was such a hoot! She had the snappiest sense of humor and was a wealth of knowledge and pride about her city. She walked us through the important sites of the Acropolis, keeping us laughing with little anecdotes and drama filled tales of history that just may have been jazzed up a notch with some creative storytelling. We walked up the winding path to the Acropolis, stopping first to look at the beautiful Odeon of Herodes Atticus theater.
There is not much you can say to describe the feeling of standing in front of a building like the Parthenon. It is a structure known to almost anyone in Western Civilization, one that has existed on its hill overlooking the city for 2500 years. Imagine the history its columns have seen, imagine the stories of all the lives of the people who have traveled through!
We also loved the Porch of the Caryatids on the Erechtheion. What beautiful art! The statues shown there are replicas, but we were able to see five of the originals when we toured the Acropolis Museum later in the day. Fanny, and I imagine the rest of Greece, is still a bit salty about the fact that the sixth Caryatid, along with a lot of other important Greek artifacts, resides in the British Museum. We had an interesting discussion about the important work the British had done in restoring ancient Greek artifacts, and whether or not their work entitled them to keep these in their museums or whether they should be returned to Greece.
We finished our trek through ancient Greece with a tour of the Acropolis Museum. We loved that we visited the museum second - first because we had a framework for understanding the importance of the artifacts that we saw, and secondly because the cool air conditioning was a nice respite from our little hike. After our tour concluded, we had a bit of time on our own to explore the city before meeting up for a food tasting at a local store where we tasted olive oil, balsamic, cheese and olives. The owner of the store was passionate about food and about sharing it. He taught us how to do an olive oil tasting like you would taste wine, and shared how he comes to find the small farms and distributors for his shop. These are the extra surprises that we love on RS tours that we would never do on our own!
Day 2: Athens
Our time in Athens was an enthralling introduction to what Greece has to offer, and we couldn't wait to see more!
