Greece - Athens

 

Finished my painting homework and I am not pleased with it but was hoping for some constructive criticism. Unfortunately when I got to Tala there was a note on the door that class was cancelled.

Praying Mantis on the patio.

Slept really badly so we were up early which meant we had breakfast and a coffee before leaving for the airport. We parked, had checked in on line, through customs in a heart beat and were left with an hour and a half to kill in a small terminal. Another coffee and a chocolate croissant killed 15 minutes. A bus took us out to the plane and the hour and 15 minute ride with Aegean was fine (Rick thought the salad snack better than anything he had had on AirTransat transatlantic flight). I didn't have a window seat so only had glimpses of the islands in the Aegean Sea but it did wet my appetite for more.

We took the train from the airport, 45 minutes and the last 30 it was a subway, getting more and more crowded. So obvious that we are now in a huge city.

One switch of subway lines and we were at Omonia Square and Google Maps got us to the AirBnB apartment.

 

The balcony

The view ?

It is basically one room and a bathroom but has everything we need. 5 floors up in a tiny elevator with a disreputable looking lobby but the apartment has obviously been fixed up and by the looks of the doors in the hallway, so have some of the other apartments.

 We dumped our stuff and went back out to try and walk to the Acropolis

Hungry, we popped into a bakery and Rick had a slice of pizza while I had Spanakopita (Spinach in phyllo pastry pie)

.

We walked

and walked (Icarus maybe)

and walked with Rick getting more and more frustrated with Google Maps (the map showed one direction and she kept telling us to go in a different direction). We think he had asked for too many different directions without turning off the previous ones but basically we never got there. We tried to take a bus but they wouldn't take cash. We ended up asking directions (how old school) and found the metro station to take us back to the square by our apartment. The good news was that we were able to buy a 5 day pass there. No more walking for us.

Traffic! Not used to it! Double parking, blocking the street, doesn't seem to be a problem here. Motorcycles seem to have no rules, on the road, sidewalk, wrong way, pedestrian streets and most of them seem to be delivering food.

We stopped at a grocery store for  essentials - bananas, yogurt, milk, wine.

Surprisingly few wine options but you could buy a whole frozen octopus.

We put our feet up back at the apartment for a bit and had some wine and then went out for dinner at a restaurant close by.

It was lovely, warm and welcoming. Gave the impression of fine dining without the prices. Very attentive service. Rick said the beer was not like Guinness but still very good. He had pasta and prawns (they were huge) and I had a meat and cheese melted filling in phyllo. The restaurant was busy with large groups of Greeks so we think we found a good one and may very well go back.

We wanted to walk it off a bit so went down to our main square (and subway stop) Omonia Square.

Played

a little

with the fountains.