Athens – National Gardens, Zappion, Dinner at Maria’s

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Up by Noon! Oh boy not a good trend!! We decided to have an easy day since we were going to visit with the Marias tonight and still had to pack so we could be downstairs for our transfer to the ferry by 5:30am in the morning. But Steve did get up around 8:30am to run the dirty laundry over to the Laundromat so we could get it back by 5pm.

When we left the hotel we walked to Psirri to get some bougatsa and crepes for breakfast. On the way back Rachel made an appointment to get a pedicure at 4:30 since she thought the spa one she got at home was so awful. We also tried to find the custom hat maker that I saw on Matt Barrett’s website, but she had gone out of business which was super disappointing as Rachel and I had decided that a custom hat would make the perfect souvenir.

We went to the National Garden but couldn’t find the little zoo we remembered from the last trip. We walked all the way through to the Zappion. We asked if we could go inside the Zappion but the guy there said it was closed. We ended up taking some outside photos at least. We walked back through the garden again and saw the long arbor we remembered from our trip in 2007 and took some photos there too. There was a guy following and watching us, but we made sure he knew we had spotted him watching us. We warned some girls we saw at the arbor about him too. Pickpockets are a pretty significant problem in Athens, especially in the tourist areas and on the Metro so we were being very diligent about being aware of what was going on around us. We saw a koi pond and a small turtle pond too. We wanted to go out the gate by the presidential residence but it was locked.

We went back to the hotel around 4:15pm and Rachel went to her pedicure appointment and Steve and I went to get the clean laundry. The laundry place was over by the Metropolis Cathedral so we walked up Ermou Street and cut over. We headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up so we could meet Maria, Perry and Alex at the Metro stop near their house. We took the Metro over and they picked us up on the street outside. There were 6 of us in a 5 passenger SUV so it was a little squishy! We headed out to the other Maria’s house (Maria and Spiro) out by Rafina port. Their house had very beautiful ocean views and was decorated very traditional American style. We had an awesome home cooked meal with them and their daughter Vicky. We were there until about midnight. We got back to the hotel and packed! I think we finished around 2am, argh!!!

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Photos

Typical Greece Convenience Store
Not many actual convenience stores but lots of these Kiosks all over. They even sell beer from these coolers

Casualty of the 'riots'
Burnt out kiosk in Syntagma Square. We really didn't see much damage other than this kiosk.

Our messy hotel room
At the Attalos Hotel