Athens

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Probably today's not the best time to visit Greece and Athens, but when we got there in August 2010, things were a little bit better (at least they didn't had yet to be rescued by the IMF)...

I must confess I was expecting a much more antique and preserved city and ruins, but what can you do against the expantion and growth of cities?

In Athens you can visit all the famous (and not so famous if you're not a Greek Mithology lover, like I am) monuments and pieces of art... You buy a single ticket with multiple tear parts and you get to visit almost all the attractions that are paid individually - it costed me 12eur, last summer.

You get to see the temple of Athena (the Parthenon) - one important advise: take as many water as you can, if you're planning to visit Greece in the summer. We've spent more money in water and beverages, than in food...! And if you don't want to spend money on cabs (they're very expensive!) you'll have to walk a lot to see everything in one day...

You'll also visit the Temple of Zeus - wich hasn't got much left of it and it's in the middle of poor and dirty buildings with roads and lots of cars passing in front of it...(disapointing this one)

You also have many ancient and partially preserved neighbourhoods and palaces with gardens - some are free, others are paid but most of them are included in the general admision ticket - like Keramikos and Hadrian's Library also...

The best place to stay is probably the Omonia square wich is reacheable through train and metro and you can walk everywhere from the ancient Agora 'till the Syntagma square - you see the greek parlament there and it's posible to eat and shop international brands - it's the newest part of Athens...

Speaking in metro and train, Greece has a good (very good indeed!) metro system! I've learned to read the greek alphabet thanks to the translations of the station names. Almost everybody speaks English, they have very good signs and the metro takes you everywhere! And it runs aprox. every 2 mins!!!

I don't know if they improved their ticket validation system, but once you had the ticket it had no date or "valid thru" inscription on it and we didn't saw any train officer... people only validated their tickets if they wanted... basically you can ride for free (at least until someone comes and ask you for the ticket...buy at least one!) 😉

It's worth going to the Olympic Village and visit all the area (pools, panathinaikos stadium, the multisports arena, etc...)...it's a shame it is abandon since the 2004 olympic games...still worth visiting!

When visiting Athens, you have the chance to travel cheap by ferry - double cabin w/ sleeper 40eur a night w/ private bathroom and tv! - to one of their many islands. That's the reason why you'll go the Pireus port, otherwise there's nothing to see there...only some train officers with bullet proof vests...! (yeah...Greece it's kinda creepy sometimes...)

Another (really) interesting place to visit is the national archeology museum. It has a lot recovered statues and parts of temples from acient greek history - all the famous gods and those things we see all the time in Hercules and greek mithology's tales - weapons, toys, training gear for athletes and many artefacts since the 6000 B.C.!!!

If you're planning a trip to Greece my advice is to spend max. 2 days in Athens, then pick a night ferry to one the Islands (Crete -next blog). You'll see all the "rocks" and top sightseeings, but there's not much more to do...the disapointing carachteristic in Athens (and I've heard from many who went there): it's a dirty city...the streets smell pretty bad and there's garbage all over the place (among with unemployed people, immigrants and some ocasional small riots)...

Kalispera,
JM

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Photos

National Archeology Museum
Kouros

Olympic Village
Panathinaikos Stadium