Athens : Greatness + Time = Rip Off

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We arrived in Athens at 3AM and took a handy 95X bus to the City Center to avoid a 45 Euro cab charge (cabs are double between midnight and 5AM). We thought it would be a quick short taxi ride from the center to our hotel room, and so we grabbed a cab, but no sooner had we done so we knew we had been duped. No meter visible in the cab was a good clue! The guy tells us it would be 15-18 Euro to our hotel because cab rates are double at night (which is true), still we later figured the ride should have been somewhere around 10 Euro (5 in the daytime). After he charges us 25 Euro for the ride, I am so confused and upset because I'm finding out at the exact same moment that our hotel room is not available. The Hotel Stalis (Bad, don't stay there) had overbooked and so they were moving us...at 4AM! to another hotel that they were calling an upgrade. Hotel Stalis told us that one floor was out of power and so he would have a room for us the next day. I know this to be a lie because I told him I wouldn't need power because I was going straight to sleep. Still, nothing available. Big liars.

He paid the cab driver another 10 Euro to drive us to the other hotel where we finally got to sleep. Turns out the new hotel was a slight upgrade, at least based on the price online, but to move us at 4AM in the morning was exactly the hassle I had hoped to avoid by emailing them earlier in the day to tell them that we would be arriving late, but not to give our reservation away. A bunch of people out to screw tourists over in Athens.

We woke up with a bad taste in our mouths from the previous nights experiences. With our guards up, we ventured out into the dirtiest city in Europe. This should really be 3rd world country stuff.

We made our way up to the Acropolis. The Parthenon wasn't much to look at as it was almost completely covered in scaffolding. No water-fountains at the top, led to great thirst. These are must see sights, but not necessarily must return to sites for me. Eventually we made our way down to the Hadrian's Library. We ate dinner nearby and then explored the ancient Agora where the market place used to be located. We walked around window shopping and wishing we were in another hotel but they where all booked up, even for our return night to Athens.

Back at our hotel we got a hot chocolate and an Ozuo and relaxed while we re-packed our clothes for our island hopping, we will only have to take one suitcase this way.

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