Vateri Hotel Athens

... excellent views of the city and ancient Acropolis.

Arriving the first evening, we made the short walk to the hotel, checked in and got a surprisingly good pasta dinner at the rooftop restaurant. With full bellies, we hit the hay and woke up early for a full day of sightseeing. After an incredible breakfast downstairs, we hoofed it about 15 minutes to the base of the Plaka neighborhood and found our way up the hill, passing the ancient and ...

... wandered a bit more and reached a crowded al fresco restaurant where an older man grabbed us, held up the sign for 2 people and sat us down. I understood why this place was crowded with him as a recruiter. I was a great dinner though and they spoke English even though the menu was Greek. We had a lovely time and then took a taxi back to our hotel. Fell fast asleep and woke to begin our last day of our honeymoon- a day at the pool to relax and prepare for the long journey home.....

... although we are taking one in two days so I won't dwell on this). After 5 minutes in Athens airport we realize what people mean when the say Athen's is too crowded. This is only further confirmed as we get on the bus from the airport to the city (wall to wall people, bumper to bumper traffic and no a/c - but hey we are trying to do some things cheap and at 3E we can't complain too much). We arrive to Montistraki (sp?) square ...

... we can't remember any of the words. Soooo, we just start speaking English. In the other countries we've done good with the languages and spoke to people in their language... here, not so much... whoops! Athens is cool, but not our favorite... which could be because we are a little tourist-sited out--you can only visit so many museums. Tomorrow, we hope to go to Hydra, a nearby island... but seeing as though the Athenians do not know how to get there, we might ...

... We nearly got side-tracked into a steakhouse, but continued on to a place called "In a Garden". They did a good job of making the place look like a garden with floor-to-ceiling glass and plenty of vegetation outside and table settings in light green that enhanced the garden feel. They featured food from Crete, and had costumes on display. They won our hearts and minds when they started us off with a small shot of ...

... na plac Syntagma, pobladzilismy waskimi uliczkami dajacymi przynajmniej cien, po czym weszlismy na Akropol. Dawno nie bylam tak podekscytowana. Mimo, ze na Akropolu ciagle przebiegaja jakies prace remontowe, to wzgorze robi wrazenie. 3000 lat historii eeek! Po kilkugodzinnym spacerze wrocilismy do domu i ucielismy sobie drzemke. Nie jedlismy nic az do wieczora, bo w tak potwornym upale naprawde jesc sie nie chce. Gdy sie troche ochlodzilo, poszlismy ...

... station. Luckily there were large luggage lockers in the waiting area. Backpack-free and with only 7 hours to burn before our ferry departs we walked around Patras. It's a much larger city than one can see from the port, and the shopping district is nice and in some areas bordering trendy. One thing we have notices in Europe is the plethora of "United Colors of Benetton", a semi-trendy clothing store that sells clothing more or less like the Gap. I've never heard of this store ...

We arrived late (again) into Athens, but luckily we had a airport pickup by the apartment owner. The apartment was nice and spaceous. The 1st day was spent catching up on some sleep and taking it easy. The 2nd day we did the ruins, Acoplolis, Temple of Olympian Zeus, Olympic stadium (1st modern), Acient Agora and romed the streets of Plaka( touristy shops). And was hoping to catch up with ...

... tickets. Wednesday was match day and after a Pizza Hut lunch and a beer we headed straight to the ground where we'd heard there would be entertainment in a safe environment (and overpriced beer we speculated). There was little entertainment and plenty of alcohol free beer! One hot dog stand owner was pouring shots of whiskey into glasses and handing them around - the police couldn't see and didn't seem to mind this! We got in to our seats nice and early. Later ...

... bright moon over the sea and the stars as they come out- a light behind us back in the kitchen sheds just enough light to make us each a silhouette. I go for broke and ask "What was Mary like when you met her?". Without a beat, he goes off into a long story. We then talked in the dark for several hours, sipping our ouzo and getting questions answered. I later wrote a great deal about this for my own private thoughts. My ouzo has hit me, although only one drink, it has been ...