ChilliCheez's Posterous

Trip to Athens: The National Garden

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We started our second day at Athens with breakfast buffet in our hotel. There were all kinds of pastries, fresh fruit, yoghurt and warm things like baked beans, bacon and scrambled eggs. We ate way too much, we had to try everything. While my missus had to work that day, I used the opportunity to explore the city to walk around and see what I can visit with her the next day.

I first walked to Hadrian's Gate, which is in front of the Temple of Zeus. There wasn't much left of the temple. Right next to the temple was a tiny park and in front of it is the Zappion. The Zappion is a big building, mostly used for events and business meetings nowadays. I wasn't allowed to visit it completely, except for the entry hall which wasn't very spectacular.

Next to the Zappion is the National Garden. This is a huge, beautiful park. As it's march, not all plants are green yet and workers were in the process of cleaning everything. Half of the bassins and fountains were empty. I spent quite some time there, especially to get some fresh air. I was glad to escape Athens' heavy traffic for a little bit. I can imagine there will be a lot of smog in the summer on the streets. While walking through the park, I saw a lot of orange trees. They were a nice contrast to everything green. Right in the middle of the Park was a small Zoo with birds, chickens, doves, goats, turtles and some cats.

I reached the Syntagma Square when I got out of the park. It's a big place with small cafés and free internet through wifi. I didn't know this at that time yet, read about it later that evening in Athens inyourpocket app.

From there I went to the Plaka. There were many small shops in every street. Yet hardly any shop had more than one floor. I was looking for a bigger sports shop or a supermarket, but couldn't find a single one. They are probably at the outer border of the city, just like ikea. The many shops were mostly souvenirs, jewellery and clothes shops. It's always hard to find the perfect souvenirs to bring home as gifts for the family. I prefer to send a postcard and then I bring just something small home as gift. A postcard is more personal and most of the time stays longer on a wall than some cheezy souvenir.

I tried to visit every church I could find. Every single one was different than the other. And there were many, many, many churches. Incredibly many. What was particular to me, was the behaviour of the people inside the churches. First they light up a thin orange candle, place it on some sand with other candles and then they kiss many pictures of saints while mumbling prayers. Every picture of a saint is protected by a glass window, which is cleaned often by an older woman.

I didn't visit the Akropolis that day, but I climbed up a small hill that was very close. From there I had a really nice view on Athens. From there I saw an observatory and another church. The observatory was small and old. I actually got to see the library, a private room full of old beautiful books and wonderful wooden interior. I was not allowed to take pictures though.

On my way back to the hotel, I visited the metro. Every metro station is filled with artifacts and pieces found in the ruins. I didn't take the metro, I walked back through the National Garden.

When my missus returned from work, we went to a restaurant called Kappari. I liked this one the best. Almost only greeks dined there. We had Octopus, it was so delicious! The octopus didn't came with any side dish, so we ordered french fries. We drank 0.5L white wine of their house barrel. When we wanted to pay, one waiter placed a dish with chocolate ice cream and a piece chocolate cake on our table. What a pleasant surprise, free dessert! The Kappari restaurant was very good, not expensive and they cooked pretty fast. All in all a nice experience.

This was only the second day of our 6-day trip to Athens. Coming soon "Trip to Athens: The Akropolis"!

Trip to Athens: The First Night

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My missus had to fly to Athens, Greece for business reasons. I joined her so we could spend the weekend together. For us, this would be a small holiday and it was all decided rather spontanously. We booked the flight and the next day, we were up in the air. We flew over Munich to Athens in a Lufthansa Airbus A321, with 6 seats per row. We had lunch in that machine, even though the flight plan said there will be no food. It was pasta with spinach, bread, water and a bar of Toblerone. Delicious. I had to leave my iPhone turned off during the whole flight, it was forbidden to leave it turned on. I had to use my missus' camera to take pictures of the food and clouds.

When we arrived in Athens, we took a taxi to our hotel, the Athenaeum Intercontinental *****. The taxi cost about 40€, I think. Not much for a 40 minutes drive. I was surprised to see an Ikea on our way! Other than that, we didn't get much to see, it was too dark already. But we noticed the bad streets they have there. It was a pretty bumpy ride and there were some huge holes sometimes.

We arrived at the hotel. The people at the reception were very friendly and spoke very good english. We had to pay for our room in advance. I dunno, but we expected a more luxury room for a 5 star hotel. It didn't look that high class, but it was climatized. Also the floors looked old with their stripy wallpapers. We inspected the rest of the hotel and found a spa, a fitness room and a closed pool. It was too cold to be open. Too bad.

Some time ago, I downloaded an Athens app for free from Meta4 labs, it's an inyourpocket essential city guide. I was happy to have this offline app as in the hotel, the internet access costs 9€ per hour! That's just way too much. I think the app now costs 2.99$. This app was very handy during my whole stay in Athens so I can only recommend it. We chose to dine at a close restaurant which this guide suggested to us.

On our way by foot to the restaurant, we saw the high gasoline prices. Germany shouldn't complain with their 1.50€ per liter. Also, there was a tiny Spar supermarket, but it was closed already. I always assumed Spar was a Germany only supermarket chain. The restaurant we were looking for was the ManiMani. This one was well hidden. I just noticed weird green flags on a house when we passed by. On a closer look, the green flags said MANHMANH, which is ManiMani written in greek. We almost missed it.

The restaurant was at the second floor. It was rather nice. Many tourists dined there, all from surrounding hotels. They served us a bottle of water, bread and delicious black olives. We decided to try something out of the ordinary and ordered "Rooster Bardouniotikos with traditional Greek pasta or trahama and sour mitzithra cheese (traditional Mani cheese) €11.00". We really enjoyed this big, marvelous meal. We didn't drink anything special though, just water and Sprite, as the missus had to work the next day.

This was our first night in Athens. More to come this weekend!
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
  
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