Well, we made it to Greece!
Our trip was fairly uneventful but got off to a hilarious start at the bag drop at Barajas. The man checked us in and after returning our passports, asked for them back since he forgot to check for our visas. Visas? We asked. To which he replied that since we were going to St Petersburg, we needed visas. Naturally we reminded him that were going to Athens but then he started going on about China and transit…..we were killing ourselves trying not to laugh! It finally dawned on him that he was thinking of the people ahead of us in line. Very bizarre but a very good laugh!
By the time we got through the bag drop mayhem, we only had half an hour to enjoy the benefits of the business class lounge. That’s right – business class! We had lots of points to use up! But as Carlos said, after the first ten minutes the novelty wears off! Nonetheless we enjoyed some crackers, water and a coke. Right at the last minute we decided to have a cheeky gin and tonic. I’ll never be let near the bar again since I came back with gin and soda water!! In my defence, there was no tonic and I’d already poured the gin! As for the business class itself, it wasn’t very exciting since we were on IberiaExpress which meant a small plane and just regular seats. But on the plus side, there were only 4 of us occupying 12 seats so we could all stretch out as needed.
Although the flight was only 3 hours, it was an overnight flight so we are now completely jet-lagged!! I did manage to sleep for almost the whole 3 hours (missing a dinner of gazpacho and steak apparently!!!) but it still makes for a very long day. We arrived at 4am local time and were sitting on the 4:35am bus to Syntagma Square. So not too shabby!
Naturally we couldn’t access our room at Hotel Metropolis so we dropped our bags and headed back to Syntagma to see the 6am changing of the guard ceremony. It was amazing to see the light in the sky changing as day began to break. It was so peaceful and really quite a surreal experience.
We then headed down to Hadrian’s Arch and the Temple of Zeus. At this point we decided to walk around the base of the Acropolis and went up the adjacent hill of Areopagus where we had splendid views over Athens and the rising sun.
By now we were ready for a little breakfast so we walked down through Plaka to Mitropoleo and had croissant and coffee on the square. As we were beside the hotel we stopped in to see how the room was doing. The man brought us on a tour of three rooms so that we could have a choice of view and balcony size. They are such dears at this hotel! We chose the fourth floor room 43 for its view of the Acropolis (and cranes) even though the balcony is teeny tiny. Just big enough for my laundry line!!!
The room still had to be made up so we explored Monastiriki and the flea market. It was then about an hour until the 11 am changing of the guard at Syntagma so we went to the National Gardens for a nice open air siesta! On a Sunday the 11am changing of the guard involves many more soldiers and more pomp and circumstance. It also involves tourist stampedes!!! Seriously! We have never seen anything like it so basically got out of there as fast as we could! It made our 6 am viewing so special!
In this time we also munched on the typical koulouria which is a pretzle-like bread with sesame seeds. Only 50 cents from the road side vendor. Nice!
Then it was back to the hotel for a proper siesta! When we woke up mid afternoon we went back out to the agora and forum area and found ourselves a divine self service frozen yogurt place. Sweet!
We had our third changing of the guard at 8 pm and then Javi and Virginia arrived. They had spent the previous few days in Santorini!
Not ones to stand idly by, we headed straight out and met up with Eleni and Vagelis. They are friends of Dani and Elena who we met at their wedding in Padova in 2011. We tucked in to our first gyros in the corner place of Monastirki Square (not Sabbas or Thanasis which are the ones I read a lot about – I could only see the Greek name so I can’t even begin to spell it out!) For 2 euros it was divine!
We then went up to the rooftop of 360 and enjoyed a couple of gin and tonics while overlooking the Acropolis. It was absolutely fabulous and it was great to see Eleni and Vagelis again.
Needless to say, we slept like logs!!!