Athens on the Cheap Part I
Okie dokie, here goes the saga of my Greece trip with my pal LSU (we used to work together until I moved to a new office) over Labor Day weekend.
Friday - I spent the morning and afternoon cleaning the house, doing laundry, and packing. LSU showed up around 3pm and after an obligatory tour of my oh-so-fabulous house, we headed to Frankfurt. After taking a couple of wrong turns onto various autobahns, we made it to Rhein Main without a hitch. Lo and behold, the free shuttle bus was there and waiting. So we parked only to watch it drive away 10 minutes early. Alas, that was the last bus of the day. Not wanting to shuck out 20 Euros on a cab, we wanted to a nearby hotel and pretended to be guests in order to use their free shuttle. I know, bad Fluffy, but we were really trying to do Athens on the cheap since our flight tickets were so outrageous. The shuttle was waiting but we went inside for the restroom. When we came out, it was gone. Ugh. Half an hour later of waiting and dodging the stench of a Air National Guard units’ multitude of cigarettes, we were on our way. Turns out our plane was 25 minutes late so no worries about rushing to the gate. We flew Czech Airlines and let me give them some well deserved publicity - the Frankfurt/Prague legs of our trip were the most comfortable and pleasant flights I have ever taken. The Prague/Athens routes were a little more crowded but still very nice. The food is excellent and they will serve you large plastic cups of quite decent wine. After all that wine, LSU and I slept soundly thru our red-eye flight, only to be awakened by the cackles of what we thought were giddy high schoolers. Nope. It was just three very big fat Greek women who apparently never learned common courtesy. Ever seen an entire planeload of people glaring at three big fat Greek women? Funny stuff.
It was 3am by this point and the public bus that made a stop by our hotel happened to be waiting. Having learned our lesson about busses earlier in the trip, we climbed on. Sure enough, about 30 seconds later the bus took off. The driver was really nice and waved at us when we reached our stop (I think we were both half asleep and too tired to read Greek bus stop signs). Oh, being in a college sorority really helped in reading Greek signs. Our “budget” hotel was quite pleasant. Upon arriving and settling into bed, LSU turned on the TV and shouted “Hey cool!” I turned to see what the ruckus was: free hard core porn. American porn, no less, with Greek subtitles. Nice.
Saturday - woke up groggy and the hotel lady gave us free breakfast after we chatted with her a while (saved us each 5 Euro, in spirit of our “Athens on the cheap” goal). We took the bus into town and simply wandered around for a while as most of our guide books suggested waiting until mid afternoon to hit the Acropolis. We saw Hadrian’s Arch and the Temple of Zeus, then found a charming cafe for lunch. Stuff in Athens is very reasonably priced, too. I could stand it no longer and so we headed to the Acropolis. WOW. It really is something else and part of its appeal is a bit bittersweet in that you are kind of sad to consider what it must have been like in all its glory. The Parthenon really is stunning and you can get fairly close to the steps. People from all over the world were there, and we had a lovely cultural bonding moment when taking some goofy pictures while two Japanese men watched and laughed. The only drawback is that employees carry whistles and blow them at the drop of a hat. We thought it was extremely rude and kind of spoils the mood, but oh well. The Caryatids (columns shaped like women) are actually fakes and the real ones are inside the small Acropolis museum.
We went thru the Theatre of Dionysus and looped back to Mars Hill for a stunning view of the city. I took a photo of the entire hill of men staring at a very attractive woman wearing a very short skirt that was revealing very much due to a very strong Greek breeze. Women there are strange - all tourists seemed to be wearing high heels and with all of the rocks and steep steps, that is a terrible idea. I was comfy in my Sketchers. Afterwards, we headed down to the Agora and had a blast taking silly pictures next to statues. We figured if we were going to have the whistles blown at us, we might as well make it for something good. The Agora is nice but mostly broken down. We stopped for some frappes and smoothies from a sidewalk cafe, then headed to the Keratirium. Not sure what it was, but it was free with our Acropolis ticket. It turned out to be more broken columns and statues, but we did come across 2 turtles fighting. A French couple sauntered up and watched with us. Suddenly the turtles began, um, mating, which inspired a simultaneous gasp from all 4 of us. Another lovely multi-cultural moment, Americans and the French watching the love life of turtles. Of course we all look pictures. How often do you see turtles getting it on in an ancient Greek forum?
We found a local souvlaki (sort of a gyros pita) place and oh was it delicious. Then we wandered around the streets for a while, looking for cheap crappy souveneirs and coming up nill. WTF? Every other country I’ve visited has some crappy standard gift. China had the chairman Mal watches, Venice the gondola boatmen, Prague Infant of Prague corkscrews, etc. No big deal though. By this time we were purely exhausted and headed back to the hotel.
Part II forthcoming. I had my wisdom teeth out yesterday and I feel too woozy to type anymore. Plus, they hurt and people are starting to stare at me because the swelling makes me look like a hamster.