My big, fat Greek adventure

Okay, not really. I was there for 3 days. Athens is a vibrant city. It's very crowded, 1/3 of Greece's population is in Athens. It reminds me of some of the cities in Asia. The instant we got here, there were signs and banners everywhere at the metro and public places protesting the government. There were lots of polices blocking streets and protests. We arrived at our hotel, Chic Hotel. It was a4 star hotel but seems like a 3 star. The staff was nice, though. By the time we got here, we were exhausted, we could barely walk. I was thinking of sleeping in the hotel for awhile but I didn't want to waste precious travel time. Plus the street of Athens was live with actions everywhere, I didn't wanna miss it. We bought the 3-day public transportation pass to go on the metro for free. Well, Athens was like Berlin. Their metro and bus are base on an integrity system. You don't have to buy tickets but if you get caught, it's 60 times the price of the ticket. If you're going to the airport I think the fine was 300 times the ticket. We ate lunch at a local restaurant. I had chicken gyros it was very good and costs only 2 euros.


The first place we visited was the Acropolis. I was tired and we had to walk uphill to the top to see the Parthenon and the temple of Athena up there. But it was worth the effort. They are still rebuilding a lot of stuff around here. What strange is that everywhere we go in Athens, there are stray dogs. These are unwanted dogs being left by their owners on the street. They are not dangerous because the only thing they do is sleep all day. It's kind of sad. I heard during the Olympics in 2004, they killed all these stray dogs in couples day. That's horrible. Anyway, the Acropolis was nice. Next stop was the Temple of Olympian Zeus. This shouldn't be an attraction because the only thing left are the columns and you had to buy tickets to go in and see them. Luckily we didn't have to buy tickets for any of the attractions we went to in Athens because it was a holiday I think (or maybe they encourage tourists to come around this time). The Panathinaiko Olympic stadium was nice, but we didn't go inside. This was the stadium that hosts the first Olympic in 1896. Next we went to the National Garden which is right across from the Olympic stadium. It's the weekend and there's not much to do here so we left. That's pretty much it for Athens. You can go see all the main attractions in a day or two.


Athens metro is very easy to use. Our hotel was near Omonia station but we mostly went to Syntagma to eat as it was a big stop. There are a lot of archaeological artifacts found here when they dug up the ground to create the metro system in Athens. So, the entire metro is like a museum with lots of things to see. I think the metro here is still under construction because there are only 2 lines. At night, the city is alive with lots of restaurants, bars, and people walking around. It was fun.

The next day we visited the Athens flea market. Here you can find pretty much everything from dirt cheap to expensive stuff. We didn't buy any. Everything here is cheaper compared to all the other countries we went to in Europe (maybe cheaper than America too). In the afternoon, we went to Lycattabus Hill. This is definitely a must-go if you want to see the view of Athens. We took the metro to the hill, then walked up for about 20 minutes. There are lots of houses around here with orange and cherry trees. I would recommend to walk up the hill around 7pm and then take the cable car down at night after you've seen the sunset (around 9pm). You can see everything from top of the Lycattabus Hill. You can see the Acropolis, the Ancient Agora, the Olympic stadium, the garden... everything. As the sun goes down, your view also changes and it's very different every half hour until the city lights are on.