Exploring ancient Athens! With a trip across the water to Santorini. Greece.

Hello from sunny Santorini! 👋

After spending a few days, exploring the metropolis of Athens, I am here! Instead of sightseeing ruins, I am ruining my liver, drinking beers on the beach! Today, I have spent most of my time floating in the ocean, only moving when a wave picks me up and drags me to the shoreline. Other than that, I haven't moved too much! I haven't posted in nearly a week! I'm not making excuses, but the WiFi has been dire! It either doesn't connect at all or is really slow! But, I am determined to post when it is still fresh in my mind! And being at the beach isn't exactly the worst place to lose signal!?

I shall start with Athens and work my way back to the future!

Athens…
Well, I have wanted to visit Athens since I was in year 4 and I learnt about the ancient Greeks! If you haven't figured by now, I get rather excited over history. The ancient Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Aztecs….I live for all that!
There's nothing more thrilling, than seeing a piece of hand painted pottery or an old document. E.g. Just yesterday I went into a museum (I will elaborate later) and there was a handwritten cattle inventory, which was 7000 years old! I mean, the mind just wanders at that! Who wrote it? What did they look like? I bet they couldn't of even imagined someone looking at it 7000 years later in total awe! It's so fascinating!

I always wonder what they would of thought about the most simplist of things...what would they of thought about birds? Seeing tiny animals flying in the sky? I bet they were completely amazed. I guess that's why many ancient civilizations worshipped them. If you think about it, we take them for granted. Back then before textbooks and technology...how did they fathom what they were, how they flew or how they came to be? Ok... I'm getting carried away here!

So, back to Athens ...we spent four days sightseeing in Athens. We spent most of our time at the Acropolis, of course! The Acropolis, is the huge ancient city on top of the huge rock, which overlooks the entire city of Athens. You can't miss it, it's huge and it sticks out for miles! In the Acropolis, there was so much to see! The Parthenon temple, ruins of smaller temples and there is two amphitheaters. The Atticus theatre, is in pretty good nick for a 2500 year old theatre! They still hold concerts there today! You can see the best of the acropolis and many other ruin sites around Athens, with one ticket, which costs €30 and it pretty much gets you into all the places that you need to see! The main museums are not included. Which sucks, as I feel you need to see these as well as the ruins. As this is where most of the archaeological finds are. Pottery, artwork, utensils, jewellery etc. It's where all the real treasure is. The acropolis is just the ruins. I say just. Trust me, they are magnificent!

I genuinely didn't realise how large Athens is, until I stood atop the Acropolis and looked out at the panoramic view of the city. It is freaking humongous! I have never seen such a gigantic city! There isn't one space that isn't filled by a building (except for the mountains surrounding the city) It is a sea of buildings!

There is quite a lot of excavation and reconstruction going on in the Acropolis, especially on the Parthenon so rather than individual monuments, I mostly photographed the whole city. As the cranes, scaffolding and building work obstructed quite a lot of the temples. But I can't complain, they need to keep these beauties maintained, so that they can be enjoyed for thousands more years to come.

The agora, which is the city below the acropolis, is equally as cool and has a small museum full of artifacts, which is free! There is a 2500 year old baby potty! Which is just one of the cool things I saw! We listened to a Rick Steve's audio guide as we walked around, which I recommend doing as there aren't any plaques to read, so you don't really know what anything is! I recommend downloading the Rick Steve's app and listening to his audio guides, wherever you go! He keeps the information simple, fun and easy to listen too! I've listened to some others which have been pretty dull and a bit mind numbing.

As I said before, the museum's aren't included in the city ticket, however they are inexpensive and worth paying for! The acropolis museum was €6 and the architectural museum was €10. Pretty good prices for city museums!
There are so many cool things, every single item has an information plaque, so it's easy to understand what things are.
In the architectural museum, I particularly enjoyed the ancient Egyptian section.
In both the acropolis and architecture museum, I enjoyed the statues of the Greek god and goddesses. They are so powerful.

This is a statue of Zeus in the museum of architecture. Some argue that it is a statue of Poseidon, but I'm not so sure!

This is a 3000 year old, anti rape statue of Athena from the same museum. So powerful!!

This is a 4000 year old loaf of bread, fruit and nuts. I was sweating, my body, pressed up against the glass when I saw these!

The atmosphere of Athens itself, is electric! Everywhere you turn, there is market stalls, busy shops and street food sellers. It just buzzes. It's awesome! I wasn't expecting to love Greece as much as I did! Many people I have spoken to have said the exact same thing!
I have seen in many forums, a lack of love for visiting Greece. I guess there is concerns for tourists, because of Greeks bankruptcy, regular political protests and anarchist groups. But I witnessed no trouble. Everywhere we went, there was a heavy military and police presence. I didn't once feel unsafe, in fact, quite the opposite! Don't let people put you off when they say it is dirty and unsafe. It is a large city, so the pollution and smog is an issue. But that's to be expected in such an over populated place. But then, I tend to feel more comfortable in these places, as opposed to 'well to do’ areas, like lake como, for example. I don't tend to like the 'posh’ areas so much. I guess it's all about personal preference and what you are looking for in a holiday. One thing I must mention, is that the shopping in Athens is really good! I spent a couple of hours perusing the many shops that Athens had to offer, that's for sure!

Santorini.

From Athens, we took a ferry over to Santorini, passing many of the Greek islands on the way.
On the island, you have two choices, hire a car or moped or use the buses. We opted for the buses. They take you to all the places that you need to go to!

Fira, is the main town in Santorini, it's where all the buses branch out from. So, it's best to aim here if you don't know where to go! Fira is a lovely town full of great places to eat, with friendly staff! It is rammed with tourists, but the locals seem used to it and are so welcoming!
If you aren't into eating fancy or you are a budget backpacker like me I recommend eating at 'Luckies’ which is on the main stretch of Fira.We shared a combo of two gyros, one fries and a drink (€9). We eat a lot and we were so full. A gyro is meat, wrapped in pita bread, with sauce and salad and it's so yummy! (Basically a posh kebab) It's some of the cheapest food you can get on the island.

This is the three bells of Fira, which is a famous photo location which you probably recognise from Santorini photos! It is a short walk from the the centre of Fira, if you take the beautiful coastal walk to get to it! The view looks out over the ocean and the Greek islands. It is one of the best views you can get in Santorini! So I would strongly advise doing this!

From here we took the bus to Oia, for sunset. It was one the best sunset I have ever experienced! Oia has some quaint little stores full of handmade jewellery, leather goods and souvenirs. This bookstore was one of my favourite, with its rooftop library.

So many tourists flock to this spot to watch the sun go down on the day. When the sun set, everyone clapped and cheered and I felt so proud to be a part of this beautiful world.

We headed back to where our accommodation was, in Perissa. We were so lucky that our apartment was located just 300 metres from Perissa beach. As we were walking back from the bus stop, we couldn't help but take photos of this beautiful moon! Mother nature showed us her best assets that night!

Another cool thing we did here in Perissa, was hike up to see the ancient city of Thira. Which is the ruins of a Roman city which sits on top of a steep hill. As we started hiking up, a dog appeared, who befriended us and led us up the steep hike. We explored the ancient ruins and when we left we were delighted to find that he had waited for us. He led us back all the way down to the bottom. He then chilled with us for a few hours, before leaving. I don't doubt that when he left us he went to lead others on the hiking trail. The mysterious thing about it was that he was leading us on the trail which the pilgrims took many years ago, up to the church. Because of this, we named him saint Jimmy of Perissa.

As I lay here on the beach, I am contemplating how beautiful life really is..maybe it's the beers? Maybe it's lying on this beautiful beach realising how lucky I am? I'm not sure what the reason is, but life is just peachy right now!

We are leaving tomorrow. I will be reluctant to leave Greece, but as always, I am excited for the next adventure. We are heading to Barcelona!
But, I shall just enjoy the here and now... I fancy another swim in the ocean and another beer, don't mind if I do...

Peace out.

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