Greece Trip: A is for Athens
We don’t typically use a service when we travel, but in this case, we splurged on our Big Fat Greek Anniversary trip for our bucket list visit to Greece and Islands – SO glad we did, as the Be A Greek team really took care of us and helped us work through a few travel snafus that are apparently fairly common when traveling through Greece – like sorry, no planes today – too windy – or – sorry – no boat trips today – too windy and water too choppy – or sorry – no luggage for you because you didn’t listen to us and packed a big ass heavy bag! (we felt pretty smug when we saw our carry-on size bags get on our last flight and they removed a LOT of others that were too heavy for the prop plane back to the Athens). A few other things we learned and were glad we knew ahead of time: Toilet Tip #1: you can’t flush TP in any toilet – it goes into the bin (eww, but you get accustomed and don’t want to be that person who clogs a toilet with anything inappropriate) – Other fun facts/tips: there are a LOT of cats, literally everywhere just roaming around (people leave out food/water but they seem to love to hang out wherever they want, your table, a nearby chair, in an ancient ruin, whatever!) -- get the local wine by the liter/jug/glass and local cheese everywhere you go (most Greek wines are dry, so if you like sweet, you’ll need to clarify) – although most Greeks in the touristic areas speak English, it is good to learn to say a few basics: hello/Yassas (YAHs-sas) entering shops, thankyou/Efkharisto (eff-kha-ri-STOE), and please/welcome/Parakalo (pah rah-kah-LOH) – see Greek Cheat Sheet for more.
Athens
First off- the trip from the airport to a city-center hotel is long and unattractive – Athens is a big international city with a lot of traffic and graffiti that can be off-putting if unaware, but once we arrived to our hotel and got our bearings we relaxed into the exploration of a new country and culture that we fell in love with – Páme (let’s go) to the highlights, reviews, and recommendations of the first portion of our trip…
We stayed at a great location in the Elia Ermou hotel – very safe area, super easy to walk to everything, and we had our very own rooftop bar with view of the Acropolis – which was quite spectacular lit up at night and is a thing in Athens. As we arrived with an open half day, we used visitacity to plan some extra sight-seeing and areas to explore before our scheduled excursions set for the next day. We explored the Monastiraki and Plaka neighborhoods, saw the Roman Agora and the Ancient Agora then had our first taste of Greek food and wine (with a cat) at Dia Tafta it was SO good – “Grandma’s Cheese Pie” (Skopelos Island recipe – looks like fried intestine, but super delicious), grilled sardines, eggplant with tomato and feta, bread, wine, and ended with our first “digestive” – yamas! (we had to yamas with every meal – it is cheers or to your health!). We then needed to walk off our lunch and do some more touring through the neighborhoods, random ruins everywhere, even the metro runs through a ruin, many churches and more cats – have to stay awake and get on the new time zone!
Kalispera to the amazing staff of the Elysium for our first rooftop cocktails with the view of the Acropolis from our hotel bar – we love spritzes (Aperol, Limoncellos, and St Germaine) – then short walk to our early dinner reservation at Old Ithaki, a super traditional taverna with live music and dancing, Started with proper cocktails, shared fava bean mousse and grilled haloumi w/grilled vegetables. No jugs/liters of wine here, so got a bottle of Mega Spileo III Cuvee red blend that would pair nicely with all our entrees. Porcini Risotto, Fried Calamari, and Beef Brisket Giouvetsi for two prepared table-side with orzo and kefalotyri cheese – WOW - we are some happy tired tourists! That didn’t stop us from returning to our rooftop bar to view the Parthenon by moonlight and another yamas with Tsipouro and Mastic liqueurs. Kalinikta!
Day 2 – first full day in Athens started with wide variety breakfast buffet and then off to meet our tour guide. BeAGreek has arranged transportation along with a private guided tour of the Acropolis, Parthenon, and Acropolis Museum – SO worth it – we thoroughly enjoyed learning from our extremely knowledgeable guide, Maria (ok now we know the Acropolis is a hill that among other ancient structures, includes the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena – lots of other Greek God lore to go along with the historical elements of ancient life). After the tour we continued exploring and shopping all around the Acropolis, through Plaka, and the hidden gem of Anafiotika. We got a recommendation from a shopkeeper to find our way to a set of stairs where the restaurants and seating are just hanging on the hill - and climbed to the top and the awesome Anafiotika Café! Started with Sangira – paired with best Dolmades ever! Also had eggplant rolls stuffed with feta and sundried tomatoes and the first of many Ntakos/Dakos/Rusk salads (loved so much ended up ordering almost everyday for lunch the rest of the trip – can’t wait to try this at home!) Another fun fact – Greek salads (all types) do NOT have lettuce…. hmmm… basically just fresh vegetables and olives and seasoning. The Dakos is barley rusks, tomatoes, olives, capers, EVOO, oregano – and local cheese! We then wandered our way back towards our hotel, had a round of spritzes, at the funky little bar next door called Tazza – then to rest/refresh before more rooftop cocktails and dinner.
We chose to go super local for dinner – bit sketchy neighborhood, but totally traditional Atitamos – started with little jugs of local rose wine and our first saganaki with shrimps and bread, then grilled vegetables, grilled squid, whole grilled Dorado, and Cretan carbonara. Ended here with the complimentary orange cake but then back to our rooftop for a moonlit digestive of ozou! We leave for Milos tomorrow…or so we thought….
Surprise – nice breakfast/brunch, leisurely trip to the airport for our 2:30 flight to Milos… delayed, delayed, and then cancelled – ugh – so was our planned sailing trip, but already rebooked for 2 days later – no worries – we have BeAGreek on it!! We are transported to a hotel near the port and have ferry tickets to Milos at 9:00 the next morning – so on a boat after all!!
The hotel Mitsis was in perfect location – we had another rooftop experience with water views - walked across the street to a port people restaurant Ikapiatiko (SO Greek I can’t spell it) – tin cups for a chalice of white and rose wines – amazing meze for 4 with warm bread – fried cheese (we are now obsessed with the cheeses) – grilled shrimps and saganaki shrimps (VERY different from the same named dish the night before – had to do a bit of work to eat these WHOLE shrimps) – fried potatoes with tzatziki – lamb (or was it rooster?) in tomato sauce – all SO good!
We decided we needed to go for a stroll afterwards and found ourselves in what appeared to be a very hip bar E7 Upper View – they let the old tourists in but they were so packed it was standing room only – great views – v cool vibe – need to get some rest for our ferry to Milos (also, literally across the street at Pier/Port E7 – yay!)
Note about the ferry systems – do some research – the timing and tickets vary greatly – we were on Seajets highspeed – be mindful your baggage is placed in the right grouping when you board (ours had a couple of other stops and the situation appears to more chaotic than it actually is) – we found our assigned seats and only a bit disappointed that we could not walk outside on the deck – but arrived in Milos by noon and had a driver waiting to take us to our hotel – winning!!
Now akolouthíste me (follow me) to read more about our Greece Trip: Milos or our Greece Trip: Naxos