Spending 3 days in Athens

Day 1: Scaling Mount Lycabettus

Landing in Athens, the “hotel with a view”

After a nearly 9 hour plane ride from NYC, Jeff and I landed in Athens. We took a rail from the airport into the city, and stepped outside the Syntagma subway station onto a bright and balmy day.

It was a 10 minute walk to our hotel, Electra Palace Athens, named for its stunning views of the Acropolis.

Our room didn’t necessarily reflect the hotel’s namesake, but it was a pleasant space regardless.

After dropping off our luggage and freshening up, we set off to explore the city. Today, we would be heading toward Mount Lycabettus, walking through Monastiraki and the Athens National Garden along the way.

Monastiraki: Grounding ourselves

Souvlaki Kostas $\iff$ Granddaddy Halal

Starving by this point, we first walked to Souvlaki Kostas for a quick bite. Supposedly some of the best Souvlaki in Athens, we queued up behind a line comprised of people speaking Greek, English, French, Chinese—the place attracted tourists and locals alike.

The interior was very quaint, with pastel teal walls and a retro-American diner feel. Two gruff Greek men sat behind the counter, seemingly friends-of / workers-at the establishment.

The souvlaki was good! (And also 4€.) Spiced and grilled pork and beef, served in a warmed pita with lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and tzatziki. It took me back to my late night Halal cart runs at Columbia, and I wondered if this was the flavor profile my lamb over rice order was based off.

Our quest for dessert

We finished our souvlaki and continued walking through Monastiraki, a neighborhood filled with flea markets and souvenir stores.

The streets were lined with fruiting orange trees, giving the neighborhood a sweet smell compared to New York’s sickly marijuana-sewage feel. I tried grabbing at a couple oranges, but it seemed all of the low-hanging fruits had already been picked.

Not letting my height hinder our quest for dessert, we got ice cream from two different street stalls:

• Goat It Ice Cream Store - Okay, but the vanilla tasted indistinguishable from cow’s milk ice cream.
• La Greche - Mindblowing pistachio gelato, and my favorite ice cream I’ve ever eaten.

Souvenir shopping, Athens’s age

Bellies full, we browsed some of the many souvenir shops in Monastiraki.

We saw a lot of Greek gods—on shirts, keychains, magnets, but also on little statuettes, busts, soap bars. I felt slightly jealous; even Athens’s cheap gift shops felt classy, having such a deep mythos to pull from. It made the youth of New York as a city, with its apple and taxicab souvenirs, very apparent in contrast.

That said, the shops also sold a lot more explicitly adult-rated trinkets than those in New York, many of which were even displayed in the windows. There were magnets of scantily clad and naked women (with squish in the right places), phallic keychains, and bells with “ring for sex” engraved on it. Looking back, I wish I bought the sex bell.

The Brick

While we were walking around, a brick fell 10 feet from our heads.

We walked a little faster afterward.

Flying through Athens National Garden

Next on our itinerary was the Athens National Garden. It was a tranquil space, decorated with marble statues of Greek kings and philosophers.

It was a warm and pleasant day. We crossed a bridge and walked by a koi pond.

Jeff said the fauna reminded him of his hometown.

Though the place was so lovely, we kept walking into clouds of flies. So, we took a fairly straight path north through the garden. (My only regret is there’s allegedly a turtle pond we missed.)

Mount Lycabettus

Cat sentinels at its base

After exiting the garden, we could see Mount Lycabettus again, peeking out from behind the colorful plaster buildings. Grabbing a cardamom bun for the road, we continued onward.

As we approached the base of Lycabettus, the roads narrowed and the hills filled with small, stair-gated neighborhoods.

We saw a lot of street cats here! Many of them were very friendly.

A prickly climb

When we reached the base, we found the path above was filled with flowering agave trees and cacti. Many of the reachable cacti had names written into them, initials, smiley faces.

Jeff and I wrote on a couple ourselves.

(We met more cats here too!)

The view from the top

We peeked inside the small church at the top, then sat on the steps outside and watched the sun set. We had a beautiful view of the city from up there. We talked about the trip, about each other, pointing at crooked agave flowers.

I couldn’t believe we were here. I thought back to how we met, and how lucky I felt getting to share a moment like this with him.

Day 2: The Acropolis

The next morning, we got up in time for breakfast at the hotel. The common dining room was on the top floor of the building, and delivered the hotel’s promised panoramic views of the Acropolis—where we were headed today.

Cats and music on the wrong side of the hill

Since the Acropolis was visible from a distance, we decided to navigate towards it without Google Maps.

Upon reaching a fork near the base, we headed in the direction opposite the Acropolis entrance.

This side seemed residential, with enclaves of shaded plaster homes and potted gardens.

Passing by more cats, I approached to pet one and noticed behind her was a 60-something year old man strumming his guitar.

The man asks where we’re from. Jeff replies, “New York,” and the man goes, “Oh New York! Frank Sinatra!” Jeff laughs and nods, and the man starts singing a song about us in Greek. The only words I made out among the Greek were “Jeffrey,” “Sarah,” “New York,” and “Frank Sinatra.”

When we got back to the right side of the hill, the path to the Acropolis became clear. We could see crowds of families with large backpacks and sunglasses, across a wider diversity of races and ethnicities.

The Acropolis

Is huge!

The Parthenon stood impressively at the top, surrounded by ruins of other buildings. In my Art Humanities class, we spent an entire unit dissecting the Parthenon, the many layers of enscribed pictographs on its walls, its tiered chambers, and the significance of overlooking the entire city and in-turn being visible from anywhere.

Seeing it in person, the only thing I could think about was how large it was.

It really did have a great view. From the top, we could make out Mount Lycabettus and the blue-tinted Parnitha mountain ranges behind it. Looking out from here, I felt very small.

Ruins, the whole way down

On the way back down, we walked by the remains of old Greek ampitheaters, stoas, and temples. Most were not preserved as well as the Parthenon, and seeing just their foundations made it hard to imagine what they looked like in their prime.

Lunch break in Plaka

Feeling peckish, we held off on looking through the Acropolis Museum until after lunch.

Instead we walked back down toward Plaka, the old historical neighborhood of Athens found a little east of the Acropolis. Its narrow, stepped streets felt like they were made for foot traffic, save the occasional delivery moped.

Aerides Plaka Restaurant and the resident cat

We got lunch at a place called Aerides Plaka Restaurant. The restaurant’s cat joined us for the meal, keeping guard 2 feet away from our food as we ate.

The moussaka was super tasty! It was the first time I’d enjoyed eating anything with eggplant.

We also ordered an authentic saganaki, which is fried cheese covered with sticky honey and sesame seeds. I don’t know how sweet fried cheese could possibly taste bad.

A quiet church nearby

Wanting to check out the Acropolis Museum, we meandered about the winding streets of Plaka back to the hill.

Turning an alleyway, we wandered upon a small church.

People had lit some candles outside the building too. Maybe because it was lunchtime, there was no one else in the courtyard but us.

(Napping at) The Acropolis Museum

When we arrived at the Acropolis Museum, the interior contained marble exhibits and below the building were the ruins of old Greek bathhouses.

While inside, I started feeling heavy from the exhaustion of the past few days (and the monotony of seeing the 40th marble statue in a row). I sat on a stool and rest my eyes for 15 minutes while Jeff looked around.

Beyond the museum

Searching for a pick-me-up

After we left, I re-routed us to the nearest cafe looking to refresh myself. We ended up stopping by Amygdalo Cafe, and I had a cup of not-great, sour Greek coffee. (I blame the flowers for drawing my attention.)

Nearby, we also met a small, yippish dog that chased around a Black man for 5 minutes, then demurely accepted pets from a young Asian woman shortly after.

Two very indulgent dinners near Xayteia

After mulling about Plaka and Monastiraki for a while, we walked to an early dinner at Tavern Klimataria. With 4.4 stars and 9,620 Google reviews, we had high hopes. The meal itself was somewhat disappointing, with some tough cuts of lamb and stale bread. Jeff says the highlight of this meal was the bowl of baked cheese with sausage floating in it.

Looking to redeem the meal, we pinned our last stop of the day on Stani, a dairy shop in Xayteia.

We passed by Omonoia Square en-route. More modernized than the other parts of Athens, we saw a giant central fountain surrounded by 4-lane wide automobile roads and blocky 5+ story buildings. It felt eerily sparse.

Walking through here, made me think how far Athens was past its prime. The square itself felt like the commercialized and artificial plazas of Downtown Brooklyn, and beyond its radius the buildings looked worn and rusted over.

Atmosphere aside, Stani itself was a highlight of the trip. We feasted on traditional Greek desserts—loukoumades, galaktoboureko, sheeps-milk yogurt with honey and walnuts, and their take on a mille feuille. Jeff even got a cup of milk.

Day 3: Pitstop in Exarcheia

Antikythera mechanism

Our flight was in the afternoon, so we took the morning to look around the National Archaeological Museum. Jeff put it on the itinerary so he could check out the Antikythera mechanism, known as the “world’s first computer.”

It was a device made of several interlocking gears, allowing you to input an arbitrary date and compute the positions of the sun, solar system, and moon for that date. We sat in front of its ruins trying to figure out how it worked, remarked on how smart these people were, and left.

Last bites in Exarcheia

We walked around the neighboring graffiti-painted streets of Exarcheia afterward. The residents seemed standoffish compared to the tourist-hungry shopkeepers of Plaka and Monastiraki. (Still, the place had more soul than Xayteia.) Jeff described it in post as “what Bushwick wants to be.”

After another quick souvlaki from Giorgos Manos, we headed back to the hotel, grabbed our bags, and set flight for Paris.