I got part one written and posted while waiting for a bus (see here), writing part two while traveling on said bus. How efficient I am! Although I’m a day behind and have to catch up somehow; clearly current efficiency is no guarantee of past efficiency, or something. Anyway, on with the show! Just finished on The Acropolis…

Walking down the hill, past the Theatre of Dionysus and others (pictured in the last post), my phone rang. It was Antonio, my previously-absent AirBnb host. His English, while better than my Greek, was a bit hard to parse over the phone, but he apologised for whatever mixup happened yesterday and wanted me to go to the house now. I was still a little bit put out about what had happened, and now had planned around it, so I explained that I was currently sightseeing, was headed for Delphi in the evening, and would meet him tomorrow (Monday) night after I got back. Fair enough, he said.

Next stop for me was the Museum of the Acropolis at the base of the hill. For a small fee (€5) I got to see their exhibition of various Acropolis-related things: sculptures, treasures, fancy designs on columns and walls etc. I think I might have been spoiled by the monuments themselves at this point, though, as while the exhibits were objectively impressive and interesting I didn’t feel like they added anything to my experience. Maybe if I’d visited here before ascending it would’ve had more of an impact.

I was still mulling over the Antonio situation. I decided I’d call him back, arrange to meet him today, and drop my main backpack at his place. That way I’d be able to just bring my small rucksack to Delphi and also avoid any need to be on his schedule when coming back tomorrow. I call him, rearrange, and start making my way there.

Well, making my way there in a slightly roundabout way at least.

My first stop was the bus terminal to pick up my Delphi ticket. Athens’ bus terminals (there are two, serving different places) are weirdly apart from the rest of the city’s transport; the closest metro to Terminal B was over a km away with no signage to give any hints. I figured it out, but was glad I was taking this preliminary trip to get the tickets rather than try to make my way there for the first time to catch the bus! Side note, London Underground completely spoils me for what to expect from schedules; I was getting frustrated with having to wait up to 7 minutes for the train!

OK, tickets purchased (€30.20 total, no discount for a return!) and bus times booked; I’d be leaving this evening at 5.30pm and coming back tomorrow at 4pm. It’s a three-hour journey each way.

Walked back to the station. Metro to near the hostel. Pick up my bag. Metro to Antonio’s. Walk up the few side streets to his house. Better luck this time than yesterday?

Yes! I buzz (his name is on a buzzer now, it wasn’t yesterday) and he immediately answers and brings me in. Success!

We discuss what happened yesterday; he said he’d left someone in the house to let me in, he was on his bike so didn’t get my calls (and then later out of battery), his SMS memory limit had been exceeded so didn’t get my texts until much later. He was surprised I hadn’t just “seen the beds” inside the ground floor window (I hadn’t known it was an apartment building let alone which floor it was) and tried knocking. Sigh. Grumble. I tell him it’s all fine; it certainly was inconvenient last night, and will have cost me a bit extra (hostel last night, Delphi hotel tonight) but not enough to cause a fuss for. We’re good.

He shows me around the place. Errr, interesting! Bullets:

– the dorm was basically a large bedroom with a couple of double beds and a scatter of couches

– the two beds were pushed together to leave space for more couches; cosy!

– one of the doubles was his, I’d be getting the other. There were some other people coming along later who would presumably be on the couches. There were two women already pottering around in the apartment but no idea what their role is yet.

– it all had a bit of a “commune” feel to it; not in a bad way, but certainly in a free spirit/relaxed attitude sense.

Oh, the last thing he explained was that apparently paper does not go in the toilet but instead into a bin beside it. OK, I’ll try to make sure I take care of business elsewhere then…

Like I said, all very interesting. But, let’s be fair, he was charging €6 per night so I couldn’t have expected much, but always fun to actually see what that turns out to be. And the WiFi seemed excellent, so there’s that!

Anyway, none of this is relevant to me just yet – I just dump my bag, bring a change of clothes for tomorrow, and head back out.

It’s just after 1pm now. My bus is at 5.30, which I reckoned I needed to start heading for at about 4.30 to be safe. I also need to get my main meal of the day somewhere, leave another 45 minutes or an hour for that as well. That left me with just over 2 hours of further exploration time. Gogo.

Stop #1: the Temple of Zeus and surrounds. Again, very impressive, and what was left of it was imposing. Picture time:

From there I started wandering east towards the original Olympic stadium. I started seeing people dressed as runners and remembered that the Athens marathon was today and they were using the stadium as the finishing point. Excellent, how good of them to hold a race for me to get more authentic stadium pictures!

I scaled to the very top of the stadium, both to get the best views and because apparently I like to climb (ref. Nice, Eze etc)), and walked all the way around it; took lots of hopefully-decent pictures and was suitably impressed by it all.

Oh, I should mention the weather – it was hot, sun baking down, not much wind, all very nice really although as usual a little bit less direct sunlight would have done me just fine. I was amused to see some other people much more equipped go deal with it feeling the same way; there’s a picture below of a pair of Kenyans (they had a flag!) sheltering from the sun under an umbrella.

Pics:

I walked from the stadium up along a park. In front of what I think was the President’s palace I found a couple of odd-looking guards doing a bit of fancy guarding:

I decide I’m ready for food now, and I happen to be in the neighbourhood of one of the places I’d picked from TripAdvisor. I make my way there, about a 1k walk and up another hill. It’s a café/diner family-run place priding themselves on traditional Greek home cooking. The waiter showed me all of the options, it all looked excellent so I asked for his recommendation for something Greek and different. He brought me the ratatouille-like roasted vegetables in a Greek tomato sauce, a block of feta in olive oil, and some bread. It was all really good, and pretty good value for €10.

As mentioned, the restaurant was up the side of a hill. There was much more hill above it, though – it’s one of the high peaks in Athens, visible in some of my shots from the acropolis, and there’s a little church and viewpoint on top. And by now we should all know what happens when Ger sees a hill with a view. That’s right, I climb it. It’s like an itch to be scratched, or something, I just can’t help it!
 

Well, in this case I didn’t quite climb it all – due to time constraints I decided to go most of the way up and then take the funicular (such a good word!) the rest of the way. Good decision, and some really nice views across Athens from the top.

Rather than wait for the funicular’s return journey I did walk back down and was soon back in the now-familiar area around Ermou street. An apparently-famous flea market is held on Sundays nearby so with my remaining time before the bus I went for a wander through it.

For once, no pictures here: I just didn’t find it very interesting! There was a lot of tourist tat, a lot of tourists, and nothing so interesting/exciting as for example the markets in Prague. I have much higher hopes for the bazaars in Istanbul!

One more stop before catching my bus: something to nibble on later rather than try to find something after dark in Delphi. Spoiler: I did, and it (spinach and feta in pastry) was as delicious as it looks and sounds.

Got my bus without issue, got to Delphi and into my hotel pretty easily, collapsed for the night.

Google Stalker (I think the official name for it is Google Fit) reports 4h 22min of walking today with a grand total of 28k steps. That’s a decent amount of moving!