It’s Wednesday; the Athens half of the trip is almost over.

My flight to Istanbul leaves at 13.40 and it takes roughly an hour on the metro to get to the airport. Not being familiar with how efficient Greek airports are I’m planning on getting there no later than 12; that gives me until just 11 to get anything else from Athens. Aren’t you happy I just walked you through all that maths? I know that’s why you’re reading.

I’d asked Antonio the night before what he would recommend definitely seeing before leaving. His first suggestion, besides the incredibly obvious stuff, was the Archaeological Museum. Good enough for me. It opened at 9 so I planned to be camping the doorstep in time for that.

Now all repacked into my large travel backpack (why is it always so much harder to fit the same volume of stuff in second time ’round?) I get going before 8 and nicely ahead of schedule. If maybe not quiiiite awake.

I do my usual thing of getting off a few stops early and get some morning exercise, picking up breakfast on the way. The sesame bread ring has won me over, the other thing (the one that looks like something you’d clean up after a dog) was a light clove-and-nutmeg-flavoured biscuit – quite nice, if a little unexpected! (Streaky camera, I know…)

I park myself outside of the museum with a Greek coffee, it’s a pleasant morning for a read.

I get in at 9, pay the very reasonable €7, drop my bag; time for some speedy culture-absorption!

Things I (re-)learned about myself:
– pottery is boring
– …yes, no matter how old it is
– same for small trinkets
– … even if they’re in amusing shapes
– sculptures are excellent
– … especially larger-than-life full-body ones
– bonus points if it’s showing off a lean naked body, Greek-style (I think!)
– autowin for sphinxes

So, some of it I motored through very quickly and the rest of it I appreciated quite a lot; not a bad balance really. Here are a small set of pics from that:

Right, efficiency has been demonstrated and I’m out again just after 10. Excellent, because I have a plan for filling this extra bit of time! After a ~2km walk I’ve made my way to one of the souvlaki places I’d been searching for last night but had been closed.

I had been reasonably happy with the souvlaki I’d had a couple of days back, but I also thought it could be done better. This guy had a reputation, I was hoping for great things.

It was *amazing*. Lots of parsley, just the right amount of spice, tender meat, I wanted to keep eating for a long time. That’s the right way to finish up in Athens!

From that point it’s mostly logistics. Back on the metro, head to the airport (mild confusion when I didn’t notice I had to change to go further on the line, ended up revisiting a couple of stops I’d just been through!), get there and to my gate in loads of time.

Tick Athens off the list, then.

That’ll be all for this post, I’ll post a separate one for the start of Istanbul and another with some wrap-up thoughts on my Greek experience.