After saying goodbye to our sailing friends we took a taxi back to the Lefkada bus station and caught the bus from Lefkada to Athens. The 5 hours was long and pretty cramped but was better than driving as we originally planned and there was not much to see. Corinth was a big industrial city. All along the way most vertical surfaces had graffiti.
We grabbed a taxi from the train station. The driver didn’t know where our place was and asked me to find it on my phone. I had troubles getting it working as I didn’t have data at the moment. When I finally got it, he took my phone in his left hand and crossed himself multiple times with his right hand every time we passed a church (in Greece, there is a small dollhouse sized church on the corner of every lot.). He had to cross himself multiple times almost every block. I’m not sure who was driving all this time. (Perhaps Carrie Underwood knows).
He dropped us off at the spot on my phone but we couldn’t see anything that looked like an apartment. We wandered up and down the street until a man sitting on a chair at his jewelry shop asked if he could help. It turned out the door was right where he was sitting. We had the three sets of codes to get into our place on the second floor (up 3 flights of stairs). We dropped off our stuff and headed out to get our bearings in Athens.
We were right in the middle of the tourist walking area of Athens. There are 4 million people in Athens and about 4 million tourists all here too. What a contrast from living on a boat anchored at a small cove with one or two other boats nearby, to being crammed into a small street (wide hallway) with people, venders, stands with stuff to sell and restaurants to coax us into. It wasn’t really unpleasant – just a huge contrast.
Yesterday we toured the city with Rick Steves – it took 2 hours and we stopped at our room for a rest part way. It is a wonder that anything is standing – Athens has been conquered by essentially everyone who passed by so many times.
The Acropolis (high city) isn’t the highest point in the city but it had a big plateau to build things on. It is a long hike up a lot of stairs and switchbacks. We actually did the hike to the ticket booth twice – saved 20 Euros buying it at the ticket booth instead of on line, but had to book it for later in the day. We picked 5 pm so we would be there just before sunset. It didn’t take us the full 2 hours to do the Rick Steves tour. The most impressive building is the Parthenon.
I find it fascinating that they purposely made all the pillars bend inward and thicker in the middle so it wouldn’t look crooked with the large rectangular structure seen along the long lines. More about it here if you are interested.
After our tour we made our way back to the apartment for a little rest from the crowds and then back on the street to get some sunset photos of the Acropolis. We ended up walking around the whole Acropolis with me promising it would only be 15 minutes to get home by continuing around rather than retracing our steps back.
We were back home by 10 – in under 15 min as promised ready for tomorrow.
Here is an interesting observation about Colleen and I. Outdoors, I usually know my way, what direction we came from and what direction we are going. I rely on the sun and the shadows mostly. I have a harder time when it is cloudy. Colleen pays attention to the details – she can easily find her way in a new mall as she knows the shops and the sights along the way. Sometimes we disagree on the way to get to the next spot. These little disagreements usually end with “I told you so…”
On Tuesday morning we got up early to catch our 10:50 flight to Strasbourg, France. Why Strasbourg France? Well it’s a long story.
It deserves its own post. In short, my suitcase with an AirTag was stolen in May last year. I have been able to track it while it took its own vacation across Spain and France to Strasbourg where it has been for the last few months. Tomorrow we go to finish the story on my little adventurer.
Coopers Travel Adventures 