Spent most of the week busy with finals so it was nice to relax a bit this weekend in such a pretty city!
Friday:
The usual morning travel routine brought us to the airport where we found some breakfast and boarded our flight. Four hours and an hour time change later, we landed in Athens!
After getting into the city, we found a place to grab a late lunch (chicken souvlaki with pita bread) and headed out to explore the city in the evening.
We saw the Greek Parliament,
a little Christmas market,
and the arena built for the first Modern Olympic Games!
All the while we had great views of the Acropolis lit up at night which made us look forward to our upcoming visit in the morning.
Dinner was chicken gyro meat with more pita!
As we were walking back to our Airbnb, we got stopped by a Greek girl around our age who was so excited to hear American accents and meet real Americans—definitely the most interest any European has taken in any of us so that was fun! We headed off to bed, ready to get up early for a marathon visit through all of the ruins tomorrow.
Saturday:
Started the morning off with some Greek yogurt and a bread basket for breakfast!
Then we started our hike up to the Acropolis where we saw the Odeion of Herodes Atticus,
the Theatre of Dionysus,
the Temple of Athena,
and the Parthenon!
Not to mention great views of the entire city from atop the hill!
The next stop in our ruins ticket was Kerameikos, an ancient Athenian cemetery
Followed by the Ancient Agora and the Temple of Hephaestus,
The Roman Agora and the Tower of the Winds,
The Library of Haydrian,
The Lyceum of Aristotles,
And the Temple of Olympic Zeus which was under lots of scaffolding
Somewhere in that busy day we found time to grab a gyro for lunch and grabbed some dessert at another Christmas market!
Dinner was pork chops and a great view of the Acropolis as evening began to set in!
Sunday:
Breakfast was Greek yogurt again, but this time the cafe we were at had bagels and we found it hard to resist having such an American staple after so long
After breakfast, we were off to the airport once more, flying from Athens to Manchester where we were delayed by ice and then ultimately back to Madrid! All that matters is that we made it back safely! A good final weekend trip as the program winds to an end!
σας αγαπώ και μου λείπετε όλους,
Bryce