See Athens – day 1.

Yesterday consisted of lots of walking, a little running and lots more walking!

We started the day with the ceremonial changing of the guards at the Parliament. It takes place every Sunday at 10:30am and was pretty cool! (Video to come)

From there we walked to the Acropolis and bought 12€ tickets that grant us access to all the national archaeological sites and museums (valid for 4 days). We walked over to the Roman Agora before exploring the Ancient Agora. We’re still wrapping our heads around how old this stuff is!! While in the area we walked around Monastiraki square. All the while Jeff was on the look-out for geocaches 😉

About 3pm we decided it was time for lunch. We stopped for another round of gelato….

…before another meal at Smile. We’ve made it a goal to eat there everyday we’re in Athens 🙂 This time Connie (the owner) surprised us with homemade Greek yogurt and honey. Words cannot express how good it was!

After delicious beer and food, we walked to the Panathenaic Stadium. We were really excited for this…but it was even more amazing than expected! I dare say it was the best part of our trip! We toured the stadium (an audio tour is included in the 3€ entrance fee), saw all of the posters and torches for every Olympics since 1896 and ran a lap around the track. Priceless.

We had a quick pit-stop at the apartment before heading down to the port. We took the tram and walked the Zeas Port and back.

We walked along the red (pen) lines.

We stopped for dinner in Mikrolimano at a place recommended by our AirBnB host. We were the only ones in the restaurant, but the fresh fish was worth it!

Fried baby blunt snouted (mullet)

Small gilt head bream

After dinner, we were surprised with an after dinner liqueur that we were told would make us sleep well and have good dreams – masticha, a traditional drink to the island of Chios. It was…interesting! We made it back to the metro by midnight and collapsed when we got to the apartment!

We’ve noticed that many Greeks have been incredibly nice to us since we got here! Connie at Smile, the server at Trehadiria (dinner), a random guy at the tram…we’ve loved it here and can’t wait to come back!