Our last stop of our trip was Athens where we stayed for 2 nights and 1 day. At the time that we were there Athens was in the middle of a taxi strike and they were still having protests/demonstrations. Thankfully our hotel in Santorini informed us about the taxi strike. Matt looked up the bus schedule and found a bus we could take from the airport that would drop us off about 1 block away from our hotel. As soon as we walked out of the airport we spotted bus 95 and Matt said this was the right one (how lucky right?? Wrong!) The bus was packed and we were standing in the aisle holding all of our luggage. Our stop was at Syntagma Constitution Square, a huge Square where the Greek Parliament building was and we were told “You can’t miss it.” Well after about 40 minutes of not seeing it Matt went and asked the driver and apparently we were on the wrong bus! We were supposed to be on the 96 bus. The driver told us we needed to get off and wait for another bus line that would take us to our stop. He let us off in a very sketchy area of Athens. We had our 2 huge suitcases and all of our bags at a bus stop right by the train tracks. We stuck out like sore thumbs and might as well have put signs on our backs that said “Mug Us Please!” We waited what felt like hours but was actually probably only about 25 minutes for the right bus. At this point we had about a half an hour drive to our stop. When we came up to our stop we found that they were having a huge protest in the Square in front of the Greek Parliament Building. Our hotel is adjacent to the Parliament Building so we had to walk through the Square to get to our hotel.
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| Part of the protest in front of the Parliment Building |
Anyone who watches the news knew about these protests so I was prepared and I knew we were staying was right by where it was going on. I had email the hotel before our arrival and was assured everything was back to normal. I would not say everything was normal but the protests were more like scheduled demonstrations so everyone knew when they would be going on. They were very tame and nothing like the media had been showing the weeks before. Still it was not what I wanted to see after our nearly two hour adventure from the airport. We anticipated getting to our hotel around 9:00 pm but did not get in until after 11:00 pm. We had not eaten dinner and were starving but I had had enough action for one night and was not up for venturing outside the hotel to find a restaurant in the middle of the demonstration. I noticed there was a McDonalds in the Square right by our hotel so Matt offered to grab us dinner from there and bring it back to our room. Believe it or not this was music to my ears, haha!
We stayed at The King George Palace which was adjacent to the Greek Parliament Building (where all the protests took place). Thankfully our room did not face the Square so we were not bothered by the protesters and the noise (they lasted until very late). However, I would not recommend this hotel. The hotel is supposed to be a great one but I was unimpressed. They made no effort to contact us and tell us about the taxi strike (thankfully our previous hotel in Santorini told us). When I heard about the strike and contacted them to see if they had any plans for how to get guests to the hotel (many other hotels started offering shuttle vans from the airport etc.) they had nothing to offer me except a private car service for 200 Euros for a 25 minute drive- no thank you! In an effort of redemption we went to the Concierge Desk to
complain talk about how to get a ride back to the airport besides the bus (I was not up for taking the bus again after our last experience). And they did offer a private car to take us to the airport for a very reasonable price but where was this option when I had inquired 2 days earlier?!?
Our experience in Athens the next day made up for our less than stellar experience the night before.We slept in the next morning and went to explore. On the plus side, our hotel was in a great location to walk to everything. We walked around Monastiraki and did a lot of shopping. Athens had the best shopping in my opinion. We had lunch at a great kabob restaurant (Matts favorite meal of our trip). Then of course we walked to the Acropolis and back to the hotel.
Our hotel had a restaurant that was very famous and supposedly one of the best in Athens, Tudor Hall. Tudor Hall is known for its view of the Acropolis if you sit outside. We had a very early morning flight out of Athens so we decided to eat dinner here. The view was incredible, the food was alright but nothing to write home about and the service was not great (can you tell I am not a fan of this hotel?? Haha!) We had a table outside and a great view of the Acropolis all lit up and beautiful! However, we could also see the Greek Parliament Building where they were having another demonstration and you could hear them randomly screaming things in Greek through a megaphone. I really wish we could have understood what they were saying!
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| View of the Acropolis from the restaurant |
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| View from dinner at Tudor Hall |
Overall I feel like Athens did redeem itself in my mind during the day we got to spend exploring but I do feel like we would have had a totally different perspective if we would have visited it at a different time.
This was the end of our Italy/Greece vacation. The entire trip was amazing and we have so many great memories we got to share. My only regret is taking so long to blog about it! I will try to be better from now on!
