Greece (Part 1): The Arrival

I decided to go to Greece on a whim. I was drinking at a brewery. It was about 8 hours before my flight. I didn't even have a flight yet. I booked the flight same day, on kayak.com. Round trip, Lufthansa Airlines, $562. Layovers in Germany.

I left at 8:35 PM. I arrived at around 1 AM. 3 days later.

For my accommodation, I went with trusty booking.com. Earos Urban Living, a 9.5 out of 10. "2.1 miles from the center of Athens." No worries, Athens is one of the greatest cities in the world. I expect to find world class public transportation and I like staying further from the city center sometimes. I've learned to trust booking.com's top recommendation.

I took the bus from the airport to Syntagma Square, the center of Athens. Quite a bus ride. The driver slammed on the gas and the streets looked like Baghdad. Graffiti everywhere. A graffiti writer even got on the bus and exited at Syntagma Square and immediately started tagging.


Earos Urban Living. I had coordinated with the hotel because I was arriving in the middle of the night and they had given me a password for their gate and also to retrieve my key. While touring Athens, their address would give me problems on my maps app, so I used the name of a business across the street from it: Cycle Services S.A.


The airport express bus to Syntagma Square. It runs 24/7 and it was about 5 bucks. Make sure you purchase the ticket at the ticket machine outside and then board the bus. The bus driver drove super fast and a speed bump sent us flying!

I was planning on taking another bus to my hotel, and I found the bus stop, which was around the corner, and I came across about 30 people waiting for the bus at 2 AM, mostly young adults. They weren't threatening, just waiting for the bus, and I couldn't find a ticket machine for bus tickets.

I waited for about 10 minutes, and then an empty cab pulled up and the cab driver went to get some food at the open shop behind us. I decided to just go with the cab, and that's when the bus arrived. Oh well, how much could a 8 minute drive cost? The cost was around 7 euros, but I didn't have any euros, only a twenty dollar US bill and two 1 dollar bills. I left my new friend, a Bulgarian taxi driver in Greece, with a couple of 1 dollar souvenirs. 

Earos Urban Living is about 2 miles south of Syntagma Square, which you could say is within walking distance of The Acropolis. My hotel was in between Syntagma Square and the eastern Mediterranean Sea, both reachable by bus. Basically, the road from Syntagma Square down to my hotel, then down to the beach, is a main street, or the main street of Athens. And that street is called Andrea Syngrou Avenue.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Athens (Part 6): The Last Day

Image
I felt like I didn’t really understand Athens yet, like I’ve walked the streets and tried the food but I didn’t really understand the history. Who are the modern Greek people and what have they been through? So I decided to go to the Athens War Museum and the National Historical Museum. I wanted to go to the National Archaelogical Museum also if I had time, it was a Sunday and all 3 museums close early on Sundays. I didn’t have anything to worry about. I went to the war museum and was underwhelmed. Same with the National Historical Museum but at least it was in a cool area, close to Syntagma Square and near the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens. I then took the metro to the National Archaelogical Museum and queued for a ticket. The National Archaelogical Museum was impressive, with great sculptures from 200-300 BC. It really displayed the greatness of Athens, an incredible society 2000 years ago. And then I went here:  https://maps.app.goo.gl/GT9bjjQ5kNskUnaz7?g_st=ic , and got a mo...
Read more

Greece (Part 2): The Agora

Image
(The view from Earos Living to the main street. Syntagma Square is to the left and the sea is to the right.) Somehow I got some sleep. In Athens, there's obviously the Acropolis, but aside from that, there are 6 other ancient attractions that you could visit, and they are all connected, as in you could buy a ticket for all of them together if you want. I had read that somebody had went to "The Agora" first, and bought a ticket for all 7 attractions, including the Acropolis, there. I decided to do the same. Why go to the Acropolis first, and what if there are long lines there? It was a really good decision. I tried to take the bus to the Agora, but the bus was taking long, and I still didn't know how to pay for a bus ticket. So I walked across the main expressway, en route to the nearest subway station. That was about a 25 minute walk, inside the veins of Athens, a good opportunity to experience the neighborhoods. Everything paid off when I arrived at the ticket machin...
Read more