found lots of cats all around athens, many on this site, and they were friendly

more cats :)

christian church added later

Good views from the site, of course:

parthenon doesn't look nealy as good

The museum was good:

this was actually a sensus counter for voting

The temple was in pretty good shape:

Also found that athens had wild tortoises roaming around

took the less busy south entrance, got in a few mimutes

While expectations were probably higher than they should have been, overall the place had suffered too much damage over the years and looked a bit disappointing to me. The fact that it used to house a church for a while, and was also used a munition depot and that a lucky shot during a war, ignitied and exploded all the black powder, causing a huge explosion, did not help. I was disappointd that after 40 years of renovations, it still looked like mostly pile of rubble, but was told later that there is apparently some rule that says you can only add 30% of missing materials, beyond that you're supposed to leave things alone. This is not my field, but I'd have been happy to seen it rebuilt, even if other material, to get a better feel for it. Of course the fact that the british stole half of what was left of the 2 triangle roofs and are keeping it in the british museum, did not help.

what is left of the decorations, the rest were stolen by the british

michoko bird!

The side temple, Erechtheon, looked a bit better:

One big plus of that location is that you can see all of athens from it and see many other sights:

what left of the temple of Olympian Zeus

and the rebuilt Panathenic Stadium where the 2004 olympic games were held

So maybe it was a bit bittersweet, but still very nice to see this site that was on my bucket list for sure

Athens had been on my TODO list for a long time of course, and while Rick Steves recommends 3 full days to do a good visit, it became clear after the first day that most everything else would fit on the 2nd day, so that freed up the 3rd day for a day trip to [Delphi and Arachova, the latter city was actually super fun and pretty (blog clickme)|].

So, I'll start by mentioning cabs. They have a monopoly and too many are crooks that refuse to use their meters. If you step in one, they'll decide how much they want to charge you (usually double or triple the meter rate). Also, they hang out outside monuments and wait for "customers" to fall into their trap:

The only way around is to uber which calls a cab, about half will refuse to take you unless you turn off uber and give them the same flat fee, but eventually one will be honest. Still, pain in the ass...

Athens Day1: Parthenon, Agora and Roman Agora, Pssyri, and Kerameikos

Some of the sights are on their own page, starting with the obvious:

View from the top to scope the next destinations:

After the Parthenon, a somewhat steep climb down through small streets, brings you to other sights included in the ticket:

saw multiple tortoises in the city

Lots of touristy streets:

The Rick Steves Book recommended a Pssyri and Central Market walk, so I did followed that:

they added nice murals to a run down area

food stops :)

On that tour, found this gem:

The spices and market area was very cool to visit:

lots of cats to pet :)

Ther other big site for that day was the:

A church or two on the way:

more museums, kerameikos cemetary and museum:

This is where I'll admit that it was only 16:00 and therefore there were 4 more hours of museums that could been done, but due to travels, lingering cold and short nights, the day ended here. That said, still time for dinner:

Athens Day2: All the Museums, and More

A short walk away was the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Honestly there is very little left of it and it's skippable (nice history, but there isn't much left of it, and the unfinished restoration didn't bring it back to its original grandeur). The Roman Hadrian Gate outside is more interesting in my opinion.

Hadrian's Gate still looks good today

From there, lots of museums to see:

From there, museum street was next, and five different museums to visit:

it's an interesting fork of christianity, with its own written language

ouch

also ouch :)

Athens Day3 Evening: Walk Around the Parthenon

A walk down Anafiotika

more cats :)

checked out a few tourist stores:

AFter finishing the loop of the Parthenon, ran into an easter parade, so I knew it was time to get the hell out before everything got blocked. By then many streets were already blocked and the uber had a hell of a time to get us back (took more than twice as long):

And that was it for Athens, time for bed and an eearly 07:00 ferry to Mykonos the next morning

storing black powder and ammunition there during the war

turned out to be a big mistake and responsible for most of the damage seen today

We was available of the collection, though, was first rate:

Initially going to Delphi didn't seem like a fun drive, just going to Olympia was already a fair trek, but I didn't originally factor it as a day trip from Athens with a tour bus (to avoid the 4H+ of driving). But due to limited time, I picked from getyourguide, which offered 2 tours, one that stopped 2H at Arachova and said pretty much nothing about what Arachova was or why it was a good idea to stop there.
As a result of the very poor getyourguide site (and you had one job), I picked what they called the "most popular" day trip which was indeed to Delphi only. Once on the trip, driving through Arachova and realizing how beautiful it was and why it was on the other tour that I didn't pick because I had no idea, now I had deep regret. Thankfully I was able to work something out to rescue to the day, do both Delphi and Arachova (With 2H in Arachova), and still catch the bus back to Athens.

Let's start with Delphi, though. It was another one of those pretty impressive places back in the day, of which there is only so much left today, so you have to read the descriptions and use your imagination along with the audioguide:

found a beautiful and probably poisonous spider on the way ;)

For comparison, thi is what the site used to look like back in the day:

The highlight was the top forum that is still in good shape:

From there, the rest higher up was apparently closed, but I managed to miss that and went to the top:

the top arena was not well maintained and probably hadn't been for a while

From there, I felt I saw all that could be seen, so I went to check out the museum which had a decent collection:

Once done with the museum, took a cab to nearby beautiful Arachova:

super colorful church

Lots of yummy and cheap shopping:

Cute little museum inside town:

The town was full of friendly cats

and after about 2H in town, walked to the bus pickup area, for the IG crowd ;)

and then, longish ride back to Athens, but so happy I didn't have to drive :)

The Island is still an active archeologic site, it's a bit amazing that they let us walk around unsupervised, walking on the actual site, and probably causing some light damage to it:

the famous Delos lions

Friendly cats were an unexpected part of the attraction:

I might have had a few snacks for them :)

After about 2h on the island, it was time to get back, the boat was waiting for me :)

not bad for a boat, but not fast compared to a plane.

The first stop was another island, further delaying the already late arrival:

finally, 1H late....

After arriving, picked up a higher power quad (thankfully, the cheaper lower power ones would have been totally useless on that hilly island):

A few museums to visit:

wonderful old mosaics left over

Mykonos has lots of friendly cats:

And of course Mykonos is well known for its pretty painted houses and churches, as well as windmills:

The old town was fun to walk through, lots of small streets:

Then, due to timing not lining up, time to burn before the late boat to Delos:

absolutely overpriced dessert, not bad, but sold for 27 times its price of 1E

Eventually it was time for the late boat to Delos with a good guide who actually used to be part of the team working on the escavations (clickme):

After the tour, went back to the very nice hotel for the night:

The 2nd day was a toss, either take an early-ish ferry around noon, or go around the island. In hindsight, going around the island wasn't that interesting and the noon-ish boat was probably 1H late anyway, so it would have been possible to go around for a while and then take the boat to Santorini. Taking the later boat to Santorini was a mistake, itwas very late and got there past midnight.

found a nice bakery

Then had some time to burn for late lunch and then time to check out a few beaches, although they were windy:

rode by the airport I never used and maybe should have

And after the ride, went to the boat, and waited for it over 1H since it was late like every day...

Boat arrived quite late (close to midnight), it was nice inside and fairly empty:

the boat being chronically late, opens its doors while still arriving in port to save a few minutes

better late than never...

I'll skip the terrible experience with the rental car dropoff at the boat, and the village idiot we ended up being stuck with and that wasted an entire hour making himself feel important, and eventually arrived quite late at the beautiful hotel with fantastic views:

The next morning, after some needed rest, enjoyed a great breakfast with view:

and then it was time to drive around the island to see the many viewpoints:

still a volcanic island

A lot of history on this island, all the way to potentially being the lost island of Atlantis (the part of it that ended up being swallowed by water after a volcanic eruption)

this used to be an entire crater filled with water

how things changed

One level down, there are actual leftovers of a city:

this is one of the most famous paintings

From there, I went to downtown Fira to enjoy some tourist stuff:

Lots of viewpoints on the road:

cable car from old town

The heart of santorini is a nice hole in a rock:

Next was another archeological site, interesting ruins:

Plenty of cats in Santorini too:

Then continued the island tour:

From there, drove up to ancient thera, another archeological site, which unfortunately was closed early and closed the next day. It's supposed to not be essential, but kind of sucks to get all the way there, just to be turned back at the gate. At least there were good views form the top:

So instead, I opted to visit a couple of wineries. Santorini is very arid, but somehow they still have a tradition of making wine:

The first winery also had an art gallery:

The 2nd winery had a fantastic wine museum that was beyond expectations, literally one of the best such museums in the world:

Then went to the museum:

Cool to see what happened to Santorini:

After that, time to grab dinner and enjoy the view from the hotel and sunset:

Fun to compare with the next morning:

For the 2nd day, I picked a boat tour recommended by the hotel, which ended up being the wrong choice. I did want to see the craters and actually "do stuff" like get off the boat and be on islands, however this boat did not offer that, and felt like mostly a waste of time, even if it did offer some views:

intersting colors on the rocks

other people in the boat went to bathe, but water was kind of cold and I don't really go in the water unless it's to snorkel or dive :)

they offered a nice lunch

After the boat tour that burnt most of the day, there was a bit of time to drive around:

While I thought it would be a tourist trap, in the end Lost Atlantis Experience was actually an interesting interactive museum that makes plenty of fair points that the Lost City of Atlantis, if it existed, may very well have been in Santorini as a good portion of it did sink under water level due to volcanic activity:

This video does a good job explaining what happened to the island:

From there, it was time to drive to the north side by Oia to visit this charming little town where many go see the sunset. The route there was interesting:

Finally, Oia:

then an early morning flight the next day to fly to Malta. Santorini was a beautiful island, great to have seen it.

Notes below:

Thoughts about Greece:

All in all, definitely recommended trip and Santorini was an unexpected highlight: