DAY 1

After about 20 hours of traveling we finally arrived in Athens, Greece. Steve could not wait to get off the plane.

We don't want to get into much detail, but we almost missed our entire honeymoon because Amtrak decided to delay our train to Newark Airport by one hour.

Anyway we made it safely to Athens. We hopped on the metro to downtown Athens, and it was only a short walk from the station to the Hotel Adrian where we were staying.

After watching the sunset we enjoyed our first Greek meal at a little place called Ouzeri Kouklis. The restaurant specializes in mezedes, small tapas-like dishes. There were two highlights: flaming sausages and really really cheap wine (1L for 4 euros)!

DAY 2

We woke up to a beautiful day in Athens. The tempeture was perfect, not too hot. We went up to the roof of the hotel for breakfast and we were pleased to find good food along with a nice view. The best part was the fresh squeezed orange juice.

After breakfast we visited the Acropolis. Our tour book had warned us that one should never visit Athens in July or August due to the massive crowd of tourists that make sightseeing impossible. However, we disagree! Even though there were a lot of people, there was plenty of space for everybody. On the Arcopolis we saw the Pantheon, the Temple of Athena Nike,and the Erechtheion (with the famous karyatid pillars).

Next we went to vist the Temple of Olympic Zeus...or what is left of it, which is not very much. Directly across from the temple was Hadrian's gate.

We grabbed lunch around Central Market, which is the city's main meat and fish market. They sell lots of weird stuff including declious skinned goat heads. We were going to buy some goat heads for lunch, but we got a couple of gyros instead.

We decided to wrap up the day with a visit to the summit of Lykavittos, the highest hill in Athens. We got a great view of the city. At the top of the hill is the whitewashed 19th century chapel of Agios Georgios and a cool-looking bell tower. To get to the summit you can take the cablecar or walk up by foot...guess which one we chose. At the summit we of course took many pictures as you can see below.

DAY 3

We got up really early and headed to a guided tour of Delphi. Our tour guide was a short, blond-haired Greek lady with way too much energy. It took about 3 hours to get to Delphi by bus. The tour was actually pretty good. Our guide explained the history of Delphi and the temple of Apollo in about one hour, then let us loose for 45 minutes, giving us just enough time to explore on our own. The tour guide then took us to the Archeological Museum at Delphi. By this point, our heads were totally full and we were not very interested in learning more history. However, one thing that kept us awake was watching the many tour guides fighting for space in front of famous historical artifacts. It reminded us of a turf war between rival gangs. There was a lot of yelling in Greek and we were afraid that it might come down to a fist fight.

We left Delphi and returned to Athens. We walked around trying to find the "Sound and Light Show" which we decided simply does not exist. On the way we did find the "Ghetto-Gora", which is an open area next to the Ancient Agora. After sunset, the tourists are replaced by pot-smoking local young hooligans. Steve insisted that we walk through the "Ghetto-Gora". Luckily, we survived without harm. Of course we couldn't take a picture at the time with our fancy new camera. So we had to go back during broad daylight the next day to take the picture.

That night we went to a vegetarian restaurant called "Eden". The food was good but the service was uncharacteristically horrible. For an instance, we almost thought we were back in Philadelphia. Maybe it's the lack of meat that made our waitress so unfriendly : )

DAY 4

Our last day in Athens was scorching hot. It was by far the hottest day we have had since arriving in Greece, perfect for a day filled with indoor activity such as the National Archeological Museum. Some people would suggest spending all day at a museum that is filled with such wonderous treasures, however, we had a different approach. We feel that any museum can be adequately visited within about an hour, maybe two at the max. Below is a selection of our favorite pieces from the museum. On the left is Aphrodite fending off Pans' insidious advances with her shoe. In the middle is a very happy guy. On the right is the famous statue of Poseidon (or Zeus??)

After the museum, we stopped by a cafe for a drink. Steve was tempted by everything in the display case, especially the chocolate croissant (shown below). Of course Winnie decided it would be a good idea to skip lunch because we have been gorging ourselves everynight since we arrived.

We then took the metro to Pireas to check out the ferry port, where our ferry to Santorini will depart from the next day. We looked around the city for a bit, but it was pretty much a dump. After returning to Athens, we spent our final hours visitng the Ancient Agora. Calling it a "visit" is a stretch because we were basically hopping from one shady spot to the next looking for good places to sit. We were very exhausted by this time but could not miss the opportunity to visit the famous Ancient Agora.

Our days in Athens were filled with lots of walking, sightseeing, and yummy food. All the ingredients of a good time. We were now ready for some serious R & R in Santorini.