Athens Reviews -General

As most tourists, we stayed only for a couple of nights in Athens before we went to the islands. I suggest you to stay at least one more night because there are so many things to do and to see that you always have to be in a hurry to have time for all, which ends up very tiring and stressful, and for me this is not vacations! Vacations should be relaxing, not exhausting. Anyway, the good thing about Athens is that most things you need to do is around the town centre, so jut have relaxed feet and comfortable trainers for walking!

The Acropolis is surely a must and probably the most impressive site in the city. All this elegancy will amaze you, be sure of this! I was mostly amazed with the details of the statues and the temples. How could they be so punctual when they were actually working marble?

The new Acropolis Museum is just opposite the site. The idea to built it on top of an archaeological site and to use the glass on the floor was truly brilliant, but the organization inside was poor. Labels were only in Greek and English and in most cases, we couldn't understand both of them. Couldn't there be an audio system in many languages to explain visitors what they see? I have seen this system in many museums of the world, why not in such an important place?

The rest of the sites in Athens are found around the Acropolis. On one side, there is the temple of Zeus and the Arch of Hadrian and a bit further Zappeio and the impressive Panathenaic Stadium. On the other side, there is Thissio with the beautiful cafes and Monastiraki with the Ancient Agora. The temple of Hephaestus in Agora was equally impressive with the Acropolis, maybe because of the size. It must be the best preserved ancient temple in Greece and I was surprised that I hadn't known of it before. You should really advertise more monuments like these!

Plaka and Monastiraki are the places to be in the afternoon. Days can be exhausting in Athens with so much walking under the sun and you will surely get a headache from the car noise and the horns. Why people in Greece are so obsessed with horns? But Plaka and Monastiraki are two quiet places to be. Roads are paved and cars are not allowed to enter, so at least you save yourselves from this trouble. You can walk around and around and surprisingly you don't get lost. Every road will have something new to see but all will lead you to a familiar place: a metro station, a square or the road you passed before. In Plaka, there are some small places to eat. I like those places better than the kebab-venues outside the station of Monastiraki. Food was better in Plaka, I think.

The second day we took the tour to Sounio, a cape in the south with the temple of Poseidon on it. Yes, the temples was impressive, but the view was out of belief, almost equal to the view of the volcano in Santorini. I could almost get dizzy from all this blue sea. Next summer we will book a tour in Delphi or Mycenae. It is an easy and trouble-free way to see places. If we have more time, we might rent a car and drive in the mainland a bit. We have seen so many Greek islands, but almost no mainland at all.