We travelled from Heathrow to Athens. We were concerned as we were departing from Terminal 5, but the experience was a lot better than expected. We decided to only take cabin baggage.
Athens was sunny and warm when we arrived. We took a taxi from the airport. It was quite a long way into the centre of Athens. The driver was very pleasant and drove carefully.
We stayed in Athens for two nights at the Hotel Plaka, which was down a narrow road in the old part of Athens. The room was fine, and had a balcony, but unfortunately the view was of a corrugated iron roof so we didn't use it!! The hotel was an old building, its best feature being the roof terrace with a very good view of the Acropolis. It looked very close from the roof, but not if you walked up to it. The Acropolis is especially beautiful at night, when it’s all lit up, almost looks as if it is floating above the city.
The ancient and historic sites in Greece are breath-taking. The tickets we bought at The Acropolis included eight Athenian sites to visit. We managed to do seven in two days, although the ticket was valid for a week. The Acropolis is impressive, even with the cranes inside the main building and parts of the site fenced off. We must have walked miles. It is very busy most of the time. There were a lot of school parties from France, Germany, Italy and Greece, occasionally even a British group. This was the same in the other places we visited. As with young people anywhere they weren’t very good at leaving space for people walking in the other direction, and on a steep path this was interesting!
We ate outside in a restaurant in Athens, this was pleasant on the first night, but the weather changed on the second day, the wind rose and it became cooler. The restaurant had outside heaters, this was an experience as the heaters' burners kept being blown out. The locals said it was very unusual for it to be like this in April.
Next day we had a car delivered to our hotel. After a very interesting time trying to find our way out of Athens, especially in the part when all the signs were understandably in Greek, we made our way to Delphi.
The hotel in Delphi we stayed in was in lovely setting, on a hill. Delphi is very hilly, the roads in the town run parallel, with many many steps between the levels. I tried to count them but lost count, as I am not that steady on my feet and decided it was better to concentre on walking.
I have always wanted to visit Delphi, after reading books on Greek archaeology. I wasn’t disappointed with the place, though the weather was misty. Maybe this why I didn’t see the ‘Oracle’!
We decided to go to the Peloponnese for the last couple of days. We went to Tolon. It was hot here, although still only April, apparently it is one of the first parts of Greece to become warm. It was a pleasant little town with several restaurants. We took the hotel proprietor’s advice, and went to a very nice restaurant.
We visited Mycenae, with the Lion Gate, (somewhere I had wanted to see for years), but found it was not as impressive as Athens or the Cretan Minoan sites. We went to Epidaurus, which is worth visiting, again the school parties were very much in evidence, this was enjoyable as several people stood in the circle and spoke so we could hear high up.
On the drive back to Athens airport, we stopped to view the Corinth Canal, and watched a couple boats coming through.
Our arrival back at Heathrow went smoothly, as we didn’t have to collect any luggage. A thoroughly enjoyable break overall.
