Get him to the Greek

We got up and caught the train back to Roma airport. After rejigging some baggage we passed the sleazy jet weight restrictions on luggage even though when there was nothing on the scales it said 2kg. Jerks. We then went through security and found we couldn't take some olive oils on the carry on due to the liquid allowance, this wasn't signed anywhere in the airport until the security area. Signs saying you can't take guns/explosives aboard were everywhere though. Once again Italy's helpful signage got us one last time. Anyway we got into Athens and disembarked a few gourmet delights lighter.

We caught the train to Sintagma station which was a pretty good area to stay in, (good work Heidi) and hauled our bags to the hotel. We had a bit of a walk around and I had a burger because I was starving. We then found a place for a drink, Heidi ordered a half kg of wine and I got a beer. When a half litre of wine came out Heidi was shocked that it was so much, I was not sure what she was expecting. Maybe she was sick for the day of the science class about the metric system volumes vs weight.

The nice man who owned the place asked where we were from and when we said Australia he went inside and returned with a plate of carved meat for free. We did a bit more walking around and saw a few ruins that the city seems to be plagued by. One thing we noticed that was a bit worrying was parked around the city were buses full of police in riot gear and ready to go at a moments notice.

Surely this should have been cleaned up by now?

For dinner we went to this great place near our hotel. The staff were really friendly, one of the waitresses said she had family in Australia but her dad wouldn't let her go see them because he said she wouldn't want to come back. Anyway I had some pork belly with green beans and Heidi had a chicken kebab. Even though it was pork belly it was potentially one of the healthiest meals had this holiday because of the veges.

The next day after the complimentary hotel breakfast we went to see the changing of the guards outside parliament house. It happens every hour but the Sunday one at 11am is the best one to see because it includes a full marching band and they shut off the street for all the pomp and ceremony. It takes about 20 minutes and there's police yelling at people to form a line so the guys can get through. I was tempted to help the policeman by yelling out "HOLD SPARTANS!" but I wasn't sure how that would go down.

Yes, those are pom poms on their boots.

After this we walked up to catch a vernicular to this spot which has a 360 degree view of the sprawling mass that is Athens. There was a bar up there which was out of the wind, so we  went there for a beverage. When we got back down we went for lunch at the grill place who gave us a free plate of miscellaneous meats. We were welcomed back with a lot of hand shaking and pats on the back by the nice owner. After having some pork carvings he gave us some free yogurt with honey and a shot of miscellaneous booze.

Us and the sprawl

Since it was my birthday we decided to have some cocktails at the Hilton. On the way there we saw a protest, it looked pretty peaceful but there were a lot of police on hand to no doubt keep the working man down. Anyway we had a few drinks and cocktails overlooking Athens as the sun was going down and it was all very nice.

The next morning we went to the Acropolis before it got too hot as going to ruins in the heat of the day is not much fun. For the Acropolis you have get these tickets which they tear off a section every time you walk through an area. Europeans love the ticket validation. The Acropolis was a nice change of white ruins from the red brick ones of Rome which we were getting a bit sick of.

I think this bit was restored. There's a lot of restoration being done right now.

This was not right at the Acropolis but was apparently the best preserved building there.

For lunch we went to this bar that had an actual lawn, I thought Greeks despised lawn and loved the concrete which they can easily use a Greek broom ie. a hose to clean with, but this place was different and quite novel. We had a feta stuffed capsicum and some mince stuffed eggplant and a few drinks there.

We had a walk around then went for to a bar which was next to the place we went on the first night. Heidi liked it as it was dark and "ambient". I had a champagne since I didn't get any birthday champagne as a champagne at the Hilton was about 20  euros. I was a bit miffed about there being a massive strawberry in my champagne as I am like why are you messing with champagne? It does not need to be messed with, but what are you going to do about first world problems?

We then went to the same place as we did on the first night for dinner, except this time I had the lamb and it was awesome. Heidi had a whole sea bass awww yeah. They were really happy to see us as they recognised Heidi's favourable trip advisor review and asked if it was us. Heidi said yes she did review it and they were really happy.

Lamb rack with stuffed tomato

So far the Greeks have been really awesome, from the hotel service to the restaurants they're all really friendly. We didn't have to drive in Athens so maybe we would have a different opinion then, but Athens was a really cool city to visit.