Athens, Greece
Our morning arrival at Athens I'd picked the left side of the plane correctly as we passed over the port of Piraeus and Athens city. Athens is a big field of white chalk like boxes. It was hard to make anything out or any of the landmarks.
Most cities are building new airport terminals well outside the city. There is a long mountain range the blocks the view of Athens so I couldnt see anything after we came inland from the coast.
Using my British passport now (while I still can before Brexit) I went into the EU line which had nobody and I was able to scan my passport and go thru the automatic doors. The morning air was breezy and the mid 20s heat hadnt kicked in yet.
There is an airport station but confusingly has intercity trains to other cities and the local metro. There are not clear signs or information for either which counter to buy tickets from or which platform to use.
The metro ticket was 10 Eu ($15) one way into the city. Trains come every 30 minutes and I'd just missed the train that left. The journey was 45 mins and I wasnt sure how to validate my ticket as I read warnings on wiki travel and there were signs posted the penalty is 60x the ticket price = 600 Eu!!.
The train station Monastiraki is right in the historic heart of Athens with view of the Acropolis. There are also some ruins in the station.
I navigated my way to my hotel passing thru the immigrant neighbourhood with Pakistanis, Bengalis, Africans, Chinese and ethnic shops with writing in Urdu.
My hotel claimed to have the best view of the Acropolis. I had the top floor with an outdoor terrace. You could see the Acropolis but it was a distant city view. There was also now midday baking heat so you couldnt stay on the terrace.
After showering I slept for a few hours to recover from the flight and try to adjust my timings.
2025-05-23