anyway, I'm now on my way to the island of kythera. I've spent the last 3 days seeing the sights of Athens and I went on a day trip to a town called Napflio yesterday.
Ok, details:
Tuesday night - made my way to a backpackers right next to the acropolis, it was expensive (25 eur) but it was in a great location - a 2 min walk to the base of the acropolis. the backpackers is owned by an australian woman and so, of course, there were aussies working there. i was like 'geez, I come to Europe and am surrounded by annoying Australians'. well they weren't all annoying but some of them def were. but of course talking to the backpackers there, apparently there are australians everywhere - often drunk on the different greek islands. so i have to accept i can't get away :)
Anyway, spent Wednesday and Thursday walking around the centre of Athens seeing the sights - the acropolis, temple of olympic zeus, the plaka area. it was bloody hot and i walked for hours on end (around a few sits of an hour or so). It really is an amazing city. everywhere there is ancient bits and pieces in amongst modern-ish apartments, cafes, and train stations. even though people have complained about how busy Athens is, i really loved it. i would live there if someone offered me a perfect job there :)
View of the Parthenon from Filopappos Hill (I think that's what it's called). Loved that place - so quiet, no hordes and just a great view of the whole city. Yesterday, I just had to get out of athens and that backpackers. i would have gone on thursday but i met a couple of american blokes (Hyrum and Rustin) who were really cool and we went to the Acropolis and took stupid photos of ourselves, good old self-timer cameras!! Oh and that night, Andrew from UQ Beach Volleyball Club rocked up to the roof of the backpackers. How cool is that!! Hadn't seen the bloke in like 5 years, and there he was. And it was his only night in Athens!!
Andrew, me and some other chicks at the roof-top bar of the backpackers. Acropolis all lit-up in the background.
[below] obligatory pic of me next to the Parthenon!
Theatre of Dionysis - what a great show!!
Anyway, back to yesterday (fri. it's now 11am saturday morning - 6pm brissie time). i packed up and took the metro (80c) to a bus stop and caught a bus (50c) to the intercity bus terminal. i didn't really know where i wanted to go but i was thinking delphi, up north, where there are the oldest greek ruins (or something) or down south of athens to napflio. got to the bus station and asked for a ticket to delphi, and the (relatively unfriendly) bus lady said i had to go to a different terminal.
So I got a ticket to Napflio instead and met an NZ chick who had just bought a ticket to go there too.
[left] Napflio beach - the castle is just up the top there to the left of the edge of the pic.
[below] pic of me part-way up to the top of the castle...
It was a beautiful place - private, protected beach with music playing and a very trendy restaurant overlooking the beach. And above the beach, a beautiful castle on the top of a massive cliff. I went up there after - it was a great workout, had sore calves for 3 days after. Will try to get some pics up when I can.
The Plaka area - older streets surrounding the Acropolis area. Really cool to walk around.
[below] Temple of Olympic Zeus, MY FAVOURITE. Only 15 of the original 104 (17m-high) columns remain.
Sacred dogs? (Visitors are not allowed to smoke in this area or take pics holding anything up eg. flag, book but dogs can walk around the columns and 'answer the call of nature' wherever they want...
No comments:
Post a Comment