Friday 14th June 2019
Our plan today was fairly straightforward, to visit Athens to see The Parthenon and any other attractions that took our fancy.
The Camping Athens owner had given us extremely good instructions of where to buy public transport tickets, which buses to take to the station, and which train line to take to the centre of Athens.
Big city protocol employed, anything of value zipped in the camera bag, we set off and arrived without problem near the Acropolis where we stopped for a tasty breakfast and cooling iced coffee.
We then made our way to the ticket office for the Acropolis and slopes. Not particularly well signed we joined a queue and stood for approximately 20 minutes in direct sun before reaching the kiosk.
Two tickets please? €40, cash only. We have 30. “Go to the main ticket office to pay with card”.
10 minutes walking in direct sun leads us to the main office. Queue not too long and we soon have our tickets. Back on track.
We climbed up the steep stairs to enter the former temple which was completed around 432BC. The city views all around are simply spectacular.
Whether it was lack of sleep (the campground is by far the noisiest we have stayed on), the excessive heat, dehydration, or just the shear number of rude people around, I wasn’t feeling the occasion.
We stopped for a bottle of water, and, realising I was close to the home of mathematics, I theorised as to why I wasn’t enjoying it and came to the following conclusion;
Before leaving we looked down upon the Odeon Herodes Atticus, considered one of the best open air theatres in the world. I can imagine it being a fine place to listen to a concert.
We made our way back down to street level by the northern, shaded, slopes for a cold soda.
Discovering that the Metro staff had called a strike between 14:00 and 18:00 we walked toward our next destination, The Greek Parliament Building, where we hoped to see the changing of the guard. With time to spare we took lunch in Hard Rock Café where we paid excessive prices for beer and burger but revelled in the air conditioned coolness 🙂
After the changing of the guard we made our way through the National Garden passing these magnificent tall palms on the way in.
Taking advantage of the shading from the trees above we made our way to our final target, The Panathinaic Stadium.
Home of the first Modern Olympic Games in 1898, it has 50,000 seats and is the only stadium in the world constructed entirely of marble.
We made our way back through the park and spotted a nice looking bar for a beer before making our way back to camp. We both had our phones out while we waited for service.
We had our beers and made our way back to the Metro where we boarded an extremely packed train with standing room only, tightly squeezed.
Subsequently we boarded a bus back toward camp and it was ten minutes into this journey that I noticed my wallet, complete with iPhone, debit card, credit cards, and driving licence, camping card, the lot, was missing.
Using the Find My iPhone app I located its position and we returned by car to the spot but nothing was found.
Back to camp to cancel all the cards, lock the phone, order new driving licence (two weeks), and drown the sorrows in G&T. Bugger
Saturday 15th June 2019
After a very bad nights sleep with the windows open next to the racetrack that is the road outside camp we this morning made our way back into the city to report our loss to the Tourist Police. We filled out a report and were given a crime number.
Although no-one has asked to see my driving licence on the whole trip I’m now concerned about heading toward Bulgaria & Romania as planned. I do have a International Driving Permit in the car but don’t yet know if that’s OK on it’s own.