Athens - First day

1. My Greece Travel schedule of 4 days 3 nights

• Day 1 - Athens: Wandering the streets, up to the Acropolis;
• Day 2: Early morning to Santorini
• Day 3:  Santorini
• Day 4 in Athens: city tour with friends, evening going to the airport to fly back to Milan.

Early flight from Ciampino airport I have prepared for several months has taken me to the country I have long wished to visit in my journey around Europe, a flight that I still do not understand why I can buy such cheap tickets - Ryanair’s 20 euro fee from Rome to Athens. It was a great bargain deal and I did not miss it, of course.

Information about a Greece which is in a debt situation makes me curious to know what life in Athens should be  like, you also know I am a student studying Finance so during my time I remember URV Tarragona teachers have given many examples of the financial crisis in Europe, and the debt crisis of the Greek government, in particular.

I wonder if the price of living here is still good. In the short term, we can see that the road infrastructure is quite good, even the shuttle bus that I go to is very nice. Athens airport is quite large and even larger than some airports in Italy or Spain.

Of course, I saw this good infrastructure from the airport to the public transport system is the main source of Greece financial crisis. The Greek Government has spent a lot of money to improve the public transport system for the Olympics’ in Athens, which has deepened the country budget deficit.

However, as a tourist, I just enjoy the good public transport system with very cheap tickets compared to other nations in Europe.  There are about 2-3 different transit buses at the airport, with port and city center access,

But first I have to go to Port of Piraeus to get ferry tickets for my sister – Hien, she has failed to buy the flight ticket to Santorini  so she will go to Santorini by Blue Ferry whereas I will go there by flight.

• The Story of Getting Lost in Piraeus Port

During my stay in Europe, I came to Barcelona, Venice and Tarragona, the cities that I called the seas, but I had to come to Greece before I could enjoy the true Mediterranean sea.

It's just like the movie “ Mamma Mia “that I've seen, white houses with blue ocean at the horizon. Oh, I remember the Greek flavor of the sun and the winds of the land close to the Mediterranean, the sky is always blurry, the blue tone flags glistening stars that match.

In fact, I could feel all the new land when I stepped down to the port of Piraeus, where the important trade and tourism gateway of the country is famous for its numerous beautiful islands. The wind here is quite strong (because it is near the sea) but there is not a shadow of any beach here. Around the port shops are also very busy, mainly the cafes and offices of a number of shipping companies, travel companies.

Piraeus is the largest port in Athens; it is very wide and has many areas - gate for different ferry companies.

 I booked for Hien a ticket to Santorini's Blue Star through an agency and they asked us to print out the ticket before boarding. Fortunately, the Blue Star ferry office was at the bus stop.  ( Hien is late at booking the flight ticket so she has to go to Santorini by Blue Star ferry whereas I fly to Santorini from Athens)

• -          Hello, I have a ticket to Santorini tomorrow through Greeka.com and want you to print this ticket for me? - I give electronic ticket information to the employees of the ferry company.
• -          "Yes," she replied
• -          Oh, I see that the ticket was printed and sir. - The staff after a lingering time without telling me.

I stuttered wondering: I have never been here and also asked anyone to print tickets to us before it? I asked the staff to check it out, and they did not understand why and insisted that the tickets had already been printed. I asked how to verify, another employee said with a rather unkind attitude:

• - Please email them (say Greek.com)
• - Oh sorry but I'm a tourist and the phone does not have a network, can you let me use the network thanks to?
• "Then go out, wifi in all the places in this port." Her voice was harsher.

I started to feel hot but also tried to calm down and went out to try to connect to wifi in the port. Yes, free wifi is available everywhere in this area but I still can not connect, so I have to go into the office. For some reason, such a big ferry company is badly staffed, so why is this country going down? I got one last call to get me to the Greeka office, but it looks like today on Saturday and no one at the other end picked up the phone. There was no other way, and I tried to persuade them to find a way to solve it for me, but the response was just a very coarse attitude. They told us that we had checked and obviously the tickets had already arrived, we did not know and he asked the agency.

• - It is unacceptable, a bad country with bad people. - I shouted and walked away.

At this time I am quite confused, just annoyed the staff of the ferry company has worried about how to solve this problem. The calendar is tomorrow afternoon Hien will fly to Athen airport then she will go to Santorini, but I am still busy at the stage of printing this. In front of my eyes I went to a cafe near the port, connected to email asking Greeka to check and explain, but emailed and waited so long and still not see the response. Too introverted I went out, walked around the area around the harbor, asked all the tour companies because they explain and check, no one knows that help. Even finding the address of this agency company and going to ask it is very difficult because the information is so fuzzy that the path is also a torture, the Greek writing is like ancient pictography and is difficult to see. .

It was 2pm and after a long search asked as well as going around the entire Piraeus port area, I began to get discouraged. Wandering around a few times to ask a travel agency office nearby, convenient to sit by charging the phone always. The staff here seemed a little more courteous, receiving information about my booking code and checking, but the answer is the same. Broken, I sat down, sigh. The last option is probably to drop that ticket and buy another ticket for the trip tomorrow.

• Then I called Hien who was in Rome.
• - Hien , the ticket  we have a problem, they told the ticket already printed.Can you check it out for me? I am afraid that you have to buy a new ticket.
• Then she answered:
•  Sorry, I forgot to remind you, I set the wrong date once and asked Greeka refund, then booked another. Let me send you the code again.
•  
• I reply:
•  What's the hell? Next time you have to tell me. I have spent hours here.
•  

 A while later I received the code. Checking the mail again is correct. Oh gosh, turned out I offer the main ticket code is the old ticket that Hien has canceled, I felt angry with that. Then I tried and succeeded with the correct code, they printed the tickets. Both of these employees looked at each other and for some reason, only I knew. I was not happy to describe it, thanks to the huff and the relief.

From then on I realized that when I plan to travel with other friends, there are more problems to be solved on the trip.

After finishing the ticket, I returned to the bus station in the morning and found my way to the train station. Fortunately the train station at the bus stop a few feet away, I entered the city center where Victoria Street - My Zeus Hostel is located near there.

 

• Discover Athens – first day – first time.

Athens is not very typical of streets, houses and streets are quite close together, not many high buildings and architecture, style is also messy, inconsistent, not to say bad.

The strange thing here when I came was the deserted and gloomy over the city. Calling a sandwich in a street cafe, I sat for a moment to rest and observe everything in a strange land that I just arrived. The people here are quite calm, not very exciting and cheerful, but mostly middle-aged is much. I see very few young people and young people on the street, in bars or entertainment areas. Everyone's style is slow, nothing is rushed.

I asked the receptionist why this place was so deserted, quietly and shops were closed too. They say that tomorrow is the Easter holiday here or Easter, which is one of the most important days for Christians in Europe. And tomorrow is Sunday, all the shops here will be closed, no sales. OMG, it was so dark for me to come here on this occasion.

After checking in Zeus hotel and leaving the hostel, I rushed to the street to see if anything was good; because only in Athens was a day and a half and I could not waste any more time. But the result was a disappointment because the streets here were really dull, gliding through some streets that were nothing special and attractive to me. So I headed straight for the Acropolis, where the Acropolis and ancient Roman and other Roman monuments.

• Acropolis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acropolis_of_Athens

The Acropolis is located on a hill which not very high, the way up is quite easy because the tile is quite eye-catching and moderate slope. Around the foot of the hill is probably a tourist area in quite a lot and also many restaurants decorated tables and chairs on the way is very nice and polite, bold style of this country. I just follow the instructions available on the way and climb up.

There was a feeling left in me when I arrived in Greece and in Rome before, suddenly I "hated" the Louvre Museum of Paris, which I have been so eager to visit in the last 6 months

Now, I am overwhelmed, touched and moved by the marble pillars, the statues of ancient Greek architecture in the middle of the Acropolis. That day, the Acropolis was full of sunshine and the Mediterranean wind was completely different from the admiration but regret and tired of looking at the silent and idle statues in the Louvre's massive collection.

• Acropolis - the living museum

Maybe I like living museums like Athens, like the Acropolis or a huge outdoor museum like Rome, for me the living museums are the best museums in the world.

My photo - alright reserved.

Honest to you, as soon as the airplane circled in the blue sky, white clouds, I remembered the Greek myths that I have read from my childhood, about Achilles, Odysseus, Zeus , on the thought of Socrates, Plato, the things that I began to get acquainted with in high school seemed to come so close to me.

Having arrived at the airport, I remembered his Thai friend said: "Remember to repeat math before going to Greece." It is true that the four sides of the letters "Έ, λ, η, ν, ε, ς ...", to the name of the city of Athens, but I can deduce from the line that the word "Αθήνα" . From the first moment Athens was so enticing and mysterious!

• "Life at the Acropolis - Athens"

Blue sky and blue sea view from the airplane.

Perhaps many people are fascinated with the melodies in Yanni's Live at the Acropolis live concert. I am no exception. I knew of the legendary Acropolis of Athens from that record, so that when I was sitting among the stones left over from an ancient theater in the Acropolis, my mind was filled with Yanni's charismatic melodies.

The price of visiting the entire estate of Acropolis  is not cheap - twelve euros - but free of charge to students in the European Union.

 And so I am happy to hold my student card of URV , I just wander under the flowing olive trees which are believed to originated from Greece to the whole Mediterranean to spend a full day at the Acropolis.

It was sunny in the early morning, and I could wear sun visors, but I could not escape the cool breeze, the scent of Mediterranean olive trees blossoming all over.

• Mediterranean Fruit

The first impression of the Mediterranean for me was probably fruit. The trees here are green and strong to reach out to the sun and their fruit is fragrant, sweet. Even in the archaeological area in the Acropolis area is filled with ancient mulberry trees with large rounds of hug, wrong fruit, and dark fall under the feet. This is the "free" soft drink for me under the dazzling sun in this land. Another special thing is that everywhere here are seen soaring aloe Vera, yellow raspberry bush flower full of flowers and birds everywhere. These lively pieces make the pillars of the majestic stone standing here for thousands of years seem to be still beating the life of the modern world.

Reading about the history of Athens before arriving in Athens, I could not help but shake off the turmoil of Athens, despite the glorious splendor of thousands of years, but sometimes lost, only a small city under Ottomans. .

As in other places, I almost just read and memorize the destination before going, with Athens, I always have to embankment with a travel guide, as sometimes wandering on the way, I suddenly encountered the huge marble pillars, broken moss of the unknown. Their form is reminiscent of a monumental monument and certainly they are witnesses to a period of historic past. Having just read and imagined, I can imagine what part of where I stand, which contained a flourishing civilization, a center of ancient art and culture.

• How great it is, my Athena – the land of Gods?

  

Unlike my Vietnam, where the vestiges of the ancient city have disappeared, and the modern architecture of the French colonial period have taken these places, Athens still retains the typical Greek architectural style.

 

I was not good at understanding architecture, as I study Economics, but standing on the pillars of marble, rounded, carved at the top soaring in the sky, I realized the image of these massive pillars in the buildings in the Vatican, Rome, and Paris. Over the past few thousand years, almost the only remaining remains of the stone pillars in the same moon. The rest of the Parthenon, Erechtheion, with its pillar of six caryatids, also known as Caria slave girls carved in elaborate stone, show that these works have been scaled to size. Which level? Perhaps the eternal humanity still cannot fully answer the question: "Why thousands of years ago these huge marble pillars were grinding smooth, accurate to the millimeters, stacked up to Elevating a few dozen meters through such a mathematical calculations so ingenious ?! "

 

Then I went on to the high-tones of wind-blown high-pitched temples. I lived in the majestic setting of the ancient sacrifices with the Greek virgins crowning their laurels, New and beautiful as the thousand-year history of this great nation. From time to time, modern-day Greek men appear as suddenly appearing in the Acropolis, illustrating my imagination. They are tall and well-proportioned, with short curly hair, high straight nose, deep blue eyes, gentle face and solemn expression that hides all emotions inside.

Discovering the Acropolis and the city of Athens, I had to learn how to navigate the journey by being warned that it would be easy to fall into the doldrums of a series of dense different buildings on the Athens map. If the Acropolis clings to the traces of ancient Athens, the Roman Forum can be seen everywhere in Athens, the Obelisk, Many other Roman inscriptions in Athens. I visited the Temple of Olympia Zeus at the end of the day when the sun was almost off, the sun shone on the pillars cascading, surrounded by luxuriant vines make the scene becomes more mysterious.

I was not surprised to see the Che Guevara communist hero everywhere. Especially in the area of Syntagma Square, the statue of the shallow "red flag sickle" holds the important position. Communism held a prominent place in Greek history after World War II.

Greece is the land of the gods, the land of the heroes so they are worshiped and honored first class here. Monument to unknown soldiers, therefore, became an attractive destination of Athens. This monument is guarded all day and night by a guard, probably not the most handsome and unique in the world with the name "Evzones." Evzones are special because they have a stylish way of dressing up with dressing glasses, pom pom pom pom and pom poms. In the summer they wear khaki, blue winter and festive occasions the dress is a little more special. The costumes became much more beautiful because the wearer was the Evzones, which was the standard selection: 87 feet tall.

 

I arrived ten minutes before the changeover and witnessed a solemn but very natural, simple and witty ritual. The babies, after a brief moment of silent laughter, mimicked the Evzones, folding their feet in exchange for the doves at Syntagma Square. It was six o'clock in the afternoon.

• Old Town Plaka, Monastiraki Market: olive, wind and Greek cuisine

Still keeping the habit of wandering around in travel, I can not overlook the ancient square, where it is easy to get lost because a series of restaurants with the same landscape. Popular items include olive oil, food and cosmetics, as well as sea gifts such as sponge bath salts, slippery stones and snails. The market place is the same air. In addition to selling a variety of specialty items and products that satisfy the girls' shopping preferences, the Monastiraki market has a special touch to me. That is the Mediterranean wind.

Small winds from the Mediterranean flock across the street, blowing glamorous dresses. The wind lifted the feet of the liberated Athens, and the wind made the coffee more sweet and richer, and the wind also blew to my ears about two young girls.

 

Although I do not understand Greek but the mysterious face of the old lady and the respectful face of the two girls made me believe that, she seems to be right or she can perhaps predict the future or it is kind of professional cheat on those people who are superstitious.

But then I think about Greek mythology, I wonder it is because of Greek high level of superstitious in the past that has contributed to the creation of world famous mythology.

 However, the cool winds plus the dazzling sunshine feature makes it easy to fall asleep, do not know why so not most of the dogs I see on the streets of Athens are day sleep drunk, delicious, wearing the steps of tourists.

 The sunshine, the wind also forced me to stop many times before the KAEe cafe ("coffee" written in Greek style) to enjoy "frappé" - ice cream foam sweet and cool. Moreover, I also love Greek salad, which after this trip has become my favorite dish. I try Greek salad in many places but not as good as the country that made this dish. Probably because only here, the fatty goat's cheese fats are so greasy, the new olive is so rich and sunshine of the new restaurant is so full.

After salad, I again drunk savor "souvlaki" - meat skewers sold in the street like the bun bo – a Vietnamese traditional food. Souvlaki is similar to Vietnamese food because it is made from chicken meat, pork skewered by baking wood stick on coal. This dish is served with lemon pepper, a combination that I first saw in a European country. What makes the dish so charming and flavored is the Mediterranean spice. It consists of dried rosemary, thyme, thyme, basil and laurel leaves. I pinch spice in my hand, inhale the wild and pure scent from the sun, from the wind, from the farmer's diligence in the fields full of spices, from the ingenuity of a humid background with long traditional long tradition.

 

I remember very well, when wandering in the palaces or cathedrals of Europe, sometimes I caught sight of the palm-fringed gardens, the bright yellow of the ripe orange and the olive green. The ancient kings usually bring them on the same trophy as the idea that we have arrived, conquered the land far and away the sunshine. To me, the olive trees, the orange trees, the mulberry trees, and wildflowers with the wind were always hidden in me when I remembered Greece, the Mediterranean.

Having set foot on Athens, through the glass window of the bus, I still saw the hills, the olive trees with the wind, the large trees and alternating trees, including the large trees that have not known standing there ever since. . Before going to Greece a friend asked me to take pictures of olives on the branches, but this season, olives only blossomed, only the oranges with golden orange branches because of the sunny. Especially the strawberry chit fruit has helped me relieve the thirst between the dry sun is very characteristic of the Southern European.

• The soil of the sun, the land of the wind so the fruit is beautiful and full.

Tasting the cherry blossoms, sweet, I was not surprised because a lot of fruit and fruit pairs are very strange in the fruit basket. Talk to some English proficient sellers, I know the cause is also because ... the wind. The wind causes the fruit pollenization process to slightly upset. I feel this when drunk flowers that cannot focus because the small wild flowers leaned down the side of the wind.

I love the little wild cocolids that are resilient, the daisies of the dry sea sunshine and the flowers that I have not yet known the name of the cork rising from the ancient stone platform. They are small, skinny but why do I keep on remembering. Perhaps because of the dazzling sunshine, the white, marbled marble and gentle blue marbled terraces of the Mediterranean Sea make them beautiful, as a gentle, medium-sized girl. small, brave, brave.

• Greek Flag

The first day, I was in Athens right in the spring, sunny day, the wind is blowing everywhere and the sky is blue.

No wonder that the Greek flag bears two colors: white and blue, symbolizing blue sky, blue sea and white sand.

Perhaps one day it was not enough for me to go through all the remains of an ancient, splendid city, even though they were ruined. A long journey of thousands of years of displacement passed through Athens, so I realized that the remains of the Acropolis, in Athens, were a feat, a blessing for humanity.

However, I still wished that these magnificent marble temples were not destroyed by the war, as if the statues did not scatter the museums around the world but still majestic Acropolis, like the presence of formulas filled with "β, π, α, θ, ψ ..." in science and life, is good.

One thing I know for sure is that I do not have to dream that Athens is still blue in the next few weeks, and in the next 2 days, I will return to Athens again.

But not lonely, I will come back with my friends, especially a girl is a future literature teacher, she will help me to learn a lot more about about Greek mythology.

Goodbye, Athen!!! I will come back in the next 2 days.

---

Photo gallery