Christmas iin Athens

Christmas in Athens

night view from the top of my hotel

Sitting here on top of my hotel in Athens Greece on Christmas day I've had some time to reflect on the day and my trip so far.
Initially I decided to come to Greece for Christmas to get away from the heat of the UAE. At times the cooler temps here have been a bit more than I bargained for, but on the whole it's been quite nice. Having said that Christmas day 2016 was truly amazing. Bright and sunny without a cloud in sight. I'm sure the temperature got to at least 15 and because it was Christmas day, even less crowded than this whole trip has been. 

My first view of the Acropolis

When I got here I had all kinds of time on day one, I arrived at the hotel by 2pm, so I went for a walk. It didn't take me long to realise that just about everything I came to see was within walking distance. I hadn't made any plans before coming except to go to the Parthenon and I found a group ticket that would take me to all the main sights so I bought it. 

The Parthenon on the Acropolis

first stop.  An ancient library

Day two was about using the ticket. I went to the Acropolis, which I later learned means fortress in Greek, and a library (can't remember the name of the guy who built it), then I was off to the Ancient Agora. I think the Agora was my favourite place. It's like a huge garden with buildings and ruins. I could imagine what it must have been like when in its prime. 

A temple in the Ancient Agora

I ended up leaving sooner than I planned due to some physical needs, if you know what I mean. 

 I made a plan to go back on day three when I would visit the Temple of Olympian Zeus  and the Acropolis museum.

The ruins in the Agora

Day 3 was exactly as planned, go back to the Ancient Agora, 

Temple of Olympian Zeus

Hadrian's Gate.  Next to the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

It was a bit chilly on this day but I persevered. 

Day 4 was a day trip to Meteora which is a pretty cool place to go. Monasteries on top of columns of rock with no easy access. It amazes me the length to which people will go to in order to get away from other people, but in a way I understand being the antisocial loner I am. 

a little bit of Lord of the Rings

hidden monastery

Day 5 I didn't do to much. It was rainy and cold so I went to the mall to watch Passengers, which of course hasn't been released here yet so I took the subway to the port and looked at the boats for awhile. Not much else except the Greek woman who stole my change. (if you follow my Facebook page U'll understand the story). 

Day 6 was a one day cruise to 3 Islands. Poros, Hydra(pronounced Eedra) and Aegina. 

Poros island

the cruise ship

I love being on boats so I was really looking forward to this day trip and it didn't disappoint. Small island life must be really relaxing.

Hydra island

Here is the only town on this Island.  There are no cars or even bikes allowed on this island.  Kind of like Venice.

Aegina Island

Here is the Sanctuary of Aphala. 

 I really love ruins for some reason.  Of all the things I like about Greece it is the ruins.  I went to a few churches but I didn't find them very interesting. 

This was one of the biggest churches I saw

 The Orthodox churches are a lot smaller in Greece than the churches in the rest of Europe.

inside there was scaffolding.  one of the problems of going in off-season

Day 7

Was a day off from sightseeing, instead I went shopping.  I decided to get myself some tourist trinkets.  One of the reasons I struggle in Bangkok is because they have so many places to buy all that stuff you don't need and Athens isn't much different.  There is an entire street dedicated to selling garbage but I was able to find some nice things.

Left=Aphrodite on a Ionic column
Right=Hades with Cerberus on an Ionic Column

Day 8 and my final day in Greece

For my final day in Greece I booked a one day tour of Delphi where the famous Oracle lived and gave prophesy to any who would come.  She would smell the fumes that came up from the underworld and they would give her visions and allow her to commune with Apollo.  All messages that came from the God were in verse so that they would need to be deciphered.  I was hoping to get to go into the caves and see where this was done but unfortunately it wasn't allowed.  So instead I got some pictures of the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle lived, a theatre and a stadium.

First thing at the Delphi site is a treasury 

The treasuries were where you would leave your donation to the god of choice.  In its hayday there were many of these around.

picture of what they think it looked like

Below the temple were all the treasuries.

Temple of Apollo (ruins)

Above the temple of Apollo is a theatre.

Theatre

Can you imagine watching a play here.  I don't think I would be able to concentrate on the entertainment.  I would be looking at the view.

Above the theatre is the stadium.  I doesn't appear in the picture because it is too high.

best view of it all that I could get.

The one thing I really wanted to see besides the caves was the Temple of Athena.  It is the most iconic part of this area but it wasn't included in the one day tour which kind of bothered me.  I did get a picture from far away.  I should have walked down to it instead of going to the museum.

if you zoom in you can see it in the middle.  It's the three columns.

That's pretty much all the sightseeing I did.  The weather was amazing the entire time I was in Greece.  The first couple of days it was cool, maybe highs of 11 or 12 but after that it was sunny and over 15 degrees every day.  The day I had to go to the airport it was around 3 degrees and raining.

The hotel I stayed in, Athens Center Square Hotel, was in an almost perfect location.  Everything was within easy walking distance and it was fairly easy to find, the only problem with its location was the drug park that was next door.  While driving around to pick up other people for the tours I saw a lot of other really nice looking hotels.  I would probably stay in one of those next time but only because I seem to be at a point in my life where I want to stay in comfort and style, I don't like to do the budget thing anymore unless I have to.

It's pretty easy to see the effects of the financial crisis in Athens.  There is graffiti everywhere except, thankfully, on the monuments.  Homeless people all over the place, beggars on the trains and around the tourist areas.  The nice thing I noticed is that Greek people are really generous.  Almost every time I saw a beggar I also saw someone give them some money.  Greeks are really nice but like any big city they tend to not make room for you while you are walking.  I ran into many people in my travels, and I mean that literally.

All in all, I would say Athens was one of my all time favorite vacations and I would go back in a heart beat if the occasion presented itself.  If you get a chance to go, I say do it.  You won't regret it at all.

Quick Visit to the Land Down Under

 G'day Mate

Sydney Opera House with the Harbour Bridge behind it

Recently I had a couple of weeks of holidays to kill and I decided to go to Australia to visit a couple of my favorite people.  I had met them in Japan and since they were both living in Sydney now I figured I would take the opportunity to see them and a piece of Australia at the same time.

Logan

Nikki

I also decided to splurge on this trip and I upgraded to Business Class flights.  Well, let me tell you, I have a better understanding of why these types of tickets are so expensive.  At the airport you have access to a very large lounge area where everything is free; food, showers, seats and even a game room.

On the airplane you now get a very comfortable "cocoon" seat which reclines into a bed.  I think the flight was 15hrs to Sydney and 14 back.  Neither flight was much of a burden for me.  Nice and quiet, no kids running around, yelling or kicking the back of my seat.  Food was good and the service was excellent.  I recommend flying this way if you can afford it.  Hopefully I will be able to do it again in the future.

Being a business class passenger I was given a ticket to fast track through immigration but I was unable to find the proper line.  Thankfully it didn't take long to get out of immigration and customs.  My buddy Logan was waiting for me when I got out of the airport and we went to find my hotel in the city.

It didn't take very long to get to the Central train stop and then just a simple 5min walk to the hotel.  I managed to pick a nice location, much of the things I wanted to see were within walking distance and the subway was very easy to use.  Something I always seem to do when I go to a city for the first time is get a hotel that is near or in the more iffy parts.  Sydney is no exception.  When I went Athens for Christmas I stayed next to what I thought was a drug park, in Sydney I'm pretty sure I was in the red light district as we passed many "Thai Massage" places and even a couple of "Adult Life Style" shops.  Livin' the life!

Darling Harbour

Harbour City Mall

Walking bridge to cross the harbour

One of the ships you can explore at the "Australian National Maritime Museum"

The submarine and the Sailing ship along with the War Ship are all exhibits that you can go on.  It's even a reasonable 32AUD.  The mall here is OK but nothing special.  I did get myself a Kangaroo hat though

Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge

I went to the Opera house and Harbour Bridge area a couple of times, once to get the iconic picture and once to get some night shots.  Here are the results.

City scape from Mrs. Macquarie's Chair

 These pictures are taken from a park area across the harbour.  It's called Mrs Macquaire's Chair.  The chair is just a concrete formation like a step.  Very disappointing, but the park was quite nice.

I think this is my first selfie using a selfie stick

The Royal Botanical Gardens

The Royal Botanical Gardens are really nice.  It's the kind of place I could spend the entire day at and I did spend a couple of hours here while waiting for my friends to get off work.

City scape from near the Opera House

I wanted to get some night shots of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge but the Botanical Gardens were closed so I had to settle for pictures of the bridge and Opera House separately.  I think they still came out nice.

One of the most famous things about Australia is the wildlife, and it didn't disappoint.  The birds are multitude and very different from other cities.  I only go one picture though.

This type of bird was everywhere in the city along side the usual suspects.  Pigeons, sparrows and other common birds.  The Botanical Garden had a lot of different types too.

Weather

 A Tropical Cyclone hit land on the day I arrived.  That was north in the Queensland area but it brought a lot of rain to Sydney as well.  I didn't mind so much as it kept things cool and uncrowded.

 There were also partly cloudy days.  I got to see Hyde Park (above) which is also a very nice park.

 There was a day of fog which happened to be on the day we went to the Blue Mountains.  This is supposed to be a beautiful view of the whole area, but all you can see is the drawing provided.

 There was also a couple of cloudless days.  Above is Bondi Beach.  We took a Hop-on Hop-off bus tour.  Later that night I was watching Bondi Rescue on the TV.  It's always surreal when you have been somewhere and then you see it on TV.

From the top of the bus

Overall the trip was very good.  Weather was fine (for me) and I was able to see a few things but most importantly I was able to hang out with my friends a lot.

On the final day (my flight was at 9:30pm) we went for a river ferry cruise.  I love riding in boats so I really enjoyed this part of the trip too and was only mildly anxious about missing my flight.

After all this I was off to the airport.

In Central station going to the airport train

I think I walked over 120,000 steps over the six or seven days that I was in Australia so my feet were a little sore here but I was working the hat, that's for sure.

My final picture is a sunrise picture.  Please enjoy and share this post with all your friends and feel free to comment.