48 HOURS IN ATHENS

We came a day before the wedding, to do some sightseeing in this 4 million people metropole, and I’m really glad we did ! They told us it was easiest to take the metro to the city centre, so we did just that. Getting a ticket was one thing… once at the platform we were lost ! Everything in Greek (meaning unreadable), and not a soul around. Luckily after some time more people showed up, and we could ask. Yes, we are about to board the metro, the blue line, to the Syntagma, the main square in Athens. Once on it, it was easy, change once at Syntagma to the red line metro, and about 45 minutes later we got to our hotel.

Our hotel, the Grecotel Pallas Athena, is totally cool, wonderful rooms and a very friendly staff. It’s very conveniently located, close to the city centre, and only about 100m south from the metro station Omonia. In about 15 minutes you can walk to the Monastiraki Square, which is THE square in the Plaka, the old town.

So we dumped our bags in the room, and started walking down Athinas Street. We pass by the Town Hall on Kotzia Square, where there is something like a fair, and dozens of little stands sell lots of stuff and foods, Greek Christmas, it is after all December 26th. Incredible, it seems as if all the Athenians are out walking around town, there’s people everywhere ! We have some insider tips and head straight for the rooftop terrace at the small hotel A for Athens. It is located at the end of our street on the north end of Monastiraki Square, the entrance is a little hard to find, just round the corner in a little side street. The terrace must be quiet famous, there even is a separate elevator to go up. Once up there I immediately decide to stay all night, this is so cool ! From up here you have a perfect view across the square, over the houses of the old town, to the Acropolis in the back.

It is really crowded but we find an empty spot. Here we are, sitting on this scenic rooftop with lots of locals drinking their Greek coffee. The one thing that tells us off….we are the only ones not wearing a black coat or jacket, speak lousy Greek and are the only ones drinking beer instead of coffee ! Unfortunately we can’t stay all night, we’re invited for dinner. So we head down and walk towards the Syntagma Square. Every 50m or so stands a person selling helium filled balloons for kids, holding up gigantic bunches of colourful mickey mouses and hello kitties, princesses, frogs, dwarfs you name it. There are people selling roasted chestnuts, popcorn, BBQ where they sell souvlaki (greek meat skewers) and dressed up Father Christmas’ offering to have your photo taken with them, donkey included. Slowly we make our way through the crowds. After a wonderful dinner at our relatives’ apartment we head back. There are lights everywhere, most buildings are decorated in some way, the Greek are very creative decorators !

The next morning we head for the Plaka once more. The central market is worth a stop. They sell fish here, most of it is attractively presented, fish as far as you can see, it’s hard to make our way through the crowds once again. The next part is meat and after that poultry, people are selling, buying and bargaining just everywhere.

We pass Monastiraki Square and head into the narrow winding alleys of the Plaka, this is fun ! Clearly this is the more touristy part of town, between the houses are archeologic remains of old Greece, around every corner there are souvenir shops selling anything from clothing and jewellery to handicrafts, food and drink.

We head up towards the Acropolis, the map is no use, the streets are so crooked and winding and all the street names are in Greek, no clue exactly where we are. Never mind, the Acropolis is big and stands out on a hill, so you see it from just about anywhere, can’t miss it. One of the little alleys is the surprise of the day, some graffiti artist has sprayed all the walls, but amazingly colourful and beautiful, this is art ! Looking down from the highest point we are amazed at the size of this city, there are buildings in every direction, as far as the eye can see.

The acropolis is, as expected, a load of old stones with heaps of tourist walking through, and this is not even high season ! But these are stones with a lot of history and culture, this place a few thousand years ago must have been amazing, it still is ! The restauration of the Hellenic temples and columns is unfortunately ruining the chance of any really good photos, there are scaffoldings everywhere. You buy one ticket for 12 Euro and it gets you to all the sights surrounding the Acropolis too (except the new Acropolis Museum), a must do, that’s a lot of marble for 12 euro !

We are slowly getting hungry, time to head on. Our insider tips lead us back to the Plaka where we have a sensational lunch in a tiny restaurant called To Kafeneio. It is in the tourist zone, but still there are a lot of locals here, usually a good sign. Just the bread they serve, with little pieces of olive in it, is worth the stop. We have meatballs with THE sauce, made by a secret family recipe (which honestly is really good), bekris meses which is a spicy beef stew, saganaki cheese and a bottle of house wine, boy we are full ! We somehow find our way back through the maze of alleys to the Syntagma. In front of the Parliament House are two guards in Greek traditional dresses. They stand perfectly still for an hour, don’t smile, don’t even raise an eyebrow, don’t move, poor guys ! Every hour, exactly at the hour the guards change, and we just happen to be there at 5 minutes before the hour, so we wait to see this ceremony. Us and a hundred other tourists…

Now it is time to head back to the hotel, we have to get dressed up. The main reason we are here is the wedding of Dimi and Anthi which takes place in Politia, a rather fancy suburb in the north of Athens. The church is a beautiful building with lots of frescos on all the walls and ceiling, the priest looks like Father Christmas with a big white beard and a red and white robe, and we are just 2 out of 250 guests.

We figured we had really good seats in the church, in the fourth row or so, a little off the centre…well theoretically they were. As the bride and groom entered the church everybody stood up and applauded them, like celebrities at a movie premiere. The side doors opened, and loads of people flooded the church, stood in all the aisles, up to maybe 1m from the wedding couple, and almost on the altar. Oh, and I am forgetting the two guys with videos, and the three photographers who kept moving around, almost pushing the priest aside in order to get the perfect picture of the couple. Sitting would be no use with people standing all around you, so we stood all through the ceremony seeing just about the back of the brides head, if anything at all, to us it seemed to be a total chaos. Different people, different culture, all the Greek guests seemed to find it perfectly normal, but this was a totally new experience for us !

From the church with a taxi to the party venue, the Politia Tennis Club. Very nice place, big entry hall, big bar, swimming pool, and an enormous dining room, didn’t see any tennis courts though. The party that followed was rather international, good food, great DJ, lots of drinking and dancing.

The best part to me was when they played Greek pop music and all the guests were singing along as loud as they could, or when they did the Greek dancing, all lined up, hands on each others’ shoulders. In the early hours one of the elderly gentlemen started to dance solo, the others knelt around him and clapped their hands to the rhythm, as he clapped and danced in the middle. Lots of culture and tradition, it is good to see things like that are still present and appreciated in today’s fast living high tech world. As our ears buzzed from the very loud music, our eyes burned of the cigarette smoke, and our feet hurt from all the dancing we said goodbye and ended a wonderful day… night, almost day again….must get some sleep before we fly home again.

Watch the wedding videoclips:

here they come …

Greek-Wedding

Wow, this was the best and most extraordinary Christmas holiday I have had for years !

For more photo  go to gallery