As the crow flies

Athens

My ferry from Naxos to Athens was supposed to leave at 13:15, but as I got to the port, I found out it was cancelled. So I exchanged my ticket for the ferry leaving at 18:15, but this ferry left an hour late. So with a 5 hour ferry ride, plus an hour ride on the transit system to my hostel, I was looking to arrive around 1am. Unfortunately, the ferry took a little longer at one of the ports, so I ended up arriving on the Greek Mainland around 1am. By this time the metro had shut down so I had to take a taxi to the hostel. I told the taxi driver that I wanted to go to Athen's Backpackers, which was by the metro station at the foot of the Acropolis. So after picking up another passenger and dropping her off somewhere, I arrived at the metro station with the Acropolis and Parthenon nicely lit up. I paid the taxi driver and started to look for the hostel which was supposed to be within 50m from the metro. I wandered around a bit, sweating in the humid night air, while thinking that this area was pretty dodgy and it wasn't a good idea to be walking alone here with my bags. I tried asking a few people but they had no idea where Athen's Backpackers was. I called the hostel to find out where it should be, and he said that it should be right by the metro in an alley. I couldn't find it so I went back to where the taxi had dropped me off and heard some American people my age outside a cafe, so I figured that I'd ask them where the backpackers was. It turned out that it was on the other side of the Acropolis, near the "Acropolis" metro station. They said I could walk around the Acropolis and get there. So I started off and walked for about 10 minutes, and realized that it was going to take a long time to walk around the Acropolis and I really had no idea where I was going. So I walked down an alley trying to find a main road and a taxi. I found a taxi and told him the address of the backpackers (I don't know why I didn't think of this obvious solution in the first place) and I checked in shortly after 3am. Then they didn't have another key for my room, so I was told to go up and knock on the door to have someone let me in. Fortunately, some of the other people had just got in from out at the bar so I didn't have to wake anyone up.

After sleeping for 5 hours I got up and went to explore the Acropolis. It was quite impressive to see the ruins, and imagine what it must have been like thousands years ago. I spent the whole day exploring the different sites and taking photos.

posted by Aaron @ 5:47 PM