Not A Guinea Pig Blog: Athens 🇬🇷

Many moons ago Caitlin made me a promise that we would one day visit Athens - and this year, we finally made it. (pics for proof - reader, she did get me a spanakopita)

We've wanted to visit Athens for a long time, it being the birthplace of Western Civilisation, the Classical Age, but mainly because we read Percy Jackson and the Olympians as kids and adored it.

Wednesday, 23 April 2025

I did a bit of pre-investigative work for our Athenian holiday and decided to take a trip to the British Museum. I've not been there for years, and was hoping to see the Parthenon marbles on a nice, quiet, midweek day. It seems however that I was confused by the Wales/England Easter holiday dates. That, in combination with the cloakroom being full, led to a less enjoyable experience then I'd been hoping for. However, it was quite nice a few days later to say 'I've seen that!' when the Acropolis Museum mentioned their stolen antiquities.

Following this we had a lovely dinner with our great aunt & uncle Maureen and Mike.

Thursday, 24 April 2025

It was an early start to catch our flight into Athens (although I campaigned for an even earlier start) and everything went smoothly. One of the first things we did after finding our airbnb was finding a cute cafe - which we found in Little Tree Books & Coffee. It indeed had a tree and books and coffee, and we enjoyed sitting outside with our wine and cards.

We then wandered around a bit, said hello to lots of Greek cats, and had our first good view of the Acropolis! Quite an amazing sight. I managed to buy my magnet of the trip at record time - achievement of the holiday.

Friday, 25 April 2025

We started the day with an excellent walking tour (Caitlin's go-to holiday starter), where we saw lots of Athens including the Zappeion (the Zappas cousins revived the modern Olympic Games), Evzones guards, Hadrian's Arch, the Temple of Wind, the Roman Agora, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and my favourite - the academy building (the pretty gold temple looking building in the photos below).

For lunch we had some gyros and sat in the sun looking at Hadrian's Arch.

In the afternoon we joined a bus tour to take us to the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion. The weather was very capricious, and we left central Athens to bright sun only to get off the metro 20 minutes later at the bus pick up spot to a heavy thunderstorm. Thankfully, the weather improved as we drove south and we were later treated with a gorgeous sunset. We first stopped at the Ancient Theatre of Thorikos (the world's oldest known theatre) and then onto the Temple of Poseidon. We squeezed in a quick homemade greek salad for dinner (no food allowed on the archeological site) then watched the glorious sunset over the temple.

Saturday, 26 April 2025

This was the big day - we visited the Acropolis & slopes! We had fantastic luck with the weather and had great sun. Fortunately we came well equipped with enough suncream to send us back to the UK paler than when we started. We ventured up past the Theatre of Dionysus and the huge Odeon of Herod Atticus before entering the Acropolis plateau through the Propylaea.

We saw the Temple of Athena Nike (all lonely on a tall pedestal), the Erechtheion (where the ladies stand, with two very fine porches), and the Parthenon. It was actually bigger than I expected! It was sooooo cool to see in person! There was some scaffolding, but once we walked around to the sunny side you didn't notice it. Lots of posing for photos ensured. I also really liked the wee Roman edition of the Rome and Augustus alter (circular thing in front of the Parthenon).

We then visited the Acropolis museum where we saw some bits from the Parthenon and were intrigued to note that it wasn't actually that obvious which were real and which were replicas (that I had just seen in the British Museum). And finally of course, the obligatory ice cream.

We quite liked the Caryatid's plaits.

Sunday, 27 April 2025

This was our lie in day (it's not a proper holiday if you're not running around 90% of the time). We had initially planned to go on a bus tour to Delphi, but decided it was just too long of a day trip for too little time at the archeological site, so that will be for another time. The skies were a bit grey and wet, so we first (kinda) saw the changing of the guard at Syntagma Square (much busier than we expected) and then went to the National Archeological Museum. We wouldn't necessarily recommend this museum (it was recommended to us) as it was ~~a little boring~~ non mythology based archeological things. We however did find a room right at the back with some cool clocks and a moon rock. And we saw Agamemnon's death mask, which prompted my telling of many Greek mythology stories to Cait, including the Trojan War.

We had a really wonderful rooftop rainy lunch with some spritzes (again, holiday requirement). Cait then decided we were doing an escape room, which was really fun! I do however find actors in escape rooms very awkward... We trekked up Lycabettus Hill in the evening for a sunset (average), and found somewhere warm to sit, play cards (sensing a theme?), drink wine and eat chips. And with a view of the Acropolis! We were considering taking the funicular, but it turns out it was quite small and mostly in a tunnel so we gave it a miss.

Monday, 28 April 2025

Apparently I'm now the sort of person who goes for a run(!) on holiday - and makes her big sister run too. Admittedly, it was a pretty cool one - we ran around the first stadium built for the modern Olympic Games, the Panathenaic Stadium in 1896. We even got to go to a wee Olympic museum and see all the torches and posters from various years. And yes, I did read the pamphlet to Cait whilst running. It's always an educational holiday.

Later we went to see the Ancient Agora and the Temple of Hephaestus, which still has its roof! I particularly liked the bust of Emperor Hadrian I found: Athena (representing Athens) is standing on the she-wolf who raised Romulus and Remus (representing Rome).