The Amazing Race: Greece - Part 2 (Athens)

Our flight to Athens from Santorini was definitely the shortest flight I've ever been on... 25 minutes! We landed pretty late, at 9:00pm (or 21:00 as it is called over here), so we found our way to our hotel, and grabbed gyros for dinner.

We only had a short time in Athens, so this is really where our Amazing Race began. Karen originally had this idea to climb Philopappou Hill in the morning to watch the sunrise, but when we woke up, it was really dark out and we were too scared to walk by ourselves. Our hotel concierge had told us that although the Hill was a great attraction during the day, it was filled with thieves and overall bad people at night.

We decided to skip that, and head to the 2004 Athens Olympic stadium instead. Of course we couldn't end up finding it, and since we were short on time, we decided to scrap that idea as well, and just make our way over to Acropolis. On our way there, we stumbled across Hadrian's Arch, and the Temple of Zeus.

Hadrian's Arch

Temple of Zeus

We got into the Parthenon for free since we had our EU student cards, and made our way up the steps to the top. There were a ridiculous amount of stray dogs there! They were like the equivalent of squirrels in Ontario. I didn't mind it too much since I love dogs, but Karen was just not having it (she hates them). We saw a photographer taking epic shots of a group of guys. We pretended that they were a famous boyband. (They probably aren't.)

A dog just chillin in the middle of the road

At this point, we had not really started exploring the Acropolis yet, yet we were already an hour behind schedule, and were supposed to be at the airport in 35 minutes. Needless to say, we rushed through everything. It was literally "Oh wow that's soo pretty!" *take photo* *run to next monument*

Odeon of Herodes Atticus

The Parthenon

By the time we finished, the Acropolis had filled up with crowds of people. We were so lucky there weren't as many people around when we were running about, otherwise things would've been even harder. We found ourselves the nearest metro station, and waited for the next metro. In the 3 minutes we sat there, we contemplated whether taking the metro would be faster (approx 45 mins), or whether we should just find a cab. At this point, it was already 20 minutes until gate closing, yet we were still nowhere near the airport. We opted for the latter, and ran out to hail a cab. We ended up finding a taxi driver who was seriously a lifesaver. Although it was rush hour, he managed to get us onto the highway, and then started driving 150 on a 70 road. His driving was so crazy, weaving in and out of lanes but I was grateful that he understood our need for speed. However, by this time I had already given up and accepted the fact that we were not going to get onto that plane. There was no way. He managed to get us to the airport 15 minutes before the flight was schedule to depart, so we gave him a huge tip, hopped out of the car, and literally began running through the airport to get to security/our gate. I'm pretty sure I almost knocked down a woman but I only had time to shout "Sorry!" and continued sprinting through the airport. When we got to security, the lines weren't too long, but of course with my bad luck, I got both my body and bag searched. Just typical, right? We then ran to our gate, which of course was at the opposite end of the building. 

Somehow, by some miracle, we actually made our plane. There was a woman at the gate before us, trying to board. Thank goodness for this woman! Had she not been there, our flight could very well have just left. We were sweating buckets and out of breath, but we got onto the plane and found ourselves seats as we tried to regain our composure.

Overall, I'm going to say Athens didn't really live up to my expectations. Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I had not expected it to be so... urbanized. I was expecting more Greek columns and old buildings, but aside from the Acropolis, there wasn't much of that. We also didn't get to explore the Plaka markets which was something I was looking forward to. Maybe this just calls for another trip to Athens, one where I have more time, so that I can better explore the city and give it another chance.

When we got back to Paris, since we had flown into Orly airport, we decided to stop by Ladurée and have tea.