It starts again with a bus ride
From Meteora we went further south to the capital Athens. I had already written on the bus schedules in Greece in previous blog entries and it was no different in Kalambaka. The place of departure as well as departure times and possible travel destinations were not always clearly recognizable for us. So it seemed the easiest for us to take a bus from Meteora to the capital. But that also turned out to be an exciting experience: We found the bus stop in Kalambaka without any problems, but it was a bit of a challenge to find the right bus to Athens. Because the punctuality was also not given, so that from a certain time onwards we simply asked every bus driver whether he was going to Athens. At some point the right bus actually came. But contrary to what is described on the Internet, there was no direct connection and we were thrown out of the supposedly correct bus after 45 minutes at the terminal. We landed in Trikala, from where there was actually a direct connection to Athens. The bus was only half full due to capacity constraints and we had a long but pleasant ride.
Arrival in Athens and our first impression
In the evening we reached Greece's capital at one of the KTEL bus stations. From there we tried to get to our accommodation by bus and metro (and googlemaps). I had booked a small apartment south of the Acropolis, near the Sygrou metro station. We quickly found the right bus and we understood quickly the metro system thanks to our everyday train journeys in Cologne. But of course we still stood on the railroad track in the wrong direction, but we eventually noticed that too!
But the real challenge was not to be run over on the way from the metro station to the accommodation! The cars in Athens just drive the way they want. Traffic lights seem to be a minor matter and you don't really know when to start walking. In addition, everyone has a crazy pace and two tracks are often made four. But we made it home safely! In the following days we did really well and somehow got used to the Athenian way of crossing the street.
Sightseeing in Athens
The next two days we were on a great discovery tour of Athens! First we went up to the Acropolis, which we could already gaze at from below. It was really hot in Athens, but we didn't want to miss the sights. We enjoyed the sight of the old columns and marble slabs and as a little specialty we were only there with a handful of people. I think it must have been a lot fuller in the years before.
In the late afternoon we walked to the Olympieion, the temple of Zeus. We just started walking until we discovered a small trail that looked like it led to the Olympieion. So we just went in there and quickly noticed that it leads past a fence that delimits the area. We just followed the path and when we got to the next street, we noticed that there were a lot of single people with small bags standing there. I think we walked past a dealer spot and made sure to get back on the street quickly. We only looked at the Olympieion from the outside and made the acquaintance of a few cats on the way.
We spent the second day mainly on the site of the Ancient Agora, which was the most important meeting place in Athens in ancient times. There are many ruins of ancient temples, administrative buildings, well houses and old streets to admire. You can really stay there for hours. We thought it was really cool that there were wild turtles on the premises! If they only knew what a great environment they are in.
Zusammenfassend kann man sagen, dass uns Athen gut gefallen hat. Es war toll, die Akropolis und auch das alte Agora zu besichtigen und dies ganz ohne Menschenmassen zu genießen. Andererseits ist es auch eine laute, hektische und sehr dreckige Stadt! Wir hatten uns ein gutes Viertel zum Übernachten ausgesucht, was unseren Aufenthalt auch sehr angenehm gemacht hat. Nach drei Tagen im lauten Athen beschlossen wir aber, das griechische Festland vorerst zu verlassen und weiter auf die Peloponnese Peninsula zu fahren.
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