We made it to Athens last night. What a long trip! The day started early, as not only did we need to repack our bags to more evenly distribute the weight, Greg had to repair the side handle on Stef’s bag (even though she swears the bag wasn’t that heavy)! The train was far less uneventful thanks to Rufus’ booking our tickets, then even making sure that we had our tickets to get us to the Rome airport. The bullet train from Florence to Rome really is a bullet – just over an hour. Stef definitely appreciated the in-seat power for her laptop. Rufus’ directions to the airport train were spot on, but it was a long hike.

Olympic Airlines (which has been thru a lot of financial trouble over the years) was actually very nice. The plane even had what appeared to be new leather seats.
Once again advice from Rufus made the journey to our hotel easy. We are staying at the Athens Hilton which is a few minutes walk from the Evangelismos metro station, on the same line as the airport.

We are definitely spoiled, as evidenced by the huge smiles on our faces when we hit the beautiful marble lobby – and even bigger smiles when we walked into our immaculate room. Pensiones have their charm, but there is certainly something to be said for a good business class hotel.

To say that Greg had been looking forward to eating in the Plaka would be an understatement. And it didn’t disappoint. We found a great suggestion from our guide book, one of the oldest tavernas still serving food in the Plaka, I Taverna Tou Psarra. After some coaxing, Stef tried some of the grilled octopus (a house specialty), and was so surprised, she recommended it to a couple who sat down next to us a bit later.
There is definitely something completely magical about sitting under the stars at the foot of the Acropolis, enjoying great food, good wine and forgetting about the real world.

Tomorrow will be a full day in the sun, hiking up to the top of the Acropolis like they did 3000 years ago.