Wrapping up our time in Athens, we saved the best for last — the Acropolis.
Its right up there on a big hill, and can be seen from much of the city.
As a result, there is some uphill walking to get to it, but that’s okay. My
best advice for anyone heading to Athens, is to see other Archaeological
sites first, and then save this for last. You will be rewarded with an
overhead view of all the other places you have been! Its a neat and
different perspective after you have been down and amongst the places.
While there are several museums throughout the city (I think over 20), we
are seeing so many things over the course of our trip that we figure its
best to leave those for smaller trips, when we can soak up information on a
less-than-macroscopic level. And with that, we bussed out to Olympia, the
birthplace of the Olympics. The town itself mostly consists of hotels,
souvenir shops, and restaurants, all catering to the tourists, here to see
the Ancient Olympia site. This was quite a fair sized area, and the track
(stadium) could seat about 45,000 spectators (grass seating). Not bad
considering this was made in the mid 5th century BC!
We then entered a death spiral into what’s been the most miserable time on
this trip. We booked a ferry from Patras, Greece to Venice, Italy. We got
the cheapest tickets, which are "Deck Seats" (€50 each). A deck seat is the
equivalent to "standing room only", where you have nowhere to put your
stuff, and you just sleep on a bench on the deck (with your stuff)
overnight. Well, this would have been all and well in mid July, when the
evening temperature is still warm, but presently it is about 10 or 15°C at
night, and that is COLD with no sleeping bag and just regular clothes. This
ferry ride started just before midnight on Monday night, and ran until noon
on Wednesday. So by 3 a.m. we could not take the shivering any more, and we
weren’t going to go without sleep for 2 nights (not to mention that we did
not like our bags out in the open while we tried to sleep). One very
expensive upgrade later, we had a cabin room. At least it was warm, but
that sure hurt the travel budget. So here is another piece of advice —
find some other ferry company, if you are going to ferry from Greece to
Italy. We took ANEK Lines, and were miserable the whole time. Your wallet
practically evaporates money, and we encountered nothing but rude,
incompetent, ignorant staff. We probably wouldn’t take the ferry at all if
there is a next time, but maybe the other companies are better.
Arriving into Venice was something else though, and it was like entering a
whole new world. Makes sense considering its a different country, but it
didn’t sink in until we actually saw it with our eyes. Imagine a place
where there are no roads, no vehicular traffic, and occasional arteries of
water serving as the transportation lifeblood, and you have Venice! This
place is unintentionally beautiful — old buildings are decorated with roses
that the occupants grow on their balconies, walls are cracked and still
coloured happily, and a never ending maze of walkways and corridors exist to
entice your curiosity to find out what’s around the next corner. This is a
place you simply have to see to believe, and there’s really no other way to
put it!
We took a gondola ride, which is an experience that must be done if you are
going to go to Venice at all. We went at dusk, and it turns out that this
is the best time to go — its dim, yet bright enough to see all the places
they show you, and darker enough to give a more intimate feeling. Also the
water canals are a little calmer, as there is less ‘traffic’.