| Glenn's Athens Journals 5-4-02 O.K. It's Saturday morning in Athens on the Greek Orthodox Easter weekend. Can you imagine how busy the town is this weekend??? Especially at 5:00 am of the first day of the weekend? Not really alive!!! The information kiosks only opened during the week and the local bus information booth didn't open until 6:00 am., if at all today. Erin and I were both beat due to lack of sleep and opted for the taxi route. After going to the front of the taxi line only to have the taxi driver show six other taxi drivers our guide book with the name of the Inn we wanted to get to, were we off to our chosen destination. The taxi only cost 7 Euro to get to Plaka and at that time of the morning and in our condition I am sure we would have paid more for the ride. It was before 6:00 am and we found our way to the Student and Traveler's Inn in Plaka. We entered the Inn where a desk clerk was less than excited to greet us. He allowed us to leave our bags and informed us that a room would be available after 8:30 am when people checked out and the cleaning crew had time to take care of business. We took off to find a place for breakfast. Upon our travels around Plaka we found other accomodations that we went ahead and checked out. One of the places we found was Festos Place which had rooms for 36 Euro for a double (while the Student and Traveller's Inn was 44 Euro for a double with shared bathroom, 52 Euro with private bath). Erin and I checked out a room. While the room seemed sufficient and the lady at the front desk was extremely pleasant, the bathrooms left something to be desired. The young lady recommended another place owned by the same owner which was just around the corner but a little nicer for a little more cost. We checked on the Hotel Dioskouros House where we were greeted by Shoan (Shawn). He showed us a double room and some much improved bathrooms which we quickly accepted as we were extremely tired by this point. The rooms would be available around 10:00 am and we could come back then. We still had some time to kill so we headed off to breakfast. We found a local shop that served a really good omelette and orange juice. We enjoyed breakfast, went back to the Student and Traveller's Inn to collect our bags (in which the same clerk continued to seem very disinterested) and we headed back to the Hotel Dioskouros House. We arrived around 9:00 am and waited patiently in the patio area for the room to become available. Shoan had the room prepared early and allowed us in as soon as it was ready. We appreciated this very much as it didn't take us long to fall asleep upon our heads hitting the pillows. We slept until 2:30 pm and it felt good. We awoke and decided we needed to make something of the rest of the day. Again, little did we know that, due to the holiday weekend, most things either closed early or were closed all together this Saturday and were planned to be closed on Sunday, and possibly Monday as well. The other news that we found out was that the banks were closed from Saturday through Tuesday for the Easter weekend and were on strike through the remainder of the week, so don't expect cash to be readily available by the end of the week. The good news with the Dioskouros House was that they accepted credit cards. Most of the hostels we had been staying at only acccepted cash. We headed out to check out the town. Well the town was on vacation!!! Athens streets were empty for all intents and purposes. We did find a travel agent that had heard that over 3 million people had left the city to return to their villages on one of the many islands that make up Greece and that is why the city seemed so quiet. We definitely did not miss the hustle and bustle of an extremely busy city and much enjoyed the quiet Athens. Some things were closed but the sites that were open or that couldn't be closed were well worth seeing without the crowds. I mentioned the travel agent earlier, whom we had met while trying to find out what options we had in getting to some of the Greek islands for the week. Mark was a very helpful gentleman from Wales (that is why he was still working while his bosses were on holiday) who provided us all of the information that we requested. To save us some trouble, we just booked the whole week, with Mark's assistance, to Crete and Santorini. Mark would finalize the arrangements for us on Monday when we could pick up the paperwork we required. After completing this task we headed up to an internet cafe near the university (We find these to be the least expensive and with the most up-to-date equipment) which offered one hour for only 2,40 Euro. We spent a few hours responding to emails and checking on the website, which we had little time for while in Corfu. After the cafe we stopped for dinner and headed back to the room for a good night's sleep. (The good night's sleep was limited due to all of the mosquitos in the room, but I will let Erin tell that story.) |
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| Temple to Athena, with the huge city spreading out behind it |