Jeannine & Peter's Holiday Blog: Athens: Saturday 17th October

This morning we were up at 5:30am to get our early morning flight to Athens - we stayed at a hotel at Heathrow the night before to minimise getting up any earlier than needed as we were only a short walk from Terminal 5 to check in - it was literally get up, get showered, get dressed and go!

After an uneventful 3.5 hour flight we landed in Athens and got through the airport very quickly. We are not sure where the rest of the people on our plane got to but there was hardly anyone in the queue at passport control, and we got through without queueing, and didn't see the other passengers until ages afterwards at the luggage carousel!

We got the metro in to town and eventually arrived at our hotel at around 3:30pm. The hotel is on a very busy noisy street but luckily our room is looking over one of the side streets. It is a very nice room - with unusual art on the walls and a chair that looks like a ladder!

Our bedroom

After unpacking we went for a walk through the lovely cobbled streets near our hotel - as we hadn't eaten since breakfast, and it was nearly 5pm local time, we had a late lunch/early dinner and chose to share a platter of local delicacies which included moussaka, stuffed peppers and tomatoes, slow roasted lamb and patitsio which is like a Greek lasagne. It was quite a feast but delicious and a good introduction to Greek food!

Our first meal in Athens

Peter had a beer and I had a wine with our meal, and after we had finished our food they brought us another drink each and said it was on the house to welcome us to Greece which we thought was very nice of them, especially as the meal had been pretty cheap bearing in mind how much food we got (we couldn't finish it!). I said to Peter no wonder the Greek economy isn't doing well if they give away free drinks!

We then went for a walk where we got our first glimpse of some of the ruins including the Acropolis.