Athens, Greece, day 1

Off the ship by 8am and at the Meliá Athens by 8.30am. Obviously we couldn't check in so after a wee wait we wandered up to the Museum of Archaeology. Very impressive place. We spent over fours hours there! The oldest artifacts were three millennium BC (!) and the most recent were 100 AD, Roman times. Incredible!

We got into our room, which is very average. Then we tried to find somewhere to eat, but so many places only serve drinks so it was back to the hotel rooftop bar/pool for food and wine. We've got an amazing view of the acropolis from the pool.

So far Athens is surprising. Its obvious that the economy is still struggling; everything is heavily taxed and therefore quite expensive. Unemployment is very high and the streets are dirty with heaps of places shutdown and padlocked. And the graffiti is terrible. It's a bit sad.

We've booked two days of touring before heading to London on Tuesday morning.En savoir plus