Santorini —> Athens

We enjoyed our last breakfast in our Santorini paradise and checked out of our lovely hotel. We really enjoyed the relaxing nature of the hotel and the staff/hospitality was second to none - we will definitely be recommending to anyone travelling to Santorini in the future!

We caught the bus to Fira and then the bus from Fira to the airport to catch our flight to Athens. We arrived in the Greek capital around 2pm.

We checked into our hostel and went for a late gyros lunch before heading to our evening walking tour. The tour started at 6pm which was fantastic given it was so hot during the day and was actually quite nice walking around at night time.

The tour lasted about 3 hours, and given there is over 2500 years of history in Athens to run through we certainly packed a lot in!

Our guide, Katalina, gave us great succinct history lessons throughout the tour! She started with a quick overview of Greek history. In particular, she started with around 500BC which was known as the Golden Years (days of famous philosophers, democracy and Olympics in Plympia every 4 years to celebrate the 12 gods). The Romans occupied Greece by Alexander the Great in 200BC but but not much changed by way of Greek culture because the Greeks and Romans shared very similar religion and culture. In around 100AD, Greece received its name. The Ottomans (modern day Turkish) invaded and occupied Greece for 400 years. They brought Christianity to Greece and are much closer ancestors of modern day Greeks. With the introduction of Christianity, many of the Greek believes such as democracy, philosophy and science lost significance. In 1821, the Greeks revolted and gained their independence in 1827. So although Greece has a long history, it is a relatively young country!

We visited the Zappeion Hall and Garden. In 1896, the Zappas brothers (brothers that were from Romania but were Greek) came to Athens and came up with a fantastic marketing campaign for the new Greece - reviving the ancient Olympics! They created a village for Olympians and training grounds as well as significantly restoring an ancient stadium called Panathetic Stadium. We visited this incredible stadium which is made completely out of marble. The opening ceremony for every Olympics starts here and the torch is lit in Olympia (in the South of Greece) and lights the torch of the host nation's torch.

We then visited the Presidential Palace. Greece has both a President and Prime Minister. The President has a purely symbolic role - she does not have a role in parliament or government. The President is supposed to uphold the constitution (and democracy) and can veto a law if it is not in line with the constitution and these values. However, no President in Greece's history has ever used this power - even when Greece was under a dictatorship! Out the front of the Presidential Palace, we saw the National Guards guarding the front. Their march and uniform is very distinctive and our guide explained different features of the uniform. Their uniform refers to the sacrifices Greece made to become independent and they hit their feet onto the ground so their ancestors can hear them and know that Greece is now independent. They wear two pairs of woolen socks at all times (in summer and winter) to cover up and their shoes weigh around 2.5kg each - this must be exhausting in the summer!!

We then visited Parliament House in Syntagma square. In front of the Parliament House, National Guards guard the town of an unknown soldier which represents soldiers who were killed at war fighting for Greece. In Greek Orthodox religion, the most important sacrament is the funeral so it is very significant that so many people fought for Greece and never received a proper farewell or funeral. The tomb is guarded by National Guards 24/7 and the changing of the guard occurs hourly. Katalina explained the recent history of removing the monarchy, becoming a Republic and Greece's time ruled under a dictatorship.

We had a greek mojito during the break which was very refreshing (and very alcoholic!) before continuing on with the tour. We walked through Plaka, a popular food and retail district in Athens. The modern day Plaka is at the foot of the Acropolis and was built over the ancient ruins in the area. We also saw the Roman Agora which was the old place for public speaking and speeches during Roman rule. Merchants saw an opportunity and started setting up stores at the agora so the agora became a marketplace. At this location, there is the ancient Wind Tower which was used to tell the direction of the wind (which was then conveyed to sailors down at the port some 6km away) and potentially it also contained a type of clock.

We concluded our tour in Plaka and made our way back to the hostel, passing Hadrian’s Arch and the Panathetic stadium one more time. We grabbed a couple of burgers for dinner before heading to bed. After all the luxury in Santorini, it's back to the hostel life for us (for now!)Read more