Seattle to Athens and Back 2006
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May 3rd-4th
Leaving-Destination......Seattle - Athens
Today was a hellish day of traveling. The bikes are heavy and awkward but we did it. The Seattle bus drivers were very nice about the inconvenience. We had to switch airports in London which made the journey about twice as difficult. We actually had to get our bags and bikes out of baggage. Transfer them via an over priced bus that took almost an hour from Heathrow to Gatwick Airport. The bus ride cost 18 pounds each. This is like $27 each. Luckily we don't have to do that on the way back.

We arrive in the Athens airport very late so the train is no longer running. We had read that buses wouldn't allow bikes so we are really worried about getting into Athens. But we get tickets for the bus and it turns out to be no problem to put the crated bikes on. It's now around midnight and we are crazy tired dragging our heavy bikes down a cobble stone ally in the middle of downtown Athens looking for a hostel that we have no reservation for. Looking down the allay, high on a hill ahead are some lit up ruins, WOW it's the Parthenon. We stumble on our hostel and fortunately there is one remaining room, 50 Euro for a double. Kinda steep but way way better than lugging those bikes to some other unknown hotel. 'Student and Travelers' is the name of the hostel. Very clean and quite nice. .
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May 5th
Exploring Athens

Well here we are in Athens. A city of incredible history. We're off to see the Parthenon in person.

Our hostel is right in the Placa (old city center). We did a fairly extensive exploration of this area today. It has very narrow streets with tons of shops and restaurants. There is some traffic in the Placa, and with the size of the streets that feels like a lot, but it's really when you try to leave the Placa that you're simply overwhelmed by the traffic, pollution and noise.

Today we saw the Acropolis, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Stadium where the 2004 and 1896 Olympic games were held and had also been used in ancient times. They were all very impressive but maybe a little overwhelming. The temple of Zeus was maybe the most impressive to me even though it is in very bad shape. Maybe that had something to do with the fewer people to contend with there. The stadium is really amazing since it is over 2000 years and sill in use (of course only due to major restorations in 1894). It cost 12 Euro for a pass that gets you into the major sights not including the museums in Athens.

One of the real treats of the day was the Public Market. There was an entire meat market, an entire fish market, and a veggie market. The meat market alone was probably comparable to our entire Pike Place Market. That was the biggest section but the fish and veggie sections weren't much smaller. .
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May 6th
Exploring Athens

More Walking Today. We went back to the meat market, man that place is cool. It really makes me sad to think how detached Americans are from their food. We also went back to Zeus's temple because it was closed when we got there yesterday. I put the bikes together this morning before we left. It went quite well, probably some major adjustments to do on the road. The pollution is quite bad here, no wonder the antiquities are disintegrating. Tarah got some sandals, made in Greece non the less, for 15 Euro today. We walked for ~4 hours with no problems.

We are planing to go hear some local music tonight with our dorm-mate Ulysses Fransisco (I don't know why he seems to have two first names). He's from Central America, presently living in France. Before we go there is just time enough for one more 1.5 Euro beer from the vending machine in the hostel's courtyard.

Well that didn't go so well. The place with the music smelled horribly of cat piss. The music and dinner were charmingly set on the roof looking out on the Parthenon and over the Placa but we simply couldn't bring ourselves to eat from a cat piss smelling kitchen. .
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We then left Athens for the Peloponnese Peninsula and began cycling. After Kreta we spent one more night in Athens before we flew back to Seattle.
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June 4th
Leaving-Destination......Kreta-Piraeus-Athens
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