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The problem with chasing the cheapest flights is that they are always at the worst times, we dragged ourselves out of bed at 4.30am for a taxi pick up at 5am to make our Santorini flight at 7am. We were flying Ryanair and saw no reason to pay extra to choose seating for a half hour flight, so sure enough we were told we weren't sitting together. Interestingly though both of us had seats in front of us and in the aisle opposite where two seats sided by side were vacant. There was no reason why we couldn't have been seated together it was obviously just a marketing ploy for us to spend more money.
At Santorini we shared a taxi from the airport with another girl but the sharing was only in space, we all paid the same price as if we had our own taxi. We were surprised at how quiet the area was as we expected Santorini to
be very busy.
After dropping off our luggage at our Airbnb in Fira we went for a quick breakfast before following the hilltop walk through Firostefani to Imerovigli. The towns and walk were all the quintessential white buildings with blue trims and lots of kitsch shops culminating in the town churches with the blue domes. By the time we started the return trip the crowds were building and we realised that Santorini is really busy, it was just that everyone wasn't up and about when we arrived.
The buildings were pretty and the cliff faces are barren volcanic rock. There are a massive amounts of restaurants cafes all with stupendous views and prices to match. That evening we checked the price of drinks at one place, thinking we were getting a good deal, but then made the mistake of ordering French fries at a cost of 6 euros. We were shocked when we received a saucer with a handful of pre-cooked chips, more like 50 cents worth than the $10 we paid!
We were surprised to find a few asian restaurants in town but it makes sense when you see all the Asian tourists with the girls in their long flowing dressers and high heels posing for their boyfriends for the perfect instagram photo. The upside was we had a nice Indian meal just when we thought we'd left our kind of tasty food behind.
On Sundays they have a changing of the guard outside Parliament House so we walked to Syntagma Square to watch it. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to see much as the people in front blocked the view with cameras and phones, hope they watch their videos when they get home!
As we weren’t far from Socrates' Lyceum we walked via the gardens to our next stop and it was very quiet. It is mind blowing that one person from so long ago could have such an impact, his study and understanding was across so many different subjects.
From here we decided it wasn't far to walk to the funicular to take us to the top of Lycabettus Hill, it might not be very far but it sure seemed like there were a lot of steps up the hill to get there. The view from the top was spectacular and it was interesting to see that pretty much all of the buildings in the huge city of Athens were all a variation of whites and creams. There was a cute cafe at the top which made a nice lunch stop, K took the funicular back while M walked down.
From here we walked to the Archaeological Museum which is one of the best museums in the world but not as large as we expected. Some of the ceramics were huge and it was interesting to see the Antikythera mechanism and the fact that experts still haven't deciphered it's many sophisticated functions.
So far the weather has been much warmer than we expected for spring, instead of the low 20's it has been consistently in the high 20's.
An early start as we wanted to get to the Acropolis before the tour groups. The gates were due to be opened at 8am and we were second in line, K was most amused that the gate the entry to the Acropolis was only marked by
a small piece of paper with Entrance written on it and stuck to the fence by two pieces of sticky tape. The gates were opened up at 7.58 and we made a bee line for the top deciding we would visit the temples and ruins on the slopes on the way down.
There weren't many people at the top and we managed to have uninterrupted views of the Parthenon and the Ercehtheion. K was happy to finally see the Caryatids in real life after so many years of admiring them and making them in clay.
Apart from a few young girls working hard to get the perfect Instagram shot of themselves in front of the Parthenon it was reasonably quiet. By the time we left the top it was 9am and the hordes were starting to arrive. We followed the path around the outside seeing the caves and stopping off at some of the sites we had rushed past in our bid to be at the top first.
The Odeon of Herod was particularly impressive and we would have loved to have seen a show there but they weren’t starting for a few more weeks. At 10am we decided we had seen it all and forced our back through the incoming masses to get to the gate, it can't be much fun trying to see the Parthenon through the gaps between other people.
We then climbed the slippery rock where the apostle Paul had conducted many ministries before taking the cute streets back through Anafiotika stopping for a drink on the way.
We started the day by going through Hadrian's Arch which is just at the end of our little street and then stopping off at the incredible Temple of Zeus with it's very tall Corinthian columns, all a stone's throw from where we are staying and each other.
Next stop was the amazing Panathenaic Stadium the site of the original Olympic games and the only totally marble stadium in the world. Walking though the tunnel that the athletes used to enter the stadium was a highlight, although we didn't run laps of the running tracks, we left that to the other tourists. K decided that the 50 cents to use the toilets was well worth it, as even they were totally made out of marble (apart from the cistern).
That afternoon we visited the Acropolis Museum then walked up Filopappou hill to get a different view of the Parthenon.
We are finding the smoking at restaurants, inside while you are eating very strange and it makes you realise how far Australia has come in such things. The high number of tourists is really surprising, if this is the low season
I hate to think what it must be like at the peak time, especially in the evenings when the streets are packed.
We arrived into Athens just after 9am, K was craning her neck from the plane window to hopefully get a glimpse of the Parthenon but all she could see was a giant Ikea.
Our taxi swerved in and out of traffic at 130 kms an hour, we think because it is a set fare he wanted to get us there as quick as possible, we were fortunate that our Airbnb in Plaka allowed us to check in early.
As K has an interest in Greek architecture, especially in columns she had made a list of all the sites she wanted to see. What we didn’t expect was that they would all be so close to where we are staying and every corner we turned brought us to another incredible ancient site. We visited Hadrian's library and the Ancient Agora purely by stumbling upon them.
It’s quite like being in Cairo and discovering the pyramids are in the city not out somewhere in the distance as you have imagined, or walking through the middle of Vienna and seeing a Lipizzaner crossing the road in front of you as the stables are in the centre of the city.
The weather was superb, we were pleased to leave the humidity of Singapore behind and instead of having temperatures in the low 20's that we expected they were in the high 20’s.
We always like to start our visit in a new city with a “free” walking tour as you get a good overview of the city and usually some history, local information and useful recommendations as well. We joined the 5pm tour and had a great guide who entertained us and filled in a lot of history and background over three hours. It took 9 years to build the Parthenon and the current restoration complete with scaffolding has been going on for 34 years, the only time the scaffolding has been taken down was for the 2000 Olympics.
We went to have dinner at a place our guide recommended which we finally found after getting hopelessly lost, compounded by a touch of jet lag and a night trying to sleep on a plane. We shuffled home having seen a lot more than we had planned for our first day in Athens.
M’s birthday today and we caught the train to Harbourfront, it's pretty impressive how clean, easy and efficient the train system is, not a homeless person in sight, is that just because of the areas we are visiting?
Once we arrived we caught the cable car to Sentosa Island, we bypassed the theme parks and visited the fort instead. The fort was interesting but the heat and humidity was a real killer. We made full use of our cable car ticket, visiting every stop on the two lines including Mount Faber.
We then did a quick stop at Orchard Road for a little shopping. In the evening we went to Marina Bay Sands to take the lift 57 floors to the Skypark, the area where non guests are allowed (for a fee) to check out the view of Singapore. We had timed it for dusk to watch the Gardens by the Bay light show but in hindsight it was a little too
far away and a bit underwhelming.
We then caught the train to Arab St, obviously the Arabian section of Singapore which was very Turkish in character but we still managed to find an Indian restaurant before heading back to our apartment to pack up and head for the airport for our 2.30am flight to Athens. That's the problems with these cheap flights, there's a reason why they're cheap!
Singapore is a little different to most other airports as in the hand luggage security check is at the gate not in the main airport section. The problem with this is that the area is only opened up an hour before the flight leaves so there is a huge queue and you have to enter the lounge without any water. Once you get through the baggage check the line for the one water fountain is even longer as everyone knows they are getting on a flight where you have to pay an exorbitant price for a bottle of water. They started making final call announcements and many gave up and left the queue to board, we managed to get a little water but many others missed out.
We were lucky to have a spare seat between us which made the 11 hour 20 minute flight in the middle of the night a little more comfortable.
We were still operating on Australian time which is 2 hours ahead so we were up and out the door early for our first stop, Gardens by the Bay, which is relatively new, very lush and attractive.
We went into the flower dome which had plants from around the world and the first garden was easy for us to identify as it was Australian. The specialist garden on display was tulips, beautifully done with sculptures and mock Dutch shops, the variation in the colours was extraordinary.
Next stop was the cloud forest which had the most superb vertical gardens and cascading water however part way through we did wonder why we were visiting a man-made cloud forest when we have been to natural ones in places like Costa Rica and Rwanda.
We left Gardens by the Bay and crossed the river walking past the sporting stadium on the water until we got to the Merlion statue which was engulfed with tourists. From there we walked to Chinatown and caught the train to Little India. The heat and humidity was pretty draining and K decided she needed a break so we headed back to our apartment to recuperate before heading out for the evening.
We caught the train to Boat Quay and found a nice roof top bar on the river with a fabulous view of the impressive Marina Sands building before finding a good Indian restaurant with a table right on the edge of the water, which after 16km of walking for the day we felt we deserved. We need to eat up on spicy Asian food as we are sure it will be thin on the ground in Eastern Europe.
Our flight was leaving at the very civilised time of 12.10pm so we caught a taxi to the airport and on the way tried to check to see whether it was on time. We had a bit of trouble finding the Scoot flight and that's when we discovered that while we might think we were flying Scoot they had actually merged with Tiger. The flight was fine, though Kathryn did get into a bit of a fight with the guys in front of us who decided to put their seats back about 3 milliseconds after the seat belt sign went off.
Once we arrived at our little Airbnb apartment we walked down the street for dinner at a cheap corner restaurant and called it a night.
