Greek guide to Athens with 24 hours or less.. Europe Part II

Do you have less than 24 hours in Athens and want to hit up the important areas??  Keep reading, it’s good… I’ll tell you what we did in about 19 hours to include travel to/from the Athens airport.. it can be done.

Let’s talk major travel bucket lists… I’ve been wanting to go to Greece for the longest time.  I saw a picture of Santorini’s flowing hills featuring white buildings and blue rooftops and knew I needed to go there one day.  I didn’t even know where it was, I just knew I needed to get there.  Upon research, found out it was the island of Santorini which lies south of the main body of Greece.  Greece is actually surrounded by thousands of little islands.  If you missed my first post, I wrote all about those pretty blue rooftops here.

 

 

{first things first – getting to athens from the airport}

We actually started by flying into Athens for the night before jetting off to the Greek isles.. I’m not the biggest history lover, but I do love pyramids and Greek mythology.  Landing in Athens, we took the train (cash only and 10 euros ($12) or 2 people for 18 euros ($21)) to our Airbnb which took about an hour, located near Petralona, just a couple stops away from Monastiraki where the main attractions are for tourists.  Quickly unpacked a change of clothes to freshen up and headed directly out, hot off our red eye from Seoul.

If you follow along, I actually posted Santorini/Mykonos on IG and on the blog first even though we landed in Athens and explored here fresh from the plane.. a little backwards but it all worked out.

{acropolis of athens and the parthenon}

We went straight for the Acropolis of Athens..  So I didn’t have a ton of time to do a bunch of research, but I wrote down major sites I needed to see during our European tour, and for Athens, the Acropolis and Parthenon were at the top and they were side by side.  This makes sight seeing very easy!  I didn’t realize it wasn’t free.. not sure why I thought it would be, but it cost 20 euros (about $24) and they accept cards.  You can’t go all the way to Athens and not pay 20 euros to see the Parthenon.. I mean come on.. worth it..  I think the price changes during the off season and might be cheaper.. in August in Europe, expect to pay a premium for anything you do.

 

 

This was life changing.  Two major bucket list items checked off already and I was in such a happy place.  I still couldn’t even believe I finally made it to Greece!  I wanted to go for our honeymoon but getting married in Hawaii we diverted to Australia/New Zealand instead and I still had Greece on my mind.

{monument details}

We went around 5pm and it was H-O-T, but way better than earlier in the day I’m sure.  It closed at 7:30 which was plenty of time.  There are other ruins up there that I’m not 100% sure of the name.  I was more interested in staring at them with the time we had than reading up about them.. pseudo fail.  On the way up, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus theater was at the base of the slope.. Greek tragedies were performed here by all the greats starting in 161 AD.. Socrates had some good taste location wise for his art.. The stage still gets regularly used to include a Miss Universe pageant.. and Yanni.. who doesn’t love.. Yanni?  I didn’t know, but the Temple of Athena Nike is also up there.  The details on those stones were mesmerizing.

 

 

 

 

 

We first saw the Acropolis of Athens and although there were 39,202,432 people around with the same idea, I was nothing but smiles.  Standing there after only seeing pictures in textbooks in school was such an accomplishment.  Travel is so incredibly addicting and I love that feeling when you are face to face with reality!  It’s gorgeous and very slippery so don’t be like me and wear the worst shoes to stand on marble rocks.. (but fashion).

 

 

 

 

To get to the Parthenon, you literally walk through the center of the Acropolis with the Temple of Athena Nike on the left side.  I felt like I was rushing to it because it all just didn’t seem real.. all the travel inspo pictures on my IG were coming to life right before me.. because let’s be honest, the photo ops were real.  It’s incredible and impressively massive.  Come to find out it was so damaged because in 1687 it basically exploded from stored gunpowder when hit by a cannonball during the Morean War.  Knowledge dropped.

So photoshoot commenced almost immediately upon arrival to the area as I’m sure you can see from the pictures thus far.  My most prized ones are in front of the Parthenon.  I was obsessed.  It got closer to needing to head back down before they closed and I wanted to sit a bit longer to take it all in.  This is also when I realized I was MF’ing parched.  Luckily, Europe has their water fountains situated in ideal locations.  So. many. photos.

 

 

 

 

We headed down because hunger pains started setting in..  Took a quick walk through all the surrounding neighborhoods of Thissio, Monastiraki, Plaka, Syntagma Square, and probably other little ones along the way, but those are the ones to hit up if you’re in that area.  Yelp doesn’t exist here, but we found a restaurant called Diogenes in the Plaka area and it was perfect. We sat al fresco and the food was incredibly tasty.  That night was a little vague because the tiredness kicked up a notch after being up for 2+ days straight then all the sight seeing, so I didn’t take one picture of the food. Weird if you know me and I had to double check my album and not one photo.  But I got the stuffed grape leaves and I’d order it again!  Also, we ordered the olives as appetizers.. because Greek olives are a must when in Greece.

We started back toward the Airbnb but caught some night time shots and gelato at Coco’s.. I couldn’t go to bed my first night in Greece without having gelato.. one of many on my trip I might add.  We turned in a little early since our Santorini excursion had us waking up at 4:30AM to head back to the airport.  Sidebar: I really need to start shortening these travel posts, what do you think,too much, too little?

 

 

 

{the takeaway}

You could use a second day in Athens, but if you are short on time in Greece, you could do Athens in a 24 hour period and hit up a few other sites than we did..  The main ruins can be done in a day.

Follow along with all my Greece instagram posts using #BrigittexGreece

The next European town is Dubrovnik, Croatia.. another new stamp in the passport.. Part III coming up soon!

{outfit details}

Top: Nova Sky via Bamboo Sky

Shorts: Forever 21 (similar)

Shoes: Solana “Foster Eyelet Rose Quartz” via Bamboo Sky