(written 16:04, 9/5/2006 in Spisské Podhradie, Slovakia)
After breakfast at our Náfplio hotel again, we set off towards Athína (Athens) along first slower then faster roads, eventually joining the motorway which dumped us fairly unceremoniously in suburbia. We made our way to Piraeus (Athína's port), which proved to be quite a task without a detailed map. After a few wrong turns, we found the port/ferry terminal, very glad we had learnt the Greek alphabet for the signs we had had to read to get there. Pretty bad for the major port to the Greek Islands.
That was the reason we had come there - to find out what sort of costs would be involved in getting
to/from some islands, which we did at one of the many travel agents on the main drag after getting a lucky park across the road.
Hungry, we sat down in a souvlaki place to discuss island plans - eventually deciding against any islands this trip. For one, we had a car, which would have to be put into long-term parking somewhere here on the mainland while we travelled around the islands, while we were still paying for its use and probably some other form of transport on the island also. Secondly, we weren't quite sure how to see enough of the islands to do them justice, and still eventually get through Eastern Europe to our north as well in time to get back to Paris then home.
So, deciding that there would have to be a "next time" for Europe yet again, we got in our car and drove into Athína, with no decent map and only some very vague directions to a camp ground. These turned out to be of no use at all, and in very short time we found ourselves driving around the centre of Athína - not at all what we had intended. Still, we were there now and plan B in a big city is to stay central in a place with parking, spending a bit more but seeing the city.
We asked at one hotel but guy didn't seem to speak English or Greek to get rates from him, so we pushed on, looking for camping, but eventually ending up driving through the centre and out the other side.
With no signs to help us, we turned around, giving up on camping and stopping at another hotel we had spotted on our way out. A few tiny dirty backstreets later and we had a park a couple of streets away. The hotel turned out to be ugly but people there spoke Greek and English, and offered us a room at a reasonable rate, which after the day's mucking around we quickly snapped up.
The hotel was on the major artery into town from the north, 28 Oktovriou-Patission, which meant that trolley busses took us into the centre after we had cleared the car of anything vaguely worth money and put that all in our room.
A little street stall gave us a tasty snack with some strawberries, while a dog got rather excited after Liz said hello to it - again.
With no set aims for the afternoon (most of the big-named sites would need more time than we had left), we wandered around Plaka, the centre of the city.
The Cathedral proved to be a draw, and after that we had (expensive but really needed) coffees and cake on the cathedral's square Plateia Mitropoleos, before wandered up the hill a little to take some photos of the Acropolis. Dinner was at Noodle House, where we ate a great and not at all greek meal, but different to anything we had eaten since home.
After this, we took trolley bus back, checked the car, and collapsed in our ugly room.
Possibly unbeknownst to the proprietor, their DVD of choice was playing across the hotel on channel 11. The porn on offer wasn't quite to our liking and we reverted to CNN to catch up on world news.