I’m not sure if it’s because we ditched the guidebook or because this is a new place for both of us or perhaps it’s just that Athens is a little less discovered and some of the other places we’ve been to but I Love it here! It’s a very unique City in the fact that it’s a very big Metropolis but it’s also kind of a hippie town. There are Street vendors all over but they are selling cool jewelry and art work not tacky touristy things. There’s graffiti on half of the buildings but then they’ll be a really nice hotel tucked in between two dilapidated buildings or a nice restaurant underneath. We were walking around this morning to find a kebab place for lunch and we ran into a mile of antique stores set up into sidewalk shops. I was lost for an hour, starving but blissfully searching for treasures. We found so many amazing things but all are too big for us to take or ship home. Also too big to fit in our tiny apartment. We have been eating delicious food, sooo good! We saw the Acropolis today and Nick spotted a tortoise walking around in there. A tortoise!!! So rad. We really love our hotel and saw a beautiful sunset tonight from the roof deck. We have one more night here and then we take off at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning to catch a ferry to the islands.

We have also learned that Athens is taking advantage of tourists in some negative ways. I had a friend warn me before we got here about people stealing phones right off of tables while one is eating dinner. I had forgotten about it but last night while at dinner, a man walked up to the table next to us and put a map down pointing at something but the man at the table just shooed him away. He left really quickly but 20 minutes later the man realized that his phone, that was sitting on the corner of the table, was gone. It was a humble reminder that we always need to be on guard and Nick and I have been very vigilant since then. I’ll explain the rest in pictures. ❤️

It has been interesting here seeing all the different churches. The Parthenon for example started as a temple honoring Athena, Athen’s patron saint but then depending on the king or whoever invaded Greece, it switched to then a Christian church then a temple then a storage area for the military. It’s like everyone realized it’s architectural significance but government and religion were so tied together they just changed symbols and meanings haphazardly to suit the time. We saw the same things in Spain and Italy… Interesting.