Athens

To note, I'm going to keep my next few posts as brief as possible in order to catch up with our travels. I'm just way far behind, I practically don't remember a lot of what we did in some of the places.

There really isn't enough to say about how great it is to have so much flexibility with our itinerary. From some word-of-mouth of other backpackers, we heard that Romania this time of year (March) isn't really the best time to visit, so we decided to axe Bucharest from our trip and instead we hopped on a flight from Vienna heading to the capital of Greece: Athens.

Probably one of the best change-of-plans I've encountered.

We loved Greece in general, and Athens was simply spectacular. In three nights we covered as much sight-seeing as possible, and it was hard not to be impressed by such a massive, modern urban sprawl centered around so much ancient history.

We couldn't have been happier to see some sun, as it makes all of the ancient ruins sightseeing much more enjoyable. Below is the Temple of the Olympian Zeus:


The temple is situated pretty much in the center of the city, and then we wandered along some distance to the mountain/cliff/hill area where the Parthenon and most of the ancient city was built. Below is yours truly standing in the Dionysus theater:

And within the few minutes of our walking from the foot of the mountain to the top, the sky decided to turn overcast on us as I posed in front of the Parthenon:
From the top of the mountain you can get an idea of how massive Athens is. In every direction, the city looks like what is pictured below, just an urban sprawl for as far as the eye can see:
We also made our way up to Lycabettus Hill to see the old (but very well preserved) St. George church:
Some other highlights of Athens include, but or not limited to:

• I ate lamb (whether in a gyro or a shank of it) twice a day, every day
• After a day of sun, when we were heading back to our hostel we were caught in the most remarkable torrential downpour, ever, and could not hail a taxi (we didn't really know how in Athens) so we walked back completely soaked
• We met another couple from Los Angeles that we spent a good amount of time with and met up with again in a different locale; they were great. We partied.

I should also note that Greek hospitality is all that it is cracked up to be. The people are overwhelmingly friendly, they're curious and nice, and at any food place they just keep bringing you food and drink(whether you ordered it or not, whether you want it or not, and it's free).

Anyhow, after some amazing days/nights spent in Athens, we continued our migration through Greece and hopped on a ferry to explore some islands. More to come.