Athens, Anyone?

So our Athens stay is officially over. As I'm writing this, we are sitting on a ferry heading over to Mykonos.

Athens was a disappointment, to say the least. When we arrived, the metro was on strike, so getting to our hotel (via bus) took longer than necessary. One thing did go our way, though- we were able to check in and take a nap as soon as we got into the hotel.

I was still under the weather, so lack of sleep from late-night packing the night before and not sleeping well on the plane led to a very drained, sickly traveler. After a couple hours, we got up and made our way to pick up our ferry tickets for today's trip. Too bad their office was closed. Fine. We'll just check out the National Archeological Museum since it's nearby. Oh, that's right- it was closed, too. We decided to head back to our area and found something that WASN'T closed, the Acropolis Museum. We opted to grab our first Greek dinner, get to bed early and start fresh the next day.

Unfortunately, I woke up feeling worse than the day before so it wasn't the most ideal start. Then we found out the ferry ticket place was still closed. Greeeeaaat. Thankfully, the NAM was open so we saw that and then did the Athens Walking Tour Rick Steve's made and finally made our way to the Acropolis.

Rick Steve's suggested visiting the Acropolis either first thing in the morning or going two or three hours prior to closing because the weather is nicer and the site is less crowded. The hours showed in the book as open daily from 8:00 to 20:00 (8 PM) so we thought 5 PM would be the perfect time.

Wellll, as it turns out, the Greeks decided Sunday should be a day of rest and changed their closing time to 3 PM with last entrance at 2:30. So, when we arrived at 4:50 PM all we saw were other upset tourists.

The most important site in Athens went unseen. Complete devastation. I cannot fully describe my shock and disappointment. I am still rather touchy on this subject and probably will be for quite some time.

We managed to make the most out of the rest of our time and had a nice stroll in the Plaka area; we bought a few souvenirs and had a nice dinner at the famous restaurant steps before heading back to our hotel.

So all in all, Athens was not exactly what we hoped for, but it could've been much worse. I'm ready to see what the rest of the trip has in store for us...