Athens

While on my Greece tour I had been trying to get onto another tour (either Eastern Europe somewhere or Scandinavia) however wasn't having much luck at the last minute and it was a slow process going back and forth with tour companies. With my birthday fast approaching I really wanted to be on a tour to ensure I had some company for it.

Very long story short, I wasn't able to get onto a tour so I had to figure out what to do and where to go. Melissa from my Spain tour is also travelling around (on Busabout) and she was going to be in Munich on the night of the 4th so I arranged with her that we would catch up and Munich was my next destination.

I didn't do a lot more in Athens but took the opportunity (while waiting for tour companies to get back to me for example) to take a couple of days off from 'travelling', relax and actually managed to skype a few people and catch up after over 2 months!

A quick recap of the few things I did actually do though...

Monday 28th July
The Opera last night was incredible, such a cool experience. Luckily they had catered for the tourist crowd and had both Greek and English subtitles (the Opera was in Italian) so we could follow what was happening in detail.

Tuesday 29th July
Visited the Lycabetus Hill, the highest point in Athens. It was a bit of a mission to get there but after the cable car up, I was treated to the view of pretty much all of Athens, right out to the water.

Wednesday 30th July
Travel planning day after having finally given up on tours.

Thursday 31st July
With my next plan sorted (for the most part) I thought I should do something touristy so took a day trip out to 3 of the smaller islands not far off the mainland, Hydra, Poros & Aegina. On Aegina I was able to complete the triad of Temples... the Temple of Athena (the Parthenon), the Temple of Poseidon (at Cape Sounio) & here, the Temple of Athea, form an equalteral triangle over the cape (noone knows if it was planned or is a crazy coincidence!). It was a nice day, met some locals doing the tourist thing in their own backyard, saw (& did) some Greek dancing and enjoyed my last bit of sun & water for a while.