D1: Arrival in Athens

We arrived in Athens, a bit worse for wear after 2 grueling flights. It all started with  getting bumped from our Iberia flight for which we were first in line to check in.  We were asked if we would like to take a British Air flight that left 2 hours later, but arrived 2 hours earlier so we agreed.  @ hours later hanging around Logan, we finally were able to check in at British Air, only to be told that they were even more overbooked than Iberia, but they would be happy to put us on standby.  So we marched back to Iberia (who had given away our seats) and after much intense coaxing, we were able to get on a Lufthansa flight leaving at 10:10 (that would put us at Logan for about 8 hours!) arriving Athens at 530 the following evening. On top of that, Jeri had just come down with a bad cold, and somewhere over the Atlantic, I developed acute gastroenteritis, probably food poisoning and was pretty sick until earlier this morning.  I’m fine now, but Jeri seems to have developed a sinus infection.  That huge first aid kit is finally coming in handy.  We are both happy to have 3 or 4 days before we have to start pedaling.

Our hotel is very close to the Plaka, a warren of shops and restaurants in the shadow of the Acropolis. 

They have a beautiful roof top restaurant that overlooks the Temple of Zeus

and the Acropolis,

a great place for breakfast.  We met “Garmin” Gene, the routing guru for the trip, at breakfast.  He turned out to be a recent transplant from southern California to southern New Hampshire.

After making sure my breakfast stayed down and loading Jeri up with cold medicine and Zithromax, we set off to explore.  Our first stop was the Jewish Museum of Greece.  

We felt is was a good bet that that would not be on our planned itinerary for the touring over the next couple of days.  The museum was small but very interesting.  Much of it centered on the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, but there was also information about the ancient Greek Jewish diaspora.

We spent the rest of the day roaming the Plaka.

After  a brief relax by the pool (during which we both fell asleep) we grabbed a couple of photos  of the Acropolis toward sunset from the rooftop bar and then went to test my stomach with Indian food for dinner.  Then a walk around the base of the Acropolis. It was difficult to get good photo, too many trees, but the street entertainers were amazing. There were accordionists, puppeteers, and violinists, some of whom were amazing.

                                      

                                        

After walking off dinner, we are both ready for a good night’s sleep.