It took a while for us to get to our hotel… and it was stressful. The whole area was a little run down. We stayed in a Novotel, which is usually a safe bet, but there were syringes and various other gross-ness outside the hotel.

Once in, it was quite nice. We had dinner and drinks at the rooftop bar, where we could see the Acropolis all lit up.

Don’t let the photo fool you though – we just have a really good lens on our camera!

The next day, the first thing we did was head to Acropolis. We’re usually walkers, but the locals looked a bit shady, so we jumped on the train to get the trip over faster.

We walked up the steepest hill to get to the top. It was so hot, and I was feeling a bit run down after three weeks of travel. To be honest, I was finding it hard to enjoy myself.

We headed back down after a good look and headed to a pharmacy to get me some meds to keep me going. It was hard… English wasn’t as common as it was in the rest of Europe! I ended up with both cold and flu tablets AND hayfever tablets… I took them all.

We had a quiet night with dinner and drinks, whilst watching the Euro Cup.

We spent the next morning on a food tour that we found on Viator, being guided around all the small bakeries, delis and huge meat markets. It was great to sample all the different types of foods, and see where the locals get their food. Greek doughnuts and something called koulouri.

After the food tour we invited the guide to stay with us for lunch. She discussed the current times in Greece, how local businesses were struggling. We hung out the rest of the day and just enjoyed the company, food and drink, and took in the surroundings.

The next morning we were up bright and early to catch a ferry to Ios. I wasn’t a big fan of Athens: it was like a city that was once big, but is now run down and troubled. Our last goodbye can be seen in the photo of me waiting for the ferry – it was so sad. I can’t say that we would be going back anytime soon.