We flew from Crete to Athens on Saturday afternoon, spending the night at a hotel near the airport in order to catch our flight home early Sunday. Saturday morning before our flight we drove back into Heraklion, originally planning to do some shopping, but instead we spent the morning exploring the Venetian port in Heraklion. We also drove on the old National road along the coast rather than the new road, which is more of a freeway. Much slower, but a very nice drive with beautiful views. We arrived back at the airport well in time for our Aegean airlines flight to Athens. Great service on Aegean Air, although they do charge for checked bags, 30 Euros each. Upon arrival, we walked out the airport and walked right across the street to the Sofitel. lovely hotel, very nice room and incredibly convenient.
Since we got into Athens in mid afternoon and the Acropolis Museum is open until 8, we decided to head in for a visit. We took the train from the airport into Athens. I would recommend the train to any visitors. From the airport, the first few stops are considered to be "suburban rail", and once it gets closer into the city, it's considered light rail. So it takes a little while, the first stops being relatively far apart. But it's inexpensive - 14 Euros round trip - and it's clean and easy. It does get crowded, even on a Saturday night.
We got into the museum and spent a couple of hours looking at antiquities mostly coming from the Acropolis. It's a very nice space, the building itself is airy and light and with good views of the Acropolis itself. The rooms are large, which is important as the house lots of very large marble statues. You sort of feel like you're walking through a garden of these huge statues. My favorites were the Caryatid, very large statues of women that were taken from an entryway where they were holding up the roof. There were originally six of them, the Acropolis museum has 5, including one that has been damaged by a Turkish cannon ball. Here's a couple of photos of them.
After our time in the museum, we headed up to Syntagma Square in central Athens and the Plaka. These are the lively areas in Athens, lots of activity, restaurants, street artists etc. also very easy to get to on the light rail. We ate dinner at a nice traditional place right off the Plaka, sitting outside enjoying watching people go by. The food was good, we somehow miscommunicated with our waiter and both ended up with the same lamb dish, but it was excellent. Gordon thinks the communication went wrong because the waiter was drunk. He could be right. We then took the train back to our hotel, had a nightcap in the very nice lobby bar and headed up for a couple of hours sleep before our 4 a.m. wake up call.
Our flight from Athens to Rome left at six a.m. And we had a three hour layover in Rome before the 13-hour long flight back to LA. Alitalia's service was much better on the way back! The flights left on time, and the experience at Rome was so much better. I think that's because all non- EU flights come in to one very busy terminal. Because we flew from Athens we came into a much quieter terminal, had an easy time at passport control and then got on the bus to the larger international terminal, where we just had to wait for our flight. We had a nice breakfast and then flew back to the U.S. It was a long tiring day.
We had a great time in both Athens and Crete, and would recommend it to anyone. A couple of pieces of advice: driving is crazy, just try to pay attention. Credit cards are not accepted in some places you would expect, so do have cash. Athens is better for credit cards than Crete. Be prepared to walk on hilly and uneven surfaces. Take time for the museums and historical sites. Enjoy the food! And take your time at meals. Island hopping is expensive, but so worth it. Wine tasting on Crete and Santorini is unexpectedly good.
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