From The Islands To Athens

It’s 4.40am and the party goes on as the all night bars of a vibrant and lively Athens buzz with music and laughter as Friday becomes Saturday morning. We’ve both been to Athens before in previous lives, but something has changed: a thoroughly modern, vivacious city culture has grown around the ancient ruins, turning Athens into, at first sight, a city with absolutely everything. It feels utterly alive. 

Prior to this we’d spent our last day on Andros on and around Fellos beach and its renowned family run taverna before returning the hire car and enjoying one last evening in Gavrio. 

The ferry journey from Andros to Rafina takes a little over two hours: for us, two hours in the sunshine on deck, after which there’s a bit of a scramble to grab two seats and luggage space on the bus to Athens centre. This is the only part of this trip where we’ve pre-booked accommodation, a room at the Hotel Astor from which we have a terrific view of the Parthenon. 

For our first sortie around the city we don’t yet enter any of the major sites but instead soak up the atmosphere in the Syntagma, Plaka and Monastiraki districts. It’s incredible and fascinating how this modern, busy city goes about its business around some of the most wonderful ancient sites on Earth, almost as if it’s nothing special. 

As we head back to our hotel shortly before midnight, we get the distinct feeling we are doing something wrong: restaurants are still filling up; people are ordering dinner; crowds are heading out for the night.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll find out if we can roll back the years and engage in a bit of hedonism of our own!