#greque

Complexe olympique d’Athènes

“La plupart des gens savent que les premiers Jeux Olympiques modernes ont eu lieu à Athènes dans le Stade panathénaïque. Mais peu de gens connaissent l'impressionnant Complexe sportif olympique d'Athènes rénové pour les Jeux Olympiques d'Athènes en 2004 par l'architecte espagnol Santiago Calatrava.”

📷@patriciaizquierdomaldonado/

Un trésor caché à Athènes

“Athènes est certainement l'une de mes villes préférées pour ses joyaux cachés comme celui-ci, la nourriture fantastique, la culture antique et la vie animée. Il y a tant de choses à faire et à voir pendant que vous y séjournez.”

📷 @dfmarin

Joins-toi à la culture du café à Athènes 

“Athènes est certainement l'une de mes villes préférées pour ses joyaux cachés comme celui-ci, la nourriture fantastique, la culture antique et la vie animée. Il y a tant de choses à faire et à voir pendant que vous y séjournez.”  📷 @thetravelista​

<<<rewind to last last week<<<

Thursday (Feb 27): Train. Strasbourg. Train. Bus. Sleep. 

My bags packed and peanut butter baguette sandwiches made (thanks to Mami's care package), I was ready to embark on my 10-day spring break journey. Although I knew I would get to my first destination (Santorini, Greece) until Saturday afternoon, I was excited nonetheless. Thursday was mostly trains with the exclusion of one bus. I did, however, get to explore Strasbourg a bit (due to a layover) and visit the town's amazing cathedral which had a really cool astronomical clock  and gorgeous exterior. Hidden gems like that are always so fun to find. 

Friday (Feb 28): Bus. Plane. Bus. BUS. Metro. Sleep.

The plane ride was actually really gorgeous. We flew around the same time the sun was rising and had the insane treat of getting a view of the Italian-Swiss Alps peaking through a thin layer of clouds with the sun shining just the right way. I felt like I was looking at a painting out of the plane's window. 

The BUS in the sequence above was a 7-hour journey from Thessaloniki to Athens that was supposed to be a 4.5-hour train ride. Alas the train was full so we ended up having to sacrifice 2.5 hours in Athens (goodbye, Acropolis). Besides sleep and looking out the window at a variety of greek landscapes, I took it upon myself to learn some basic Greek in those 6 hours (yay for linguistic nerdiness haha). When we *finally* got to our hostel in Athens I got to say ευχαριστώ! (read: ef-hah-rees-TOH, translation: thank you) to the super friendly receptionist. It made her happy :)

Saturday (March 1)

Metro. Ferry. SANTORINI

Today we woke up early and headed to port to take a 6 hour ferry to the Greek Island of Santorini. I like to think of it as a un-luxurious cruise that had very few activities for its passengers but you know... It was pretty cool being a boat. After traveling for hours we really just wanted to be on the island. Around 4 or 5pm we approached a C shaped mass of land with clusters of white villas and lots of hills and OHMYGOODNESS CAN IT BE TRUE YES SANTORINI FINALLY. Granted, it was cloudy and windy but I was so excited to be there. Upon our arrival we took a cab to our hostel and soon realized how season-oriented Santorini's tourism really was (read: most restaurants/hotels were closed and we were part of a few couple travelers on the island).