Europe by scooter

[ellen10]

looks like a great start to your holiday. Love all the photos!

 

[LadyC]

In each of the cities we are visiting I have purchased 'hop on hop off' tickets so we can travel around and see the main tourist sites. Travelling with MasterC means that we generally aren't going to be doing lengthy museum visits or historical site tours. Most of the time it's a quick viewing as we pass by on the bus! We caught one of these buses around Athens, starting our tour at 9am. Unfortunately for us, our double decker bus didn't have a roof and it gets hot very early in Athens. The traffic in Athens gets gridlocked early on in the day, so for much of the tour it would have been faster to walk than catch the bus. So much so we got off and walked rather than stay on. Oh well, you live and learn!

On our second day, we walked from our hotel to the Acropolis (getting a little lost on the way) and did a quick whirl around the site just after opening. This was a good time to visit as the site was still fairly quiet and there weren't many tour groups first thing. By the time we left at 9.30am, the sun was getting very strong and the site was getting much busier and crowded. We headed back to the hotel for a bit of a cool down before heading out a bit later to visit the National Gardens, the Panathenaic Stadium and watched the changing guard at the Greek Parliament.

Our final day was spent walking around some more, visiting the National Gardens again as well as the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Arch. We also caught the little tourist train that goes around a part of Atens city centre as some entertainment for MasterC. It might be fun if you have a child who is very interested in miniature trains but otherwise I would give it a miss.

Some photos of the sites

The temple of zeus


Panathenaic Stadium


Hadrian's Arch


National Gardens


Alexander the Great statue


Outside the War Museum

 

[LadyC]

Some more photos

Changing of the guard


Statue of Lord Byron


The Zappeion


Roman Agora


Walking the back streets up to the Acropolis


Acropolis site


Acropolis site


Metropolitan Church of Athens


Statue of Constantine XI

 

[LadyC]

Most of our meals in Athens consisted of variants of the gyros. This works well for us and MasterC. We went to a restaurant next the hotel called The Greco's Project. Although it is a bit touristy, the food was good quality and we enjoyed it.

Meat platter


Pork Gyros

 

[LadyC]

Breakfast was included as part of our hotel booking. Breakfast is served at the rooftop restaurant on Level 8 with a view of the Acropolis. The offering seemed a bit lacking in both variety and quality compared to FS Sultanahmet except for the yoghurt offering. Plenty of delicious yoghurt varieties if that is your thing. You could also order from a menu - it had the usual suspects of pancakes, eggs benedict etc. A few photos from breakfast....

Sweet pastries


Juices and cereals


Breads and other pastries


Cold cuts, cheeses and salads


Fruits


Yoghurts


Hot offerings (bacon, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, potatoes, mushrooms, baked beans, sausages)

 

[LadyC]

A few thoughts on the hotel. As mentioned previously, our booking was a Virtuoso booking so included our breakfast, a free lunch which we skipped as it wasn't to our taste and welcome amenities of free fruit platter and mineral waters. Upgrade subject to availability which we didn't get as the hotel was full and it is peak season. It is located in a great location just on Syntgama Square so easy to get around and walking distance to the central Athens sites. The staff were all nice but you could sense that they were overwhelmed at times due to being at capacity. Considering the hotel is supposed to be one of the premier hotels of Athens, I was a little underwhelmed by it. Especially underwhelmed with the food quality considering the price. Maybe because we had just arrived from Istanbul and FS Sultanahmet which was a fabulous boutique hotel.

 

[LadyC]

Onward to our next destination being Budapest. We were flying Aegean to Frankfurt, then Lufthansa to Budapest as only Wizzair flew direct to Budapest and that is not my thing.

We had an early start to our day, leaving the hotel at 5.45am, so too early for in room breakfast. We were able to organize some breakfast boxes to go to take with us with provisions of our choosing. This way we could have breakfast without relying on the lounge which was an unknown at this point. As we were flying business, we had access to the Aegean lounge at Athens airport which had a reasonable range of breakfast offerings if you had a sweet tooth. The lounge was of medium size with both couches and table seating. The lounge was quite full by the time we left for our flight.

Breakfast box


A few lounge photos

 

[RB]

Really enjoying your report. We had a Wizz flight about 3 weeks ago. The check-in was a zoo but the rest of the experience was fine with them having a very new fleet

 

[carls888]

Great trip report, we also travel with children so I love reading about family trips and noting down ideas too!