Cradle of Western Civilisation

After breakfast and an early sandwich, I lined up for the 1110 ferry back to Piraeus.  This time it was a huge catamaran with 15 seats across and 4 aisles.  The journey was a tad faster taking about 1h10.  I found my way to the metro station with some help.  While it wasn’t exactly difficult, I imagined a shorter and more straight forward  walk last time but I can’t really remember.

It was a short ride to Monastiraki where I stayed at the Cecil Hotel on the rooftop.  From outside my room, I could see the Acropolis.

My priority was to buy a local SIM so I could remain connected in Europe.  With few exceptions, roaming within EU from any EU telco is treated as domestic.  With hunger and heat, I wasn’t very patient.  I found some phone shops and bought a SIM from the second.  The deals were the same at EUR10 for 5GB lasting for a month which was much better than the deal from Vodafone at the airport which was EUR22 for 7GB.  The SIMs were not packaged but were all open and no ID was required as it should have been.

As it turned out, the data balance was all intact except the expiry was a week shorter than the month that I needed  Ggrrr!  And additional data packs were pricy compared to buying a new card.

After a light lunch, on my way back to the hotel, I saw promoters selling many SIM card options for various telcos at the same price but with larger data packs.  But it didn’t matter because I was unlikely to use all the data.  What did matter was the fact that my data validity was one week short  🙁

Things never work out for the best when I’m hot  or hungry.  But in the scheme of things, it is really nothing.  More awful things could happen in one’s travels.

I rested before slowly making my way to my free walking tour at 1800.  I had plenty of time and it was hot so I founded shaded walks through the markets before taking the metro to Acropoli station.  It would have been walkable but unbearable if unshaded.

For me parts of Athens feel very Oriental (in the European rather than the English sense of the word, applying it to the Middle East as well).  Many shops have their large non-touristy wares hanging outside their shops in the same way as in South East Asia.  Funny that, considering Athens is the cradle of Western Civilisation.  On the other hand, parts of Istanbul feel more European to me.

Waiting near the meeting point at Hadrian’s Arch, I realised that the tour started at 1700 and not 1800.  I had created the calendar item in Google Calendar few weeks back while in Asia and selected Central European Time rather than Eastern.  Despite the email reminder yesterday, I stuffed up.  That’s the second in the day.

Fortunately there wasn’t  a third stuff-up as I stayed indoors for the rest of the evening.  It’s my third time in Athens and there’s no pressure to do everything.  I’ll repeat a few sights when I return in a few days after Corfu.