Greece Part 2;Athens

Athens

We arrived at the Athens airport from Santorini when Macron the President of France was arriving. We sat in our taxi for over 45 minutes before we could move. The next day they closed the Metro for him and had thousands of police and troops all over the city.

Athens is a large city but the tourist sites are located in the central section of the city. We stayed at an Airbnb apartment in a very nice neighborhood near the Acropolis museum. We had a 1 bedroom apartment with a small garden for $83 per night. Our host was  in contact with us to make sure all was well. A small grocery store and a very good bakery were across the street. It was a great place to stay.

Food

We discovered a few  myths about Greece in our stay there. Bread - Pita bread is used for Souvlaki and gyro sandwiches but the normal bread is Italian style loaves. Baklava and some other honey based desserts are everywhere but they are very sweet, too sweet. Bakeries have many varied cookies, cakes and breads.

Lamb is not that prevalent in Greek food. We found mostly pork and chicken used for gyro and souvlaki and it was unusual for find lamb kebobs.

Greek salads do not contain lettuce. Tomatoes, onions, green peppers, feta cheese and cucmbers predominate. The feta cheese comes in larges slices and not is not as salty as the feta cheese found in the US even the Greek feta cheese.

We found the main food markets in Athens but Athens did not appear to be a foodie city. Lots of restaurants everywhere but I did not find lots of interesting food stores. Fruits were mostly fruits that we see in NJ except really nice figs were extremely cheap. The food halls had lots of fish but restaurants served mainly Sea Bream, which was in season. Sea bass was supposedly out of season when we were there.
View from the Acropolis. The Acropolis dominates the old city. It is only a relic of what it once was. You need to us your imagination.

We had dinner at he Acropolis Museum . The museum is open late on Friday evening for dinner. The food was good and reasonable but it was Italian. They had a jazz band that was quite good and the view was incomparable. See for yourself.

One of the unique things about the museum is where else can you see the original site for the artifacts in a museum from the museum itself. Fascinating.

The Acropolis from the museum.

A restaurant in the city. It was highly recommended by a British newspaper but the place was OK.

Fruit and veggies at the market. Nothing special.

Dinner in the Plaka area. Restaurant recommended by Rick Steves. Food was meh. Ambiance was great. His books are good for sightseeing Note it is really expecting too much to expect recommendations from travel and food publications to be good. Chefs change jobs all of the time. Look for chef owned restaurants.

Not sure what we drank. It was all Greek to me.

We visited the Benaki Museum.  https://www.benaki.gr/index.php?lang=enIt was really good. Small and manageable and has the history of Greece. They have a rooftop restaurant with good food and reasonable prices.

Acropolis Museum. http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en

Best meal we had in Athens. Near the Acropolis Museum. Arcadia restaurant.

Archaeological Museum. http://www.namuseum.gr/wellcome-en.html A great Place. it had a room with many of the top objects found on Santorini.

Odeon of Herodes Atticus: A Second-Century Theater from the Acropolis.

Acropolis Museum from the Acropolis.

Temple of Olympians Zeus built under Hadrian 

Ruins under the Acropolis Museum.

The Agora.

What do you think about this concept?

Fish market.

Benaki Museum

Benaki Museum rooftop restaurant.

Athens was fun but 4 nights was too long. 3 nights will allow you to see all that you want.

Enjoy