Day 13 – Sifnos – Athens

Today was our travel day to the big city, Athens. Unfortunately, the ferries don’t normally operate during the night and so we had to get a 4hr ferry from Sifnos to Athens at 3.35pm (it was 4hrs because we got the slower boat – saving money every way we can).

After checking out, we had a few hours to spare and so we headed to the rocks where we pretty much had the whole coast to ourselves. We even brought our stupid umbrella with us and after blowing upside down and inside out the whole time, I was more than prepared to finally chuck it in the bin.

For lunch, we had cooked some tortellini and I had snacked on that but we both were in the mood for some cold juice. We still had 20 minutes before our boat so we went to a cafe just along the port. We didn’t stay for long as nobody actually came to take our order and we thought it was just as good if we went to the shop for a drink.

Estimated to arrive in Athens at 7.45pm, this was delayed even further as their was a hold up in the ferries already at the dock and so our departure was delayed by half an hour. To make matters worse, when we got on the boat, it was so small and lacked comfy seats. I explained to Anna that she couldn’t just lie down across a 4 seater couch and so she huffed with me for quite a bit. Eventually, we did get the comfy seats as people moved to find more air-conditioned areas of the boat. We were just happy to acclimatise to the heatwave that is about to hit Athens.

Leaving the boat behind, we walked into a sea of yellow cabs, all parked in front of what looked like the old New York you see in some movies. The signage in Greece continued to disappoint and after walking one way for 10 minutes, we had to turn back to get to the metro.

Already Athens could have been summed up by 3 things: Coffee shops/bakeries, graffiti and cats. As we got closer into the centre, this didn’t change, although the graffiti did get more artistic. The children in Greece also have some cheek on them. A boy, aged around 7 was refusing to let an old man sit down on the metro and was laughing away at him when we was being told off. Not a care in the world and also not a parent in sight.

New Victory Hotel stuck out like a sore thumb in a run-down area. When we checked in it felt like a haven as the whole way from the station, I had been getting dripped on from the air-conditioning above.

We didn’t spend too long getting settled before heading out to get food. After analysing the menu of 4 different restaurants, Anna eventually decided on somewhere to eat. Anna had ordered baby potatoes with NO feta cheese. Of course the potatoes came with feta cheese and realising her mistake, the waitress took it back and got a new one.

After 5 minutes, another waitress was giving all the tables a free sample of potatoes to try in a small dish – even our table. It had feta cheese on it and Anna was about to pick around it before screams of “No, not feta not feta” and it was quickly taken off us. They must have thought Anna was allergic with that reaction. It took another 10 minutes for Anna to clock that the free potato samples were actually part of her meal she sent back.

With no card machine, Louis had to run to the ATM to get cash out. After we had paid, we headed back to the hotel, Anna showered because she felt gross from all the public transport and Louis planned our route for tomorrow. It was a long day and it wasn’t long until we both fell asleep watching the old classic, Drake and Josh.