We stayed at an Airbnb apartment. An aside about Airbnb: I love it. It has my non-business-travel business until hotels stop hating children. However, over the four years that we have been using Airbnb, the experience has gotten less charming each time as it has evolved from staying in someone's house, where it is clear they live there the rest of the time, to staying in someone's rental unit that they invested in for the purpose of Airbnb and it is clear no one has ever lived there because while all necessaries are present, they are arranged in an unlivable way. For example, this apartment had an unplugged TV in a room with no outlets. Not that we were there to watch TV, but it was kind of funny.
Plaka neighborhood is awesome. The street adjacent to the Acropolis Museum has great restaurants and ice cream shops.
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| Our apartment was around the corner from this great pedestrian area. |
The Acropolis Museum is best viewed from the outside in the evening. Pretty boring affair aside from the excellent Lego recreation of the Acropolis. An aside about the word acropolis: It is easy and fun to mess with your kids' heads by persisting in saying apocalypse instead. Such as, "It's better to experience the apocalypse at night." After a two second pause, they all give you this great twisted face look.
The Acropolis itself is awesome and is best viewed at night (but my night photos came out terrible so you don't get any), though you can't go to the top after 3 pm.
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| On top of the apocalypse. |
Our apartment was southeast but the northwest (looking southeast) is the best view. There is a bar on Apostolou Pavlou street where you will want to go around 8 pm to get a bite to eat with the best view in Athens, Thissio or something like that.
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| View of my receding hairline (sigh), and Acropolis from near our apartment. |
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| View from Lofos Arios Pagos (a big rock northwest/looking southeast) |
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| Across the street at Temple of Zeus. |
Then you'll want to send shoppers to Monastiraki area, Pandrossou street specifically. Non shoppers will want to be doing something else when the shoppers find this street, because it could take, you know, forever.
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| What we did instead of shopping. Katie and Madeline were in the shoe store in the background. |
We rented a car and drove a lovely 70 kilometers to Sounio to see the Temple of Poseidon. An aside about Greek culture: The way Germans are about being naked in public, that's how Greeks are about going on strike. They love it. So they went on strike and the temple site was closed.
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| As close as we could get to Poseidon |
Also, they stayed on strike and a bunch of stuff was closed the next day as well. Not to be deprived of maximum fun, we stopped at the beach and found a bouncy house.
