Italy - Greece Vacation 1999 - Athens (again)

23 May 1999

We got in our first argument with a taxi driver yesterday, on the way back to the hotel from the bus station. The driver spotted us in line at the taxi queue and ran over to us. Tamara swears that he set the meter to 1700 drachmas when we left the bus station, and he switched off the meter when were got moving so I suspected something was up.

Sure enough, when we got to the hotel he wanted over 3000 drachmas, easily twice what the trip to the station had cost. So we argued on the street for a while, and finally gave him 2500, too much but the extra two dollars wasn't worth arguing in the hot sun.

We wandered around the touristy bits of Plaka for a while, buying last minute gifts and sending postcards.

Then we looked for somewhere to eat. Looking for a restaurant beneath the Acropolis is brutal -- you're accosted by every restaurant owner along the way. We had decided to walk the entire length of a particular alley and then make a choice, but a persistent maitre'd caught us halfway. Like all restauranteurs, he had a "special price." I let him desribe their deals and say how good their moussaka was, then I thanked him and said we were still looking.

He just stared at me blankly and said "Sir, you haven't understood a word I've said." I thought that was so funny that I let him lead us upstairs to show us the tables and the "authentic Greek musicians with dancing."

The authentic musicians turned out to be some very bored-looking locals playing a guitar, a lute, and a massive Roland synthesizer. The dancers never materialized.

At the restaurant our last night in Athens. Note the distinct lack of Greek folk dancers.

I think Athenian restaurants (at least in that part of Plaka) need to be really agressive, since they can't really count on repeat customers (too many tourists).

After dinner, we again hiked up the large rock at the base of the Acropolis. Again the view was excellent, and again there were large numbers of drunk locals as well as the occasional tourist.

We looked at the night skyline for a while. The Acropolis is like a continuous laser show, as the lights keep changing in color and intensity. A group of stoned Athenians near us were particularly happy about the red lights, and cheered wildly when all the other lights were switched off and the entire Acropolis was bathed in red.

We wandered back into Plaka, just looking around for a while. We bought a few cones of atrociously bad ice cream, and headed back to the hotel.

We woke up early this morning, and caught a 4am taxi to the airport. The fare was high, but given the night taxi rates and airport fees and lack of sleep, we paid it without asking.

We walked groggily around the airport for a while, then got on the plane which (surprisingly) left almost 10 minutes early. Gotta love KLM.

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