View of Mount Lycabettus from the Acropolis.Kail and I spent Thanksgiving weekend in Athens, Greece, visiting friends we met in El Salvador. One of the best things about the Foreign Service is having friends all over the world.
View of the Acropolis from Mount Lycabettus.We totally invited ourselves over for Thanksgiving. One of our friends loves to cook so we knew there would be a good spread!
Yum.The big highlight was definitely Thanksgiving Day itself — cooking, spending time with friends and eating. It was a short trip and it rained a bit, which dampened our sightseeing, but we were able to see a couple of the major highlights.
We toured the Acropolis and Acropolis Museum. We explored the city by foot and by hop-on hop-off bus tour.
Our friends live in Kolonaki, which apparently is “the Georgetown of Athens.” It’s super-close to the Embassy (great for their commute to work), shops, restaurants and a great hiking path up to Mount Lycabettus, which has amazing 360-degree views of the entire city.
We did the “hike” (it is probably a 20-minute walk) on Thanksgiving morning, which made us feel slightly better about eating so much, though didn’t compensate for calories consumed. The weather on Thanksgiving Day was gorgeous.
We experienced a laiki, or Greek farmer’s market, and bought the BEST olives. (Our home-brined Jordanian olives didn’t turn out so great.)
We saw the changing of the guard outside Parliament. It’s every hour on the hour and they do a funny march/balancing act in ceremonial outfits with kilt-like skirts.
We got rained on a couple different occasions, which meant cutting our sightseeing short and seeking refuge in cafes. Greek coffee and baklava? Don’t mind if I do.
It was a bit cold for a hop-on hop-off tour (at least on the top deck), but given that we were so short on time we decided to go for it and take advantage of being able to see a broad swath of the city. The bad thing is that most attractions close early — 3:00 p.m. — in winter, so we didn’t get a chance to hop off very much. (And when we did, we got rained on.)We had a great time and definitely hope to go back to Greece during our tour in Jordan — and maybe check out some of the islands next time. How was your Thanksgiving?
La Vie Overseas 
That looks like such a fun Thanksgiving! Did you enjoy Athens a lot? I haven’t ever been but hear it’s kind of like Beirut, a city I definitely like. I am really curious to hear more about your impressions. I’ve talked to plenty people who weren’t big fans. Can’t tell if it’s really bad or if these people are just more used to western European travel.
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We had a great time in Athens (minus the weather). I haven’t been to Beirut. It was just nice to get away for a weekend. I think coming from a city like Amman (where we don’t speak Arabic or know our way around completely) it was a nice visit. It was super-easy to just walk out the door and get around, almost everyone speaks English, it’s really built for tourists, etc. Besides my recent trip to London, I haven’t traveled in Western Europe since 2005 (that was actually my first trip to Greece too — as part of a post-college backpacking trip). It’s always different visiting a city where you have friends or family (particularly if you can stay with them!) because they can take you places and recommend things to do.
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[…] had originally thought I’d write a multi-post series on our Thanksgiving trip to Athens, but it turns out our three-day visit wasn’t quite enough time to get an […]
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[…] bought so much. We went to Istanbul planning to shop (our friends we visited in Athens for Thanksgiving packed an extra suitcase just for shopping when they went to Istanbul) but we ended up buying […]
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