After a year of planning and six months since my last post (oops), it is time for me to set off on my European adventure! I am travelling with my girlfriend, Betty, and she is just as excited as I am about this trip as it is the first time either of us are visiting Europe.
During this trip we will be visiting Qatar (stopover), Greece, Italy, Vatican City, Spain, France, Germany and England.
I will aim to provide summaries of our days along with photos…although these might not be daily as I may be busy enjoying the European sun 🙂
We departed Sydney, Australia yesterday (28/5/16) bound for Athens, Greece – our first main stop. We had a a stopover in Doha, Qatar for a couple of hours which we spent in the Business Class Lounge to refresh and eat following our 15 hour flight.
The flight from Doha to Athens was made even special as Betty and I decided to treat ourselves and upgrade to Business Class. A pretty sweet way to kick off our first main country!
We arrived in Athens today around 12.30pm and made our way to our hotel at Athens via subway. We are staying at The Stanley Hotel which is in a central location and about a 1 minute walk to a subway stop called Metaxourgio. After travelling for 20+ hours, we decided to relax in the hotel room for a few hours before heading out for a bit of touristing!
After a few hours of resting, we head to the subway stop of Acropoli…no prizes for guessing what is near this stop :). We grabbed some lunch as we were feeling quite hungry so we stopped by one of the many cafes/restaurants located at Acropoli. After our lunch, we visited the Acropolis Museum which is only a few hundred metres away from the temples of the Acropolis.
We visited a number of exhibitions including the ‘slopes of the Acropolis’ and ‘Parthenon gallery’. This was a great way to learn a bit more about Ancient Greece, in addition to what we had learnt at school many years ago, and it was also a great way to prepare for our Athens tour tomorrow where we will be visiting a number of top landmarks in Athens – cannot wait!
After visiting the museum, we wandered through the little laneways around the museum and stopped by a little cafe to have a drinks break. I decided to try my very first Ouzo…didn’t realise it smells of licorice, however it was only €1.50 so can’t really complain! Betty had a nice glass of moscato as she wasn’t very keen on the ouzo. After a bit more wandering around, we had dinner at one of the many restaurants targeting tourists walking by. Gyros for dinner of course!
Back at the hotel now and we are absolutely tired. Time for sleep before a lot more touristing tomorrow.
Travels with Andrew 