Our first stop was Athens for a couple of days and then we hopped over to Santorini for 10 days of relaxation. Well, as much relaxation as traveling with a toddler will allow.
Even though Morocco is pretty close to Europe, it is still kind of brutal flying out of our little town. Our flight left Agadir at 10 am on Saturday morning and we didn't get to Athens until about 9 pm that evening so our first night in Athens we just rode the bus straight to the hotel and went to bed so we could rest up for the next day.
Sunday was father's day, so we started our day with Lily giving Danny a card that she made him. Then we ate a yummy breakfast at our hotel before heading out to the Acropolis.
One of the many things I loved about Athens was how easily you could walk to all the major attractions. We stayed at New Hotel near Syntagma Square and were easily able to walk to all the places we wanted to visit.
We walked through the Plaka neighborhood on our way to the Acropolis and Lily admired and color coordinated with some graffiti.
Neither Danny nor I are history buffs and we are really bad about actually researching and prepping for trips so we really had no idea what took place at most of the ruins we saw like the Parthenon and Temple of Athena. Nevertheless, it was so amazing to see these places in person.
Greece is HOT so we had to stop for some frozen lemonades as we were leaving the Acropolis.
We walked back through the Plaka and checked out some little shops before we stopped for an amazing lunch. Everything we ate in Athens was sooooo good. My mouth is watering just thinking about the tzatziki sauce!
After lunch, we headed back to the hotel so Lily could get her afternoon nap in.
As we were about to head back out for some more sightseeing there was a thunderstorm so Lily had a little hotel room dance party to pass the time.
Once the weather cleared up a bit we headed out in search of The Poet Sandal Maker. We read about him on the internet during Lily's nap and figured that some handmade leather sandals would be a great souvenir!
The shop has about 50 different styles of sandals to choose from. Once you find the style you like, they custom fit the sandals to your feet by taking the sandal apart and adjusting the straps to fit your foot perfectly.
I paid him my 30 euro and ran out the door. I could not believe that custom fitted leather sandals were so inexpensive!
With my new sandals in hand, we headed to Monastriaki Square to look around and then to dinner with this crazy girl.
Then it was back to the hotel to enjoy the view and rest up for the next day.
We started the next day with a ride on the Athens Happy Train. We had seen the train go by the day before while we were out and about and Lily loves trains so we had to try it out. It picked up a couple blocks from our hotel and went by all the major tourist attractions where you could hop on and off. We had plans to go to the National Gardens that morning so we just enjoyed the one hour train ride around Athens and got off at the same place we started for a quick walk to the park.
The National Gardens are behind the Parliament Building. It was a great place to spend the morning with a busy toddler. We walked around in the shade of the trees, stopped to look at the animals in the small zoo and then played with some greek kids at the large playground.
After Lily was sufficiently worn out, we grabbed some lunch and then headed back to the hotel for her nap.
A few hours later, nap time was over and we were out the door to see Hadrian's Arch and The Temple of Zeus.
We wandered around town one last time before grabbing a quick dinner and heading back to the hotel to pack up for our flight out to Santorini the next morning!
what a neat sandal place! lily looks so big in the last photo! stop growing!
ReplyDelete