Adventure of the month

The more you see, the more you realize there is to see. I don't know if that is an actual quote or a if it's saying that I saw somewhere and butchered for my own purposes. Either way, I use it a lot. Whenever someone introduces me and says something along the lines of "This is Berti. She's loves to travel and she's been everywhere", I'm quick to jump in and point out how much I haven't seen. I'll protest that "You know the saying, the more you see..." as the person wonders if I understand how small talk works and why I need to be so damn literal. However, there is some truth to it. Obviously, no one- no matter how well-traveled- has been everywhere. Nor should they. There are some boring ass places in this world. But there are also so so many amazing places. You would think that with the glut of travel shows, instagram influencers and  annoying bloggers, we would know about all of these places, whether we'd been or not. Case i...

Lately, I've been lucky enough to have a couple of chances to stay in Athens. Usually, it is not for very long but when you adopt my "I'll sleep when I'm dead" world view to traveling, you can usually get in a couple of sites, which is important in a city that has so very much to see. Last month, that meant that I got to visit the National Archeological Museum and stumble across a cool hipster neighborhood. This month, I was back and staying within plate-smashing distance of the Acropolis. This was my chance to check out the highly-recommended Acropolis museum, which is a relatively recent project, having only opened in 2009 after a lengthy search for the perfect location. I would argue that they found it.

How much can you see with only 15 hours in Athens? A lot, apparently, if you are lucky enough to catch the excellent  Free Walking Tour .  We almost were not so fortunate.  We landed at 10am and had to wait over an hour for the shuttle that would take us to our airport hotel, resulting in a mad sprint for the local bus into town in hopes of joining the noon tour.  Say what you will about the Greek economy but I can vouch that their public transportation is on point. The two people who sprinted up to the group standing around Syntagma Square at 11:58am?  That was us. We barely made it.  Had we not, we we would have been hosed since our plan B was "to walk around and look at old stuff".  Plan A was definitely more edifying.  Led by our cheery guide, Maria, we were soon underway.