Spotlight on Greece with Contiki

In my recent trip to Greece we spun around the mainland taking as much in as possible in 6 days. Entering Greece is like stepping back in time, we marvelled at the wonders of the ancient world, such as the long-forgotten cities, temples to ancient gods and the home of the first ever Olympic games!

Greece, we've got 6 days and 4 World Heritage sites... Let's do this!

We arrived late at night in Athens where the sky was lit up by a thunderstorm... Fortunately it was late at night so we went straight to sleep once we arrived at the hotel. The journey in the taxi from the airport was a bit hectic, our driver seemed a bit lost as we entered the tiny windy streets of Psiri. The area was a bustling little neighbourhood with restaurants and bars open late every night, unfortunately, we were far too tired to explore... Instead, we slept.

Our second day was we spent mostly on our own, as the Contiki trip didn't officially start until 6pm. After a heavy breakfast of endless fruit salads and pastries, we headed out into Athens to get our bearings. What better way of learning the way around the city and avoiding the crowds? Easy, get on a tour bus!

I know it sounds a bit cliché touristy but it is a simple way of getting from one place to another and learning a bit about the neighbourhoods as we passed through them. We got off at the Panathenaic Stadium - the home of the first Modern Olympic Games in 1896. The stadium is made almost entirely of marble and has the capacity of more than 60,000 spectators.

We crossed the road and found ourselves in the National Gardens. The gardens had various statues of historic individuals, ancient mosaics and a huge variety of plants originating from various different countries and continents. It also had a small petting zoo in one area with deer, rabbits, peacocks and ducks. After walking around for an hour, we hopped back onto the bus.

The next stop was in the centre of Athens to see the National Library, Academy of Athens and the Athens University which is all on one site, all three buildings are known as the Theophil Hansen Trilogy. The library was an impressive marble structure which was built in 1832. The Academy of Athens was a similar style (neo-classical) but had two pillars outside with two statues on them. One of the statues was of the Greek Goddess Athena. She was the goddess of wisdom and military victory, as well as being the patron of the city of Athens. The other statue was of the Greek God Apollo who is the god of music, truth, prophecy, healing, sun, light, plague and poetry! It does seem appropriate to have these particular statues as both of the Gods represent something to do with knowledge and learning - I'm sure the architect thought the same!

Unfortunately, the sunny weather suddenly turned into a rain shower, so we retreated quickly back to the hotel. It was mid-afternoon by this point so we decided to have a quick powernap until we met the rest of the Contiki group at 6pm!

We headed downstairs into the lounge to wait for the rest of them. We did think we had the wrong room until our trip manager, Kiera, sprung in. We waited until everyone was present until she started her talk about the trip and all of the safety things. I would have expected it to be boring but Kiera made it fun and amusing as well as informative. We were given the option of having a group meal in Athens' old town, any mention of food and you know I'm there!

An hour later, after introducing ourselves and meeting with the other Contiki travellers, we headed out to our 'Traditional Athens Affair' which consisted of endless rounds of food and Greek dancing. We feasted our eyes (and stomachs) on the mouth-watering Greek tastes in the little restaurant under the watchful eye of the Acropolis. The best food was definitely the zucchini but to be honest, we ate so quickly that it was hard to remember what food there was!

We arrived back at the hotel late at night and headed to the roof where we got a great view of the Acropolis lit up! The city was still alive as bars and restaurants were open well into the night which we could hear from the hotel. We soon headed back to the hotel room to get some sleep before our real Greek adventure began.

Today was our busiest day so we were dragged out of bed for breakfast at 6:45am (is that even a time?!). Breakfast was quite minimal due to the amount of food we had engulfed the night before. Our first stop of the day was at the familiar Panathenaic Stadium, this time without the glooming clouds! We had a local guide with us who gave us more detail about the stadium and the history of the Olympics in Greece.

Despite the first ever Olympic Games starting in 776BC, the first modern Olympic Games only started in 1896! The rebirth of the games was thanks to a Frenchman called Baron Pierre de Coubertin who presented the idea in 1894, with the plan to have the first games in 1900 in Paris. However, some of the delegates disagreed and believed that Greece should be the first host, so they moved the Games up to 1896 and allowed Athens to serve as the first host! 

The next stop was at the world-famous Acropolis which is an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city. The name 'Acropolis' comes from the combination of two Greek words; Acron, which means the highest point, and Polis, which means city. The Parthenon is the famous temple that we all recognise which was dedicated to the goddess Athena, the patron of Athens. Construction of the Parthenon began in 447BC and was finished in 438BC. There are also 3 other structures on the site which all pose a historic and religious significance. The Propylaea is the monumental gateway where we walked through. It is made almost entirely of marble and is decorated with fancy pillars and very attractive scaffolding...

One of the other structures in the Acropolis is the Erechtheion which is an ancient Greek temple on the North side of the Acropolis, dedicated to Athena and Poseidon. The Acropolis in general was absolutely packed with tourists, despite it being only 9am! Our guide told us that at peak times in the afternoon, it gets a lot busier, I couldn't imagine it! One perk of the ongoing construction works is that a lot of the areas are fenced off which means that it is easy to get a good photo of the Parthenon as there aren't thousands of tourists scurrying around inside. The final structure of the Acropolis is the Temple of Athena Nike. No, this wasn't a temple to an ancient goddess wearing some sports trainers... Nike actually means victory in Greek! We spent an hour at the Acropolis before nearly melting on the way down to the bus.

We said goodbye to our local guide as Kiera took the reins on being our guide on the route to Olympia. The bus rides may have been long but Kiera ensured we were entertained as we played team games and learnt more about each other through ice-breakers. Two hours later we made it to our next stop; the Corinth Canal! The geography of Greece means that for any ships coming from Athens trying to get into the Aegean Sea, they have to go around the entire Peloponnese Peninsula which ends up being hundreds of miles extra despite Athens only being a couple of hours drive from the inland sea.

The Corinth Canal was built in 1881 to eliminate the long journey and instead, allow ships to pass through between the peninsula and the mainland on the canal! Bear in mind that the canal is only 21.4m wide at the base, which means that the canal has very little importance nowadays... But it sure looks cool! (You can also bungee jump from the bridge above, but due to having a fear of heights, I couldn't think of anything more terrifying.)

The next leg of the drive took us to the ancient city of Mycenae. The city was once a major centre of the Greek civilisation but now, lies in ruins. There is a tomb outside of Mycenae which is the 'Tomb of Clytemnestra' which looks like something straight out of the set of an Indiana Jones movie! As we entered the tomb I half expected a big boulder to come rolling down, but no such boulder was seen. Mycenae itself was located on top of a hill, which felt pretty close to torture as we climbed to the top. By this time, it was mid-afternoon and the sun was pretty intense. The view from the top was still worth it, even if I did feel like I was being fried on the spot. We passed a huge beetle which was no word of a lie, as big as a mouse! The Australian and New Zealand members of the group barely flinched, but to us English folk, it was a traumatic experience for sure.

Fortunately, the bus had air-conditioning so we all fled back before driving on to our final stop before Olympia. Fortunately, the temperature had lowered slightly when we reached Nafplio. We were all amazed at how beautiful this little town was, it had a typical Mediterranean feel with flowers overhanging onto the streets, pretty buildings and even had a little island out in the bay with a castle on it! However, our hunt was not for the prettiest place... gyros were calling! We piled into a little restaurant and placed our orders of ridiculously cheap gyros! Despite the uncertainty, they tasted great! Unfortunately we hadn't left ourselves much time as we were meeting the rest of the group for gelato so we had to speed walk back to the meeting point before indulging in more food. I got Nutella gelato which was amazing and quite refreshing after eating hot food in a hot climate. After we had all finished, we said goodbye to the picturesque town, but not without getting a group photo!

Greece has an abundance of stray cats and dogs but the vast majority of them are very friendly and appreciate the attention. The Greek government and the residents help the stray animals live better lives on the streets by ensuring that they are neutered, vaccinated and fed regularly. There are speculations to whether this is true, but all of the animals we saw were friendly and treated well by the locals.

The bus journey continued until we finally reached Olympia in the early evening. We were welcomed with an all-you-can-eat which was possibly the best welcome we could have received! After a long and tiring day, there is nothing I wanted to do more than stuff my face with delicious Greek food.

We were yet again greeted with a feast for breakfast, everything from fruit salads to pastries! Our first stop of the day was at the home of the first Olympic Games (not the first modern games, that was in Athens). The first ever Olympic games started in 776BC in the city of Olympia. We toured around the ancient training grounds and stadiums, it was crazy to think that we were stood in the exact spot that ancient Olympians would have been, over 2000 years ago! The grounds contained various temples and statues, worshipping the ancient Greek gods and the famous Olympians. In the ancient times, there was no bronze, silver and gold medals. Instead you either won or you lost. Even if you were second place, you were seen as last, therefore a failure... a bit harsh if you ask me! The ancient Olympics didn't allow women either, due to this, all of the athletes had to perform completely naked so it was easy to spot women trying to compete. Women were not allowed in the Olympic grounds at all, not even to spectate! But there was one way for a woman to legally win, she had to be the owner of a horse that won the chariot race. The owners were seen to have done all the hard work training the horse therefore were seen as the winners, even if it was a female.

The Olympic Games started as a festival for the celebration of Zeus and it was only later that the events were added, such as javelin, wrestling and footraces. The games were held every 4 years (or every Olympiad, an ancient unit of time), members from the Greek city-states would compete in the games, it wasn’t until the Modern Olympic Games started that other countries competed.

We explored the ancient site and even ran on the ancient Olympic running track which is nearly 200m long! After marvelling at the home of the ancient games we found a spot for lunch nearby. I had an enormous portion of pasta which I felt like I deserved, I mean I had just basically competed in the Olympics, right?

The bus took us on a scenic drive to our next destination, another seaside town, Nafpaktos! This cute little town is a popular destination for the Greeks but had very few foreign visitors other than our Contiki group. We laid on the pebbly beach as some of the group swam around in the sea. I considered it until I felt how uncomfortably cold the water was, instead I laid and soaked up the sun. After half an hour or so we wandered off to find some gelato (typical), this time I got Bueno flavour which was so good!! We sat on the wall near the harbour and chatted until the bus arrived. By this time we were all quite sleepy... and sunburnt, so the majority of us fell asleep as we headed to our stop for the night, Delphi!

Before we arrived in Delphi, we stopped in a layby above the town of Galaxidi where we were able to get some good photos of the mountainy horizon with Delphi sitting between the mountains in the distance. The town had a strong sense of the Mediterranean with it’s light coloured walls and orange tiled roofs, our guide told us that Galaxidi is a very popular weekend retreat for the Greeks as the town is only 2 ½ hours from Athens.

And I thought the previous day's breakfast was good! The breakfast in Delphi (for me anyway) consisted heavily of Nutella crepes and maybe a bit of fruit salad. Everyone was shattered from going out the night before and groaned as we bumbled onto the bus for a short drive to the ancient site of Delphi. Delphi was once an ancient sanctuary for the oracle, Pythia, who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. In an attempt to discover the centre of the universe, Zeus launched two eagles from two different ends of the world. The eagles started flying at the same time and speed and crossed paths over the area of Delphi. Zeus then threw a stone from the sky to see where it would fall, the stone fell at Delphi, which since then was considered to be the centre of the Greek universe.

The site had a small treasury with the word ‘Marathon’ written in Greek on the side. Our local guide explained to us that the famous marathon race was actually created in Greece. When the Greeks beat the Persians in the war in 490 BC, a soldier named Pheidippides ran from the battlefield near the town of Marathon, to Athens to announce the victory of the war. He ran 26.2 miles to reach Athens, once he had announced the news, he sadly died there on the spot. The marathon was named after the town of Marathon and kept the distance the same.

The site of Delphi consisted of many different temples, an amphitheatre and even a stadium at the top of the hill! Occupation of the site can be traced back as far as the Neolithic period (1600-1100 BC) and remains of many of the structures are still there, plus a lot of the restored statues can be found in the Delphi Museum just below the ancient site.

One of the most famous restored statues is the Charioteer of Delphi, also known as Heniokhos. The statue is particularly special due to it’s rarity, most of the bronze statues from ancient times were melted down into weapons or corroded naturally. Yet, the charioteer survived as he was buried under a rock-fall caused by an earthquake in 373 BC which destroyed and buried part of the site. The charioteer is also one of the few Greek bronze statues to preserve the inlaid glass eyes, as the majority of the statues have their eyes stolen due to them being made of precious stones. After we walked around the museum with our Delphi tour guide, we headed back to the coach.

Our next stop was the Greek ski town of Arachova. You may be thinking, skiing in Greece…? Yes, it sounds crazy but its true! Arachova is a small ski town at the foot of Mt. Parnassos which holds the title of being the most cosmopolitan winter destination in Greece. The town itself was very picturesque, nestled up in the mountains as well as having pretty cobblestone streets and fantastic views of the valleys below. We stopped for lunch where we were served a variety of dishes, from sizzling cheese, to pasta and even octopus!

The next few hours on the coach were quite sad as it marked the final journey our Contiki group would make together. We had all become so close and it seemed like torture to be dragged away from each other but these days, social media allows us to always keep in contact thankfully.

Group travel is an excellent opportunity to make friends from all over the world! On our trip we met fellow travellers from the USA, Australia, New Zealand, UK, South Africa, France and many more. Contiki eliminates the stress of travelling by organising it all for you but takes you to places that are off the beaten track and gives you the opportunity to try out different activities in their ‘free-time add-ons’. I would definitely recommend Contiki to anyone who is considering travelling but perhaps doesn’t want to do it alone, or just wants to delve deep into the culture of one country which would be difficult to organise by yourself.

I mentioned in my previous blog post that this trip was going to be somewhere warmer, but I’ll add that despite the lovely weather we had… I still didn’t tan, not one bit! Perhaps my next adventures will bring me more luck with that…