Athens

Day One: Jan 6, 2024

When we finally launched our channel, we decided to return to Greece given it was the place which inspired us to start the channel in the first place, this time visiting Athens, a city we had been eager to visit for years given its history and beauty.

Unfortunately, our first experience on the mainland wasn’t as positive...

You see, 10 minutes after leaving the airport and getting on the metro Bobby had his phone pickpocketed, well it was actually stolen from Tammy who had it in her bum bag (or "fanny pack" for our U.S. viewers) alongside our vlogging camera, thankfully they didn't grab that!

And so once we were off the metro, Bob had to call his bank and cancel his bank card as the funds from it could have been used contactlessly from the now stolen phone, then we had to ask Tam's dad to transfer us some money until we could get back to England, unblock our card and give him the money back which thankfully he did.

Having sorted all of that we started heading to our apartment, we were surprised by the amount of graffiti, the visible poverty, and how dirty the part of the city we were staying in was.

You see we grew up hearing about this beautiful, ancient marbled city which stood below a grand mountain on TV, books and even through stories we would hear as children growing up, so to say we were disappointed and surprised would be an understatement!

The area was also filled with dodgy looking people, gangs hanging around corners, dark alleys and just a general feeling of unpleasantness.

It wasn't the first time we had had an issue with safety in Greece either as in Kos we took shortcut given to us by Google Maps and ended up in a back alley where several guys were hanging about, they literally started following us and our kids and we were so scared, not so much for us but for our kids, we have NEVER taken a shortcut on Google Maps in an unknown city since and would recommend you don't do the same.

Back at the apartment Bob had to go onto all his social media and change all his passwords and remotely lock his phone, the scammer may have a phone but it would be inaccessible and have a huge message on the screen saying it was stolen property so a small middle finger back to the scammer at least.

At this point we were debating whether or not we should leave as we were not happy at all in Athens, but knowing we would be leaving in a matter of days to go to the Middle East was enough motivation for us to endure the rest of the stay, and besides we felt Athens deserved a chance as this scumbag scammer didn't represent the whole city afterall!

After locking almost every account and being sure his data was safe we went to sleep, fed up, worn out and jaded from the 4 hour flight, hour long metro trip and 30 minute walk to even get to the point of being miserable in our apartment.

Day Two: Jan 7, 2024

On our second day in Athens we decided to head into the heart of the city and explore the real Greece, we were surrounded by dodgy people where we were staying (that serves us right for paying for the cities cheapest AirBnb I guess) and our building was on a building site which had just started up that morning, stepping out in the daylight we could really see the sorry state of the city with graffiti and mess everywhere, we were shocked.

Heading back into the dreaded metro we clung out bags to us as tight as our fingers would hold, we trusted nobody, finally we arrived in the famous Monastiraki Square where we encountered a number of scams, one of them for instance was where a guy came up to Tammy, clasped a bracelet around her wrist and asked for money for it.

Then there were the homeless kids begging and tugging at us, and people on the street sleeping, drinking or openly taking drugs, it was an absolutely devastating site to behold from a city we had so much excitement to visit, we were so disappointed as Greece had been amazing to us in Kos and we couldn't wait to come back to the country that inspired our channel, especially the capital which we heard so much about growing up.

Despite these challenges, we soldiered on and did find some beauty in corners of the city, but on the flip side of that coin you actually have to pay to get into ALL of it, €30 for entry, having been robbed and having less money than we started with, this wasn't an option, we just couldn't believe how little pride that was being took in such an ancient city which was perhaps at some point one of the most beautiful places in the world and now it was a squalid, dirty, graffitied mess filled to the brim with scammers and tourists getting conned.

Feeling hungry and somewhat fed up with what we were seeing, we set off to try some food, and it was delicious!

We had souvlaki for lunch and tried out our Greek language skills that we had been working so hard on to practise, the lady who ran the restaurant was friendly and kind so there was a glimmer of hope amongst the chaos we were witnessing in the form of the people of Athens themselves, everyone so far was so friendly and welcoming, so it wasn't all bad, but we were not prepared for Athens to look as it did either.

After this we headed to a bar to try some local beer, yet another friendly local who also happened to be a fellow metalhead, was playing some awesome music too! But no matter what we did we couldn't shake the feeling of unease so we headed to a restaurant with a view of calling it a night, we had Pastitsio (a Greek style lasagne) which was incredible and again the people in that restaurant were great too, the people of Athens made the experience more bearable that's for sure!

We then headed back to our apartment and slept it off ready to head to Abu Dhabi the following morning.

Day Three: Jan 8, 2024

Today was the day that we would be heading to the Middle East for the first time, we were excited and couldn't wait to leave Athens either! With it being our wedding anniversary we had visions of us watching the sunset across the acropolis, but in reality we were just itching to leave!

Before we headed to the airport we decided to check out Omonia for our vlog, it was only a 30 minute walk from our apartment, but had a reputation for being one of the worst parts of Athens, we honestly didn't think it was that bad, it had a nice fountain...for some reason a christmas tree too!

Along the way we grabbed some breakfast (pastries) from a café and then grabbed some bits to take on the plane for lunch/dinner and again, each place we went into the people we interacted with were lovely, such a shame that such incredible people have to live in a city which has been overrun with poverty and slow decay.

Now don't get us wrong, we are aware of the financial crisis that hit Greece a few years back, but to see it still having a grasp was hard to witness, the people of Athens deserve better and we hope things improve for them.

Anyhow, after a little more exploration and vlogging we headed for the airport glad to say goodbye to Athens for at least a few days before our final return a few days later from an adventure to the Middle East!

You can read all about that here.

Day Four: Jan 12, 2024

Having been away for a few days in the UAE and Oman we got back to Athens where we had to go back through the dreaded metro, like always we were now clutching our bags as close to us as humanly possible, our knuckles were probably turning white with the grip we had on them!

We finally got to the apartment we would be staying in for the night, it was easily one of the worst places we have ever stayed in too (it had a lovely bathroom though), it was nothing like it had been depicted on the site and to top it all off was in a very, very dodgy neighbourhood. We didn't want to be back in Athens at all to be honest and were eager to get our last days over with, but equally also keen to see the area and do something different for our vlog.

And so we set ourselves a challenge, to live like a local in Athens for the evening! With us having virtually no money left it made sense to do so as we could no longer afford to eat out either way! 🤣

And so we went to a local supermarket and stocked up, the people running the shop were so friendly and really appreciate our efforts to learn and speak Greek too!

Having stocked up we came back to the apartment to realise we had made a mistake...we brought some food to cook in the oven but realised we didn't have one and only a hot plate, so we ended up frying it and using a microwave which flt unsafe as it kept giving us electric shocks every time we touched it...despite this the food came out ok and was somewhat edible I guess.

We cooked it up, shared our knowlege of the Greek language and thoughts on the Greek way of life and settled down for the evening where Bob made the most of the limited space to edit the vlogs we had been working on for the past week across all these different countries.

After he had done that, and wanting to get the day over and done with we pulled down the blinds, conscious that the nearby gangs hanging around near the apartment may be able to see in, then we tried to sleep whilst we could hear dodgy dealings going on metres away from us though the wafer thin walls...again our fault as we went for the cheaper option which we don't do without thorough research now.

Day Five: Jan 13, 2024

The final day and we were so glad to be leaving Athens!

We decided to have a wander around the neighbourhood before we left and it actually wasn't all that bad during the day, the nighttime is a different scenario with gangs on every corner but in the day it was just a normal street.

There was even a nice church nearby and a lovely cafe where we got breakfast where again, as consistently as it had always been the people in there were lovely and friendly. We do really love the Athenian people despite our dislike for the city of Athens itself.

After we had eaten we headed straight to the airport via the metro (that we now absolutely hated being on) and finally got to the airport ready for our flight home, we vowed to never return to Athens unless it was for a layover as we don't feel the city deserved tourists who don't like the city and equally the city didn't capture our hearts in the same ways other places have, we gave it 5 different days to capture our hearts and no matter what we did we just couldn't resonate with it.

In retrospect, we probably had "Paris Syndrome", if you are unfamiliar with this concept it's where people (mainly from Japan) visit Paris and it fails to live up to their expectations as they are told throughout their lives that it is a beautiful place, but then they get there and feel it's dirty, unsafe or full of scammers and thus disappoints them and undoes all expectations they had before they arrived...this in essence describes our feelings towards Athens perfectly, we should have gone there with no expectations as we do on most of our trips, but regardless we still would have disliked it for it's not for us personally.

That being said, we know plenty of people love it so may disagree with us which if course is fine, but for us it lacked a good vibe and dare we say felt unsafe in parts too, despite this we tried to make the best of it and learned some Greek and tried to embrace the culture, but were equally glad to leave too although we will admit that the people of Athens are great and we will miss them for the very least!