Day 3
Day 3 was probably my highlight of the entire holiday. This is the day we went on a 10-hour coach trip around Attika, the peninsula on which Athens is located, seeing some of the region’s most fascinating sights. Our coach driver – Petros – was on hand to answer our questions, so you’ll find that this day is scattered with bits of trivia – enjoy!
We started off by driving north into Kifissia, Athens’ posh northern suburb where millionaire foreigners have their holiday homes. Interesting trivia number 1: The population of Greece is only 11 million, but the population of Greater Athens is 5mil. Almost half of the entire country’s population is packed into one city! That said, I can’t say I found it any more congested than London, which probably says a lot about the state of our poor little overburdened island.
Next, we stopped at Marathon Lake, which – unsurprisingly enough – is located close to Marathon, the Greek town that has sprung up around the location of the legendary marathon story. Marathon Lake is 19,000 square kilometres and entirely man-made, the dam having been built by a British company in the 1800-and-somethings. It supplies Athens with water all year round, despite the exceedingly dry climate (less than 60 days of rainfall a year!), and in fact there’s such an abundance of the stuff that it also sends water out to the Greek islands. You’ll find that if you eat in a Greek restaurant, you’ll have water thrust upon you even before you order, and this is precisely why. Everyone loves a bit of opportunity to show off! 
After that we headed to Ramnous, an archaeological site well off the beaten track. Petros told us that, in his 30 years of driving a coach, he’d only visited Ramnous 4 times, at least 1 of which was to take actual archaeologists there on business. It was incredible. As a biologist, I was in my element – snakes, grasshoppers, exotic butterflies, strange flying creatures that looked like nothing I’d ever seen, bizarre multi-coloured dragonflies… But the real “wow” came from the site itself. Have a look at this and tell me you don’t agree:
Incredible Ramnous
It was an Ancient Greek town, complete with well, church, temple and watch-tower, not to mention stunning views over the Aegean Sea. Honestly, build me a home there, make me self-sufficient, and I would never leave. I felt like the six of us were the only people alive, and it was good.
Now we turned south, and headed down the east side of Attika towards Brauron, where the Temple of Artemis is located. Unfortunately this was closed, so we rushed a couple of snaps and got back in the coach to escape from the heat, which by this point was getting to some of us (about 34 degrees C).
After a long stretch of driving, we arrived at a small harbour town, full of posh yachts and palm trees, where we sat down and ate lunch. It looked something like this:
Our town!
And finally we arrived at Cape Sounion, the southernmost tip of the Attika peninsula, where the Temple of Poseidon is located. The port here used to contain the entire Greek fleet, but these days most of it has moved to Piraeus (which we visit later). Here’s me looking like a bit of a tool while praising the god of the sea (it’s important to keep the ocean on your side when you can’t swim, you know):
Me and Poseidon, we're like this. That's me on top. (Yay obscure film references)
I must admit, I fell asleep on the journey home, being pretty knackered from the early start, which allowed me to work some energy back up by the time we arrived in Athens. This was helpful as RoJo and I then proceeded to climb Mount Lycabettos. Which sounds really impressive, until I tell you that despite the name it’s actually a hill, has a path the entire way up, and only takes about 20 minutes. Nonetheless, I’ll silence your cynicism with this awesome view from the top:
View of Athens
Excusing the heat haze, tell me that isn’t incredible!
And then, being the great intrepid explorers we are, we got hopelessly lost on the way down, managed to walk along the same high street at least 4 times and wandered for a good hour before providence decided to shine upon us and grant us a metro station.
Back at the apartment, Dominos pizza was consumed en masse and good times were had by all!
), but mostly because I’ve been living it up in Greece – or, more specifically, its horrendously overpopulated capital, Athens!
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