Travelling

[syrus]

In Istanbul for a few days, anyone got recommendations,? Of any type really I'm open to do anything.

Food , food, blue mosque , the bazaars and then more food.

 

[xthetap]

Currently in Berlin, any good recommendations for bars/clubs for a good piss up?
Happy New year everyone.
Amala

 

[Nerazzurri_Ninja]

I havnt been anywhere in a long, long time, happy new yr and enjoy your travels

 

[Harpsabu]

Currently in Berlin, any good recommendations for bars/clubs for a good piss up?
Happy New year everyone.
Amala

Shit, missed this.
They have the famous bars like bergain, kit kat I think, those huge clubs.
When I was there my girlfriend and I went to lvl World of gaming. It does amazing drinks and has loads of arcade games, vr games, ps5s, Nintendo switches on big screens etc that you can play. It was amazing foe a chilled few nights and they did great drinks.

 

[Harpsabu]

I know we have some Greeks on the forum like Il Drago and brehme and anyone else who has been there. I'm thinking of booking a holiday to Greece. I love history but Greece is fecking huge lol we'd be thinking of going to Athens at the start of May for a week and going to some of the sites. Is a week in Athens too long? Should we break the stay up and book hotels in other areas and if so where should I go that has easy transport etc. I'd love to visit ancient sparta but don't think there's much left?

Any recommendations is appreciated at all

 

[brehme1989]

I know we have some Greeks on the forum like Il Drago and brehme and anyone else who has been there. I'm thinking of booking a holiday to Greece. I love history but Greece is fecking huge lol we'd be thinking of going to Athens at the start of May for a week and going to some of the sites. Is a week in Athens too long? Should we break the stay up and book hotels in other areas and if so where should I go that has easy transport etc. I'd love to visit ancient sparta but don't think there's much left?

Any recommendations is appreciated at all

A week in Athens is not that long but it can be. Depends how you spread it out, but you could get bored of the main things after 2 days because the old city can be walked within a day.
A week in Greece is not enough but we can figure something out

If you're history hunting, you could do something like this, but it depends on whether you want to sight see or check museums out:
Spend just 3 days in Athens.

Day 1) Acropolis/Parthenon hike (take sunscreen & water), Acropolis Museum, strolls in old town (Thisio, Plaka, Monastiraki, Anafiotika, Psirri - once there, google whatever route is more convenient to check the entire thing).
That should take the entire morning and early afternoon.
Then off to Agia Irene square for whatever you want; drinks, food, coffee, sweets.

While strolling around the town, you'll come across several sights so you can easily tick off stuff from your list. Unless you're willing to pay for getting too close to old columns, I wouldn't really recommend going to every archaeological site there as you can check them out from a small distance and/or height as a roaming pedestrian.
The only one which is kinda worth it is the Ancient Agora. The Athenian one, not the Roman one.


During the evening you could go to one of the roof bars at Monastiraki so you can have a great view of the Parthenon.

Day 2)
The only must-visit museum in Athens is the Archaeological. There are tons of great museums, but this is really the best of the lot. So definitely spend a couple of hours here.
A potential day here is to go to Syntagma square (you'll definitely end up here more often than you'd imagine) and to cross the road to check out the change of the guards, which tourists love.
From there, you take a nice walk in Zappio, aka the National Park, which is one of the only places with greenery in Athens, apart from the stadium of Panathinaikos
You also need to get to the Panathenaic Stadium, which is effectively on the other side of the park. Take the opportunity and enter the old stadium, very unique experience.
Once again, you'll come across some nice old stuff to take pictures of

You can combine this with the affluent Kolonaki area, before going to Syntagma or after the Panathenaic stadium, depending on your overall speed and mood.

Nice views of Athens come from Lycavitos and Philopappou hills. I'd avoid Philopappou Hill when it's dark. If you do go ahead and plan a trip, I'll tell you more areas to avoid but generally the center is safe.

Day 3)
This depends on whether you're a museum guy or a sight-seeing experience guy.
If you're a museum guy, there's plenty to do.
If you want to use your feet and explore with your eyes, hear me out.

You go to the southern suburbs of Athens and have a relaxing morning at Lake Vouliagmeni. Thank me later.
You can take a bus from that area to the Temple of Poseidon at Sounio, which is one of Attica's top 3 landmarks. If the weather allows and you're in the mood, you can also opt to take a boat ride and see the temple from below, which is an amazing sight during sunset, but you can also check it out from close up. It's not as impressive as you'd imagine from a short distance, but it's still worth it if you have the time.
The roads are not great so it takes some time (like 1:30 hours or so) to get there, so you have to assume that you're going to spend most of your day there.

If this is an option for you, you can opt to spend the night at Glyfada instead of central Athens, which is a vibrant southern suburb of Athens with lots of places for good food and has a great vibe overall. Imo, the best area of Athens for a resident.



From Athens, you can take a day trip to Delphi, which has an archaeological area and a small museum. It's fun for history buffs, but unfortunately there's not much else to do around. There's the ski town of Arachova nearby where you can grab a nice lunch. It's like 2 hours drive from Athens, so expect to spend your day if that's the plan. And since you'll be going back, you'll have to calculate the cost of staying in Athens without actually being there for most of the day.


A different plan is to say goodbye to Athens and Attica on Day 4 and go south. You should rent a car for this part. I know that Greek drivers are really bad and it's not ideal to drive in the city, so what you'll do here is find a rental place that's close to a highway and gtfo asap

Sparta is nothing special, but I get why people want to visit, so let's find a way to make it worthwhile.
A plan to keep you busy and make the most of your week is to go to Monemvasia. Google Images will help you appreciate this place more. You can spend a day there and on the following day after you check out you can spend your morning in Sparta. If you're into medieval stuff, you can also check out nearby Mystras, which is part of our origin myth of how the Renaissance took place in Italy and you have some beautiful medieval monasteries and churches there.

From Sparta/Mystras, it takes you 2 hours to go to Ancient Olympia. The birthplace of the Olympic Games. If you're willing to drive and sight-see, this is a must which ticks most of the boxes.
The only issue there is that there aren't that many great places to stay, but I wouldn't suggest returning to Sparta or Monemvasia. If you decide to spend more time before leaving Monemvasia and don't have the luxury to see Sparta and drive 2 hours to see another place, then what you could do is visit and stay at Kalamata.
Pylos is also a nice town to visit if you want a detour before heading to Ancient Olympia. Don't go to Patra unless you have to. Patra sucks

From Kalamata to Olympia it's like 1:30 hours, so you can head there in the morning, spend 2-3 hours at the archaeological area and then head to Nafplion to complete your journey. This is the first capital city of Greece and it's probably the best town in the Peloponnese (its main competition is Kalamata, btw). It takes 2-3 hours to get there but it's worth it.

I recommend staying 2 nights there. The first night you'll be quite exhausted so you can just spend the evening in the city.
The following day you're going to get to your car and drive to ancient Mycenae. Can't tell how long you'll take there, depends how much you like it. Before returning to Nafplion, you're going to stop at Argos and check it out. 1-2 hours could be more than enough in that town.
In the evening, usually every Friday and Saturday during the summer (can't tell about May), there are shows at the ancient theater of Epidauros, which is a short drive from Nafplion. You don't have to speak Greek to appreciate it and sometimes they have people from abroad perform shows. If there's no show, you could still check the theater out the next morning.
There are also some nice areas like Porto Cheli, Ermioni or the island of Poros nearby as well if you somehow figure you have more time to spare.


It's usually a 2 hour drive from Nafplion to the airport, which is where you can leave your car. On Sunday evening, it's more.


So if you go along these lines you'll have 3 nights at Athens, maybe 1 of those will be in the south. You could do that in your first day so that you have a decent rest before taking the trip to the Peloponnese without spending the previous day on a bus or boat.
3x Athens
1x Monemvasia
1x Kalamata if you opt to relax at Monemvasia a bit more
2x Nafplion

And you're back home to absorb the memories


Now if you think that's too much pressure to get to see a bunch of historical sites, you can opt to stick around in Athens and take the bus trips to some of these locations but you'll spend a lot of time going back and forth.
Or you could check the Athenian museums out and then spend the evenings in Athens without the adventure element.


Here are some images of these places outside of Athens:

 

[Harpsabu]

Jesus, thanks for the incredible reply! That's an amazing itenary. Definitely more of a sight seeing person, so that's incredible and those pictures look amazing, would love to visit those there. Will spend some time over the coming day trying to plan this out (and convince the gf but think she'd be happy) cheers Brehme!

 

[Fitzy]

I have also noted for any future trips. Cheers Brehme.

 

[Glass box]

You should see Meteora but it's far away from Athens a lot of driving up north. If you're in the mood you should go.

 

[Puma]

I really miss the "Patrida".

 

[brehme1989]

The Peloponnese is the most beautiful land of Greece. And Crete is the most beautiful island.

We don't really share this very much with the outside world as @Il Drago can confirm, but they truly are the best places to visit.

Doesn't mean the rest of it isn't great, you'll find amazing places without even looking.

 

[brehme1989]

You should see Meteora but it's far away from Athens a lot of driving up north. If tou're in the mood you should go.

Yeap, absolute scenic place.

Giannena is also an amazing location and the surrounding Zagorohoria region.


We could talk about the islands for days, but the mainland isn't half bad actually and it's for all seasons. Okay Athens during the summer isn't a great idea

 

[Glass box]

Giannena is also an amazing location and the surrounding Zagorohoria region.

Yeah I agree. Drove through the entire region once it's amazing.

 

[Gane]

Gonna save this post coz i've been planing to go to Greece for a couple of years (Covid fucked this up for me). Always loved history and especially when we learned about Greece in history class in school, i loved it so much i chose to write final paper at the end of high school about Greece colonisation of island Vis (Issa) in Croatia. I'm gonna go this summer for sure.

 

[Black Knight]

I went to Athens this year. What I was really surprised by was the quality of the food. I mean, I expected it to be good, being Mediterranean, but every single meal I had (except the shitty hotel breakfast) was out of this world.

Also looked at pictures of Meteora and really wanted to visit. Then I saw that it was a 5h drive away

 

[brehme1989]

Issue with Athens is that it's badly constructed and even worse preserved. Pavements for example,bor lackof. And all walls are tagged with mostly ugly graffiti.

Oh and it's full of Greeks with the good and the bad.

If you can cope with the negatives and have a decent enough income (ie work remotely for a foreign company), it's definitely one of the top cities to live in.

 

[Puma]

Brehme, some of the graffiti is interesting to read though and can be form of social commentary.

I remember walking through a train station with my brother and cousin who lives in Athens and I was reading Greek slowly out loud:

I came across the following: "Είσaστε μουνakιά" (You are cunts).

By the time I managed to spell it out and understand what I was reading, my cousin had stopped and was standing in the middle of the walkway staring at me in disbelief.

To this day, I am not sure whether her disbelief was down to the fact that I had not picked up on the meaning straight away or whether she was surprised that I stopped in the midldle of the walkway and persisted in trying to read something which was not very important and held us up. While I was in Greece, I did my upmost to practice speaking and reading: even graffiti on the wall at train stations.

I really miss Greece, especially Athens, Ikaria, Lesvos and Kithira. And the rock'n Rhodesian girl who Sophia stole my heart away!

 

[brehme1989]

I came across the following: "Είσaστε μουνakιά"

 

[Corrode]

I've spent more than 15 yrs in life but I've never travelled up to 140km

isn't Papua new guinea land worth more over 140 km? imo there must be some interesting place out there.

 

[Il Drago]

Brehme come on. Couldn't you leave anything for me? What am i supposed to suggest now?

I was in Monemvasia last summer. I was susprised to see lots of Italians there. Totally recommend. Medieval castle is truly magical.

The Peloponnese is the most beautiful land of Greece. And Crete is the most beautiful island.

We don't really share this very much with the outside world as @Il Drago can confirm, but they truly are the best places to visit.

Doesn't mean the rest of it isn't great, you'll find amazing places without even looking.

You're revealing too much stuff!


If he wants to go to an island Rhodes is also a good suggestion. A good combination of great nightlife and historical sites. Medieval City, Grand Master's Palace, Acropolis in village of Lindos.

I really miss the "Patrida".

You should visit home again αδερφέ. Show it to your child too.

I know we have some Greeks on the forum like Il Drago and brehme and anyone else who has been there. I'm thinking of booking a holiday to Greece. I love history but Greece is fecking huge lol we'd be thinking of going to Athens at the start of May for a week and going to some of the sites. Is a week in Athens too long? Should we break the stay up and book hotels in other areas and if so where should I go that has easy transport etc. I'd love to visit ancient sparta but don't think there's much left?

Any recommendations is appreciated at all

This post comes at a very convenient time for me as i am visiting Dublin in April. Any recommendations would be welcomed.