Saturday morning. The time had come for us to work our way towards Athens, our final stop. I got up on the wrong side of the bed. The drive back from Epidaurus had been uneventful the night before, but I reached Nafpoli to find it crawling with people of every age, sex, and national origin. They were enjoying the evening air in the cafes, restaurants and discos...or they were driving around in circles looking for a parking place. I joined the last group. It was after 12:30 before I finally found a place to park and made my way to the hotel and to bed just a little before 1:00 a.m.. Hard as it is for you to believe, lack of sleep makes me crabby, so I started the day as a crab. In fact, I finished the day as a crab, but I finished the day in Athens. We had a Michelin road map of Greece and a detailed map of the center of Athens, but neither offered a detailed clue of how we were to get from the autoroute into the City Centre and our hotel. Fortunately, I had a couple of really good navigators. We charged into the middle of town, only hit 7 pedestrians and 5 motopeds, and found our hotel at the foot of the Acropolis. Driving in the Arab world had prepared me for this.
After a glass of wine, a hot bath (we had a bathtub for the first time in our trip!), and a nap, I revivved enough to head into the early evening in search of dinner. We were in luck (did I mention that Athena has been watching over us, although she seemed to have taken the night off in Nafplio). A pedestrian street of restaurants is just around the corner from our hotel. We settled into the Gods' Restaurant which, according to the sign, is highly recommended by Lonely Planet. There we made several new best friends. I haven't had a New Best Friend since we left Turkey, so it was nice to meet friendly people. We had a nice, early dinner and came home to watch the sun set behind the Acropolis from our hotel's roof garden. It seemed we would end our journey the way it began, from the roof garden gazing on antiquities. In Istanbul, our hotel looked out over the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia; in Athens, our hotel looks out on the Acropolis. What a great trip it's been, but we still have one day in Athens to look forward to. What should one do with one day in Athens?
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