{"id":295,"date":"2014-07-24T21:42:27","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T18:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/?p=295"},"modified":"2014-07-25T06:39:54","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T03:39:54","slug":"from-syros-to-athens-final-night-in-athens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/2014\/07\/24\/from-syros-to-athens-final-night-in-athens\/","title":{"rendered":"From Syros to Athens: Final Night in Athens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"240720142345\"<\/p>\n

Arriving back in Athens following the four hour ferry journey from Syros felt a bit like arriving at Gatwick after a flight. It was that \u201cI\u2019m home from holiday\u201d feeling.<\/p>\n

My time from Syros was, if you like, a \u201choliday within a holiday\u201d; it did make me feel rather Greek to jump on a ferry and go to an island for a two day visit, then jump back on the ferry and return to the mainland.<\/p>\n

After checking out of my room this morning, I headed to Galissas Beach for a final swim; spent so long in the water my hands aged by about 50 years\u2026 but then, my hands only need 5 minutes in water before they start to go wrinkly.<\/p>\n

Later, I popped to the office where Yannis of Galissas Studios works; that was where we stayed last year, and Mum has already suggested that we may go back independently in the future \u2013 so I called in to get his contact details so we can look at it properly.<\/p>\n

The time then came for me to pay my bill, say goodbye to Antonis, and get the bus in to Ermoupoli.<\/p>\n

From Ermoupoli, I took the 16:00 ferry (on the Blue Star Naxos \/ \u039c\u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5 \u03a3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1 \u039d\u03ac\u03be\u03bf\u03c2 boat) back to Piraeus \u2013 I stood at the back of the boat for about 50 minutes as we sailed along the coast of Syros<\/a>, before turning and then seeing the island Syros fade away in to the distance.<\/p>\n

The journey back was rather pleasant \u2013 as I found a spare seat on the sundeck, and sat there as we sailed past island after island\u2026 and whenever we were close enough to land to get a 3G mobile signal, I\u2019d quickly boot up my laptop and do my e-mails. The on-board wifi was a bit too expensive for me.<\/p>\n

Arriving back in Piraeus, we had some excellent views of the city as we approached \u2013 I could clearly see the Acropolis and Lykavittos Hill. As a sign that my Greek is definitely coming along nicely during this trip, I was able to understand every word of the stream of tannoy announcements as we docked in Piraeus, and didn\u2019t need to listen when they were translated in to English afterwards.<\/p>\n

On arrival in Piraeus I headed for the Metro station, got a 24 hour travel pass, and went back to my hotel in Metaxourgeio; changing trains at Omonoia, the journey took about 40 minutes.<\/p>\n

Tonight really is my final night in Athens: and it occurred to me that after 24 days in Greece, I was back in the hotel where it all started \u2013 in the room next door to the one I had during the first week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arriving back in Athens following the four hour ferry journey from Syros felt a bit like arriving at Gatwick after a flight. It was that \u201cI\u2019m home from holiday\u201d feeling. My time from Syros was, if you like, a \u201choliday within a holiday\u201d; it did make me feel rather Greek to jump on a ferry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[135,97,93,40,137],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-syros","tag-athens","tag-blue-star-ferries","tag-blue-star-naxos","tag-ferry","tag-syros"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fred-hart.uk\/greece2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}