Athens & the Greek Island Chios (3rd - 9th Nov 2007)

We coincidentally timed our visit to Athens when the Athens marathon was being held. This is a particularly interesting Marathon race because it is the original route starting in a place called Marathon and finishing in the Olympic stadium. It was hard on Nick meeting all the competitors at our backpackers and on the street pumped about the race, as completing a marathon is one of his ambitions. But the timing wasn't right for him to enter in the Athens one, as our cycle touring meant that he could not run as seriously as needed to compete. So the goal is the Auckland one later next year.

We went down to the Olympic stadium to watch the finish. It had an amazing atmosphere and you could imagine all the sports events held here over hıstory. Both a mens and womens race record was set this year, so it was also amazing watching them come in.

Olympic Stadium in Athens


The Acropolis was also a must-see of Athens. We unfortunately timed our visit with hundreds of tour groups, so we didn't linger longer than necessary and probably didn't appreciate its historical significance as much as we should have. In terms of other things to see in Athens, it doesn't nearly compete to those in Rome. So after wandering the streets we ended up spending a bit of time meeting new people at our social hostel.

Part of the Acropolis


From Athens we caught an overnight ferry to an island called Chios. İt is only 15km from the border with Turkey, and is described as an off-the-beaten track kind of island. This suited us just fine as it was a convenient jumping point for Turkey and we could explore a Greek island without the package tourists. One town in particular had interesting geometric designs on many of the houses.

Geometric designs in the village Pyrgi on Chios Island


Chios was a great way to spend our last few days in Greece, roaming around the old streets and chilling out in our fantastic guesthouse in a restored neo-classical building.

Then a short hop across the sea to our first destination in Turkey - Çesme. From here we have just over two weeks to explore such a vast country (regrettably it seems we didn't allocate enough time).