As they say, all good things must come to an end, and the same is true for our crazy European adventure. Liam left the apartment at 9:30 to head towards the airport for his 1pm flight. We left shortly after for an adventure to the Athenian Riviera.
After a 20 minute train ride and 30 minutes of the most cramped bus I have been on in a long time, we finally arrived. Aaaannndddd the beach was private access behind a €10 ticket each. Boo! Emily and I didn’t even have our bathing suits with us, so no way we were going to do that. So we did the next best thing and found a playground to plot our next step.
That was a bus back up towards the metro to beaches where we could paddle our feet free of charge (though without view of the yachts, which was a bit of a shame). The bus blew past our intended stop due to a faulty stop button, but it ended up being for the best as we found a nice rocky beach that was perfect for cooling our feet without getting sand all over them. Sand really is the worst part of the beach.
As we walked down the coast towards another playground we scoped out on the maps and noted a small change cabin near our rocky beach. Though Emily and I hadn’t brought our suits, Jordan had, so we tucked that knowledge away for later. We then came upon the restaurant and playground combo (excellent) just in time for 1pm lunch. Turns out this place does brunch. Great! Even better is that it had the best sea view I have ever seen at a restaurant, let alone sat at. Take that, expensive beach club (though we did only have a view of some sailing boats instead of mega yachts).
Kieran slept through this, which was good as I had little intention of sharing my smoked salmon eggs Benedict and Jordan wouldn’t share her french toast. Emily mean of a country omelette (chorizo, spinach, feta and french fries) was also good, but definitely the third of three. This was the most quintessentially European service experience, with difficulty getting the attention of the server to get the fork he forgot to being Emily, so she sat there for like 10 minutes swapping a fork with me to eat.
After lunch, Jordan got changed and fully swam in the rocky cove. It was rather hot, so we really regretted not bringing our suits, but we were still able to enjoy up to our knees. There was a naturalist beach just a 1km walk away, apparently, but we decided against that with the kids in tow. So it was back towards the metro on the bus which was much less crowded… At the start. It wasn’t quite to the heights of the outward journey, but was quite packed at the end.
Instead of following the big crowd down into the metro, we stopped at our last frozen treat of the trip. This time, it was frozen Greek yogurt and it was really quite good. We each got our own cup this time as we all got different toppings (strawberry yogurt with sour cherry sauce and banana really worked, somehow), so this ended up being our most expensive frozen treat of all of Europe! Still cheaper than anything similar we would get in Canada though.
Then it was metro and another bus back to the apartment. Even though it was now 6pm, we were all still full from our late brunch. So we just brought some bread, butter and chips up to the rooftop patio to enjoy a snacky final dinner in Europe.
The owners of the building also run a jewelery and sculpture shop on the ground floor and they invited us for a tour. Kieran got to play with Sofia again (which consisted of them just touching at each other’s hands and faces in a very cute exchange) and Emily finally got to meet the dog whose toys and leashes we have seen scattered about the building. He was a very cute Greek Shepherd who really wanted to go for his walk and not indulge in the tour much longer. The tour finished with them giving us gifts of small pieces of beautiful pearl jewelry for the girls, an evil eye for Kieran (though he did note that Kieran’s blue eyes meant he already had the luck from it) and a Greek necklace slash game thing for Liam and I. He also said that the family owns the building but rents out on Airbnb to keep up with the taxes on it and that if anyone we know is staying in Greece that he will give discounts versus Airbnb for contacting directly! Very kind family.
Given that it is the last night and despit the need to leave fairly early in the morning to deal with the crazy Athens metro system and airport for our flight at noon, we made a deal with Jordan to stay up for the sunset over the Acropolis. Lucky her! Hopefully that doesn’t bite us in the butt tomorrow, but it should be fine since the sun set is at about 8:15. She did manage to injure her foot nicely though, which should be fun for traipsing through public transportation and a couple of airports. Hopefully our homeward journey is smoother than our outbound one!
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