I don’t remember much of that night because we were kind of tired(we visited Athens all day)  and we got hammered pretty fast. At one point I woke up on the beach, while a friend was telling me … Hey man, it’s 5 o’clock, let’s go home.

The next day was the beach day. We managed to wake up before 12a.m. and  went to the beach.

Here’s a perfect way to get rid of a light hangover in Athens:

An interesting fact about the beaches in Athens: Are very polluted. And it is normal I think …  That’s why the best, non polluted beaches are found on the islands. But we didn’t have the time or the money to go to an island, so Thassos took us somewhere out of the city, in a nice beach resort, at about 30-40km from Athens.

Although it was around 10 of May, it was very hot and we actually managed to get some sun burns.

After the beach … we went back to Thassos’s  … the Finals of the Eurovision Contest were about to start.  Everyone was crazy about it. Thassos even placed some bets, but no luck. We watched the Finals(Serbia won), we said good bye and parted.  The coming home trip is one of the things I hate most in this world. Especially when you leave at night, tired, by car and it’s your turn to drive. I strongly don’t recommend   it.

You can check out my entire Greece photo gallery.

He has a big apartment on the last floor of a building, with a very nice terrace. Great place to throw a party or just to chill. Here’s the view:

He and his family welcomed us with a delicious traditional meal: some fish and cheese dishes and of course, a Greek salad made with home made olive oil:

The first thing we wanted to visit in Athens was The Acropolis(known as The “Sacred Rock”), one of the greatest ancient monuments in the world.  Here I have a nice tip for you: If you are a STUDENT, whenever you go on a trip, take your student card with you. You never know when it might come in handy. For example, the price for entering the Acropolis was(last year) 12Euros, but students had free entrance.  We were all students, but unfortunately some of us didn’t  have their student cards and couldn’t prove they were students, so they had to pay.

On the top of the Acropolis lies The Parthenon(the temple of the Greek goddess Athena):

Around the Acropolis you can find a lot of souvenir shops, bars and restaurants.  It’s a great place to try some Greek cuisine or just to relax, having a beer and enjoying the view of The Acropolis. A good Greek beer is MITHOS. I recommend it.

Walking through Athens, we were surprised to see so many orange trees. Everywhere you look, you see orange trees. Too bad that the oranges are not eatable. If they were, i think no one could sell oranges in Athens anymore.

We also visited Kallimarmaro Stadium( where took place the first modern Olympic Games – 1896),The Arch of Hadrian, The Temple of the Olympian Zeus, The University of Athens, and other important monuments and places that unfortunately I don’t remember anymore. Basically, you can visit most of the important sights in Athens in a single day.

You can check out my Greece photo gallery.

Last year I was in Athens  around the 10 of May, and the temperature was already close to 30degrees Celsius if not higher. Even at night it was very very hot. The friend we stayed at did not have an air conditioning so it was kind of difficult to catch some sleep.

The weather was  perfect for going to the beach. We actually caught some tan in only a few hours of staying in the sun.  For this period of the year, some might say that the sea is a little cool for swimming.  And if you also feel that, don’t hesitate to plan your vacation in Greece  between the beginning  of August to September(even late September).

So, my advice here is to avoid the month of July for your summer vacation in Greece. In my opinion, the perfect “summer” weather in Greece is between 20 of May – 30June  and 5August – 10Sept.

But if you happen to find a great deal for a vacation in Greece in July, be sure that your accommodation has an air conditioning! You will need it.

It was the perfect context for an awesome travel adventure.  Too bad we could only stay for 3days.

The distance between our city and Athens is 2000km. It’s a long way to drive. We were lucky to have four drivers(two for each car). Our route was: Iasi(Romania) – Bucharest  – Sofia(Bulgaria) – Thessaloniki – Athens  and back.  From Bucharest to Thessaloniki it’s a 12hours drive. If you enter/pass through Bulgaria by car, you need to purchase a vignette(valid for 2-3days). The cost is 5Euros(the actual vignette) plus 1Euro extra tax for something else(this I didn’t understand what for). Roads in Bulgaria are pretty bad( from Sofia towards Greece is a lot better though – they were building a highway at that time). If you happen to pass through Bulgaria, be sure to keep an eye out for the police – they are just crazy. They stay in the bushes  with the hand-held speed detector.  It is really hard not to get a fine in this country.  We were lucky enough to get burned only once.  The fine was(2007) 10Euros. They’re really slick … they tell you the fine is 10Euros without any receipt, or 20Euros with receipt … Nice, right?

In Greece the roads are excellent, lots of lanes. Entering Thessaloniki:

Unfortunately, we only stopped in Thessaloniki for a coffee and to take a few pictures. There is much traffic and it’s very hard to find a parking place.  We drove around for 30minutes to find a parking spot. We finally stopped somewhere near the White Tower, the city’s landmark. At that time we didn’t know this, so the photos are not so great, they’re actually taken from the car,  but I hope you will be knowing about the White Tower when you will next visit Thessaloniki and stop there and take better photos .

The White Tower:

The coffee place(on Niki’s Avenue):

Niki’s Avenue(central seafront of Thessaloniki):

I found out after that trip that there are a lot of important historical monuments and landmarks of Thessaloniki that we had mist or  we hadn’t realized their importance. Few of them are: Aristotelous Square, The Rotunda of St. George, The OTE Tower, The statue of Alexander the Great. But I guess that’s what happens when you travel with no planning, right? In fact, our purpose was just to have fun and not to see stuff so … no problems,  I’ll visit these monuments next time.

From Thessaloniki to Athens are about 500 kilometers(5hours drive). Straight highway. I forgot to mention, Greece has no roads tax(vignette), you only pay if you want to take the highway.   From Thessaloniki to Athens the price was, last year, somewhere between 6 and 7 Euros(not too much).

See all my Greece photos

I will give you more than a few solid reasons and if you feel that I left something out, please don’t hesitate to share it:

1. The beaches in Greece are just amazing! Check out the top 5:  Sarakiniko beach (in Elafonisos Island, Peloponnese) ; Egremnoi beach (in Lefkada); Myrtos beach (in Kefalonia); Erimoupolis beach (in Crete Island) ; Myrtidiotissa beach (in Corfu Island);
2. The food is delicious and very very healthy. I bet everyone heard about  dishes like the famous “Greek Salad”, the moussaka, about the tzatziki sauce, the feta cheese and of course, for those that like to have a drink from time to time, ouzo and metaxa.
3. It has a great number of beautiful islands. The most popular are: Mykonos, Santorini(the top image), Crete(the biggest island in Greece – here was the center of  the oldest European civilisation – The Minoan Civilisation), Hydra, Corfu(Second biggest island), Rhodes, Skiathos, Ios;
4. Greece is the birthplace of the Olympic Games;
5. The capital of Greece is Athens, the  home of Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum( Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles);
6. Greece  was a great ancient civilisation, it has an endless amount of artifacts;
7. Greece has many historical landmarks(statues , museums, theatres, temples), like the Parthenon, the Olympic stadium,  the Acropolis , The National Archaeological Museum, Mycenae, etc.
8. Greece is the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature and historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, and Western drama including both tragedy and comedy;

I had the opportunity to visit Greece last year.  I loved it very much. It was a short trip(3 days) and I could only visit Athens and stop for a coffee in Thessaloniki. But it was enough for me to remain with great memories and I hope to visit Greece again soon and see all the other stuff that I missed.

You can check out my own Greece photo gallery.

Hungary

Italy

Spain

France

Austria

Greece

Czech Republic

Slovakia

Germany

These are only nine countries. Counting Vatican, the smallest state in the world( 0.44 km²), whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy,it ads up to ten countries.

Some of them I visited by car and some by train.