Back in January or February, looking around for possible next trips, I stumbled upon a good deal through SAS, or Scandinavian airlines and snapped it up. Robert, Helen, and I got regular tickets that had no full-sized carry-on bags, much less checked bags (which cost 105 euros each). But Marcus and Samantha qualified for their youth tickets, if I booked them on a separate itinerary, which were $100 cheaper per seat and which came with both a carry-on and a checked bag, so that brought the total airfare for all five of us up to $2050–very respectable! 

So I booked the trip, and filled in the details later, and by the time August rolled around we were all very ready for a vacation. Some members of the family were not looking forward to the heat, while others didn’t seem to mind the idea of it too much, and the girls were very excited to see various mythological sites during the trip. 

Boston airport scenes:

We flew out of Boston at 6 PM on Monday August 19th, and the check in and boarding process was extremely smooth--though we felt very sorry for the older man in front of us in the security line whose walking stick ("It didn't even have a pointy end!" Marcus kept saying. "That thing was not a weapon!") was confiscated in a very Seinfeldian moment because he had put it in his carryon rather than walked through security with it ("I only need it for longer distances..." the man kept trying to explain, to no avail). For us, after last year’s trip to Ireland on Play we  all had very low expectations, but no one aggressively measured our personal items, the seats had screens (though mine didn’t work), and there was actual (though classic airline, not great) food on the plane. Winning! We had just enough time in Copenhagen during a layover to clear customs, use the bathroom, buy a chocolate croissant and a cardamom bun, and dip into a lounge for coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and bread and cheese and fruit. We had great seats on both legs of the flight—three behind and two in front, and one of the flights we didn’t even have a third person in the row with two of us. Everyone slept at least a bit, on a continuum from “just a tiny bit” (Robert) to “nearly all the time (Christina). 

Copenhagen airport, and Athens car:

 

On the ground in Greece, we didn’t have to go through customs because we were connecting via another European country. Marcus and Helen and I waited for the two checked bags while Robert and Samantha did the rental car paperwork and bought a case of bottled water, and then we headed out in our tiny white Toyota Yaris. 

We drove out of the airport area past Athens on a toll road (very nice that Robert could pay the tolls by just waving his Apple Watch at them, since we hadn’t remembered to get cash at the airport) and first stopped briefly in Eleusis, home of the cave where Demeter entered the underworld in search of Persephone, and where the Eleusinian mysteries were held every year. I got to made some jokes about how after the airplane trip I wanted us to briefly stop and walk around an actual town—you know, Hadestown. It didn’t feel like people were up for archeological sites right at the moment though, fueled mostly on chocolate croissants (we had picked up a giant Molto in the Athens airport) so after peering at the sea we headed on out again. 

First afternoon pictures--scenery, water, and snacks:

Our first stop was over the canal in Isthmia, at a grocery store and the neighboring ice cream shop. We bought a combination of stuff to have for breakfast the next day (eggs, butter, semolina bread, yogurts, tarama) and snacks (fizzy lemonade, oregano potato chips, caprice cookies, crackers, and adorable 1.5-inch long croissants with a cream filling), as well as fresh figs that Marcus tore into right away. The ice cream was quite good, too—a portakolopita flavor with orange ice cream and big chunks of portakolopita in it, and a kinder bueno flavor, which was swirled vanilla and chocolate with chunks of kinder bueno bars in it. 

From there it was just half an hour or even a bit less to our aparthotel, Corinthian Village, just a block from the beach. We had a villa/townhouse with a private pool—the pool wasn’t huge, but it was the most amazing temperature (Robert estimates 80-83 degrees), and it was just there, outside the door, morning and night. Helen was in absolute heaven. 

Villa private pool:

She was in her bathing suit in an instant upon getting into the villa, and outside and in the pool. I had brought a small blow-up ball and three of those weighted “fish” that sink to the bottom of a pool, for people to dive for, and those proved to be great amusements. Everyone ended up taking a really nice swim, and three adorable cats (seemingly two older ones and a kitten) watched us from the back patio. After our swim, we walked down to the beach and along it, looking at the different restaurants. It was around 6:30 by this point, which was clearly (in hindsight) absurdly early for a Greek dinner, and most of the restaurants were empty. Many of them also didn’t have menus or signs in English that were visible from outside, so we ultimately chose a meat restaurant (vs fish—the only real differences we could see among them) that had at least a few people inside and which was across from a big, active playground, so Helen could play while we waited for our food.

Corinth beachside views:

There was a weird wind tunnel effect that kept whipping away our napkins and any paper, but dinner was good—chicken souvlaki, a gyro, saganaki, bread (of course), and a skepasti (two pitas with meat and cheese and sauce, made almost quesadilla style, with French fries and more sauce on top) which was new to us and which Marcus especially loved. We asked for ketchup with the fries, having readied ourself, recalling ketchups in New Zealand and in Iceland. Robert pronounced the Greek ketchup “better than Iceland’s, but not good.” Walking home down the beach to our hotel, we passed a woman grilling corn by the side of the road, but without cash we couldn’t try it. It was a nice 10-minute walk back, and the moon was full and orange and gorgeous. When we got back, everyone was very ready for sleep--my ideal first day after a red-eye flight! 

Corinth playground, aparthotel breakfast, and adopted cat:

Marcus and I woke up at 4:30 the next morning, which I felt was in the right universe, even if it wasn’t exactly perfect, and the others woke up more like 6:30 or 7:00. We made scrambled eggs (plain or with tarama or with some mini sausages we’d bought and fried up) for breakfast along with bread with figs or a Greek hazelnut spread, and yogurt, and croissants. I went into the pool with Helen while the big kids were getting up and ready, and then we all squished into the car to drive to the CAT Argo for a cruise through the Corinth Canal. Supposedly boarding at 10:15 and leaving at 10:30, we got underway much closer to 11:00. The kids were a little horrified at a dad who was smoking while sitting at a table with his two daughters, which is indeed a tad far from the Boston norm, where someone smoking will pointedly step away and apologize if they realize a kid is standing near them. 

The canal cruise was really neat. I had read everyone the history of the canal in the car on the way over, so we all knew about Nero’s unsuccessful attempt to dig the canal, and then about its ultimate digging in the 19th century, and its assorted cave-ins and erosion and partial collapses, which had closed the canal for months at a time, until as recently as February of this year. Robert loved the submersible bridges at the ends of the canal, which drop down to let boats go over them into or out of the canal. It was very cool going through this canal on a boat slightly smaller than the Ptown ferry, as opposed to going through the Panama Canal. This canal has no locks, since it’s equal depth on both sides, but boy, it was really way impressively deep. 

Corinth canal boat tour:

From the canal we made three unsuccessful attempts to go to an ATM. The first one listed was supposedly in a supermarket, but the people there helpfully told us “Was. Is gone!” The second one was in a super congested neighborhood and when we finally got there said it wasn’t dispensing cash at this time. Gee, thanks. The third one was another of the supermarket ones and was also not there anymore (“Used to be!” someone at this one said). Google, get with the program—we trusted you! Giving up for now, and pushing thoughts or more grilled street corn only purchasable in cash from our minds, we bought a few more snacks and a tuna dip at the supermarket and went instead to lunch right by ancient Corinth. 

Companionable sibling Latin reading:

This place had no menu, in English or anything else, as far as we could tell, but we were able to order tzatziki (a super garlicky version with a healthy amount of carrots in addition to cucumbers and dill), moussaka, and both pork (excellent) and chicken (very good) souvlaki. At ancient Corinth we saw the temple of Apollo ruins, and the ruins of a fountain where Medea poisoned the cloak of Jason’s second wife, and the woman jumped into the fountain to try (unsuccessfully) to stop the burning of the poison. From there we got the kids ice cream and made the best of it at the bathroom (1/3 flushes, 2/3 seats, 0/3 toilet paper, zero soap).

Ancient Corinth:

Then we drove up the hill to the parking lot for Acrocorinth, the fortresss overlooking Corinth, but apparently they close at 3:15 and we were seven minutes late. We climbed around the steps and lookouts at the base, but it was disappointing not to be able to go to the top (the woman who was at the gate was very stern). In retrospect, we should have done Acrocorinth first, but I hadn’t realized they closed so early when other ruins stay open until 8:00 or later. 

Acrocorinth:

We went back to the villa and Robert and Helen and Samantha went into the pool again, while Marcus and I relaxed (napped) and then we all went out to an olive oil tasting at Oleosophia at 6:00. 

The tasting was fantastic. It’s a small family-owned business that is working hard to use farming and harvesting practices that are good for the environment and also good for the final product and the consumer. First we walked around the orchards, picked an olive, and talked about pesticide methods and irrigation (pro/con) and about the way an olive will release its juices at peak ripeness. We did a formal tasting according to the standards of the world olive oil governing body, or some such, starting from using glasses that are specific in shape and size. Then we were taught to cup the bottom of the glass in our hand, while keeping the small glass lid on to keep the volatile aromas inside, and warm up the glass with our hand. Then we swirled the oil up the sides of the glass, and finally we took off the lid and noted how close to our nose we started being able to perceive the aroma, since some oils released their aromas earlier than others. Ultimately we got to take a small sip and swirl it around in our mouth, and then hold it in our mouth while we sucked in air between our teeth, and breathed out through our nose, and finally swallowed. We noted the different flavors we perceived, whether grassy or fruity, etc., and kept track of the three different variables sweetness, bitterness, and pungency (or spiciness). It was fascinating learning about the definitions of extra virgin and virgin olive oil; the perils of communal, public olive mills; and all the different layers that go into the taste of an oil. Afterwards, we sampled sour cherry spoon sweets, grape must syrup, and more, and just chatted with Marianna, the owner. She complimented Marcus’s nose, and we all complimented her beautiful covered structure for tastings, and then at some point she mentioned she was pregnant and Robert said suavely, “We could tell. Not because you’re fat, but because you walk funny.” Marcus and I turned to look at him with “what is the matter with you?” looks on our faces, but the woman just said “oh my goodness, I didn’t know it was obvious!” and somehow the conversation kept on flowing. 

Olive tasting and olive orchard:

At the end of the evening she recommended a fish tavern on the beach over near where we were staying, so we drove that way and had dinner on the beach, sitting at a table on the sand just about 30’ away from the water. The moon came up, a gorgeous orange supermoon, and we ate fried shrimps, grilled squid stuffed with tomatoes and feta and peppers, and a seafood assortment plate that included marinated octopus, fried squid, fried anchovies. Helen happily played with rocks in the dark on the sand behind the table, and we all had a lovely evening. 

Dinner on the beach in Corinth:

The next morning we got up and Helen begged for one last dip in the pool before we checked out, so I took her while others got ready, and we stopped at a bakery right down the road (Enzyme), which had very good spinach triangles, ham and cheese croissants, and a spiral tiropita. Marcus had us go back in for more, and Robert had fun maneuvering the car around the tiny little parking lot in front when we tried to park and then again when we were ready to leave. Today happened to be Marcus's birthday--sixteen! We bought him an extra spanekopita to celebrate.

We drove south to ancient Mycenae, the ancestral home of Agamemnon and Menelaus, and I retold their story in the car. We all made friends with the cats that hang around the parking lot and the bathroom area, and watched a woman feed them and the cats then loll about in the shade. "I want to adopt them!" Helen declared, while "I want to be them," Samantha decided. Then Robert and Marcus and Helen walked up and through the lion gate into the fortress while I sat in the shade with Samantha, who wasn’t feeling well. At the end, I walked out to the grave of Klytemnestra, and then we all got overpriced slushes and fresh-squeezed orange juice before piling back in the car. 

Ancient Mycenae:

This entire trip, I should mention, the temperatures hovered between 92 and 97 during daylight hours, cooling down to “just” high 80s with a breeze after dark on the beach, so it was pretty brutally hot. Thank goodness Robert bought that case of bottled water in the airport convenience store to start us off, and every place we stayed came with more bottled water in the fridge. We took to freezing 2-3 small bottles overnight and then putting them in the little insulated bag I’d brought along, so that they could keep the dips that I bought cool and so that they could eventually become ice water to drink during the day. 

From Mycenae (which was indeed one of the highlights of the trip) we kept driving south through the Peloponnese to Nafplio, where we did finally succeed in getting cash from an ATM, at last. We went to Karathona beach just beyond the town, admiring the big fortress on the hill as we drove, and had lunch at the little stand along the beach, sitting under its awning to eat more fried squid, keftedes, and a burger. We used their changing rooms and bathrooms, and then I took Helen down to the beach for a swim. The water was incredibly warm, no shock at all when walking in, and got deep in the most gradual way, so that Helen and I could walk out a long distance and I could still kneel and she could stand and swim comfortably. She hasn’t done much ocean swimming, and was a little nervous, but she did great. This beach was pebbly on the bottle until you got out a ways, but it was completely calm and easy to swim in. When Robert and Marcus joined us (Samantha sitting with a book under the awning at lunch still), Robert took Helen down to the little inflatable water slide area at one end of the beach and paid for admission for the two of them to enter. Marcus swam with me for about 45 minutes, and then we dripped off on the beach for awhile before rejoining Samantha. 

Karathona beach:

Thus far, on our trip, we’d learned a lot—refreshers of Greek mythology, for example, but also that Google (and TripAdvisor too by extension) is incredibly inaccurate about the opening hours of restaurants here. I lost count of the number of places that were completely, behind a doubt 110% closed, despite Google being certain that they were open (and even pretending it had real data that it was open by giving me a non-zero bar on the “this is how busy this place is right now” graph). That was only a minor annoyance, in most cases, but what we learned of far greater import was the state of bathrooms across the country. In a word: challenging. One person would go in and scope out the situation. Was there toilet paper? (Outside of hotels/restaurants it was 50/50.) Were there toilet seats? (About the same) Was there soap? (Even in restaurants? Like 25% of the time.) Sometimes we’d get really lucky and a bathroom would check all three boxes—missing soap, missing toilet paper, and missing seat! Most of the time, outside of hotels, the standard “do not flush toilet paper” sign appeared. In a poll taken after we left the country, our family varied wildly in how we responded to those signs. Suffice it to say that Karathona beach did not have bathrooms at the top of our list!

Nafplio views:

From Karathona beach we drove into Nafplio and parked at our AirBnB, a little two-bedroom apartment with a tiny bathroom, washing machine, and an adorable little shaded porch for drying clothes. We threw some laundry on, took showers, and headed out to walk into the old city for dinner at a little taverna named Karima Kastro (Robert loved the joke of the name).

Assorted Nafplio streets:

We loved the narrow streets where people ruled and cars squeezed by around them, and we loved the cats everywhere. Marcus had grilled sea bass, the girls split fried squid and plain pasta, and we had a dip trio, some sesame-crusted honey-drizzled feta, and grilled pork with a blue cheese sauce. Everything was excellent.

Nafplio dinner:

We walked around Nafplio after dinner and ended up sitting in Syntagma Square for awhile, watching kids with spinning light-up toys, eating ice cream and loukoumades, and, oh yes, nursing my newly-sprained (albeit very lightly) ankle. Fun sidenote: I've sprained my ankle a lot of times now, though only one other time in another country (hi, Vietnam!), and this was far from the worst time. I was able to hobble back to the hotel, and three days later I was almost entirely pain-free with nearly full range of motion. So, a minor drag, but nothing too serious.

In the morning we collected our dry laundry from the porch, checked out, and let Helen play at the playground across the street in Railway Park while Robert grabbed spanekopitas from a bakery around the corner for us. We drove down to the port (possibly a mistake, in hindsight, but it saved my ankle the walk) and boarded a sailboat with Sailing Nafplio for a private full-day cruise. Mario and Theodore were wonderful--we stopped at two totally private coves and they moored the boat, and everyone (even me, with a bit of coaxing...the leap off the boat into the water was not easy for me, mentally) jumped in to swim in the sea. Samantha used the stand-up paddleboard a lot, Helen and Marcus squabbled over a giant inflatable dolphin toy, and Robert and Marcus explored a cave on the beach (I suggested it was the cyclops cave, and Marcus said he did notice sheep poop, so who knows). They had spanekopita and tiropitas for breakfast; rice and chicken and mushrooms with salad, feta, and olives on the side for lunch; plus honeydew, watermelon, grapes, and banana for snacks, and bottled water and Loux sodas, a fizzy lemon one that Marcus really loved, and thought had notes of ginger, and an orange one (both fizzy and not fizzy, the latter of which was Helen's favorite). Helen went all over the boat, including out on a little wooden platform at the front, and helped Mario put the anchor down each time and bring it back up.

Nafplio sailboat:

Our final stop was near an islet and there were a few other boats there too, and then we sailed back by 5:00, admiring all three of Nafplio's forts. It was a pretty amazingly idyllic day...until we walked a block back to our car and discovered a 40 euro parking ticket, sigh, entirely in Greek (leading to me teaching the kids the expression, "It's all Greek to me!"). For the moment, I put it in my pocketbook and figured we'd deal with it the next day. 

Our fateful ticket:

We drove 45 minutes back up to Corinth to spend the night, because the next day we'd have to drive another almost two hours, and I wanted to split it a little but also figured that everyone would be tired after the day on the boat.

Poseidon fountain in Corinth:

We checked into Pegasus Rooms, which was in the mountainous area of Corinth a block or so from ancient Corinth, just off a cute pedestrianized area with lots of shops and cafes. Our room was a "family room" which was common in Greece (and in Israel too when we were there, actually)--it had a king-sized bed, a twin bed, and then twin bunk beds--and everyone relaxed while we took turns shuffling through the shower. There was salt caked onto all of our hair, visibly, from so much time in the ocean, and I had to help Helen wash it off in the shower, but eventually we were all desalinified.

Corinth sunset, and some ruins across the street from our hotel:

Robert, Helen, and I walked over to a little "street food" place to order souvlaki, a burger (for Marcus), and crepes, and then while Robert and Helen picked up the food, Marcus and I walked over to a little grocery store to pick up additional car snacks for the next day and some dessert for that night. Since the very first day, and our first grocery store/bakery stop, I had been noticing freezer cases of tiny dipped ice cream cones and ice cream pops, and I looked them up and found out they are called pagotinia and are apparently quite popular, so when I was there with Marcus I looked more closely and saw they were 12 euros per kilo, so we picked out four and it came out to be 2 euros and 52 cents, which seemed like a great deal.

Bakery ice cream treats:

We brought them back to the hotel room and everyone ate ice cream first, and then dinner, but that was okay, and then peopled conked out around 9:00 after we saw the sun set over ruins. 

Hotel breakfast, and views from breakfast:

The next day was Saturday; we had breakfast in the hotel balcony, with all the windows open and great views. Helen loved the yogurt with jams and spoon sweets, and the girls both loved the slightly almond-flavored marbled tube cake (which I swear my grandmother made every week and always had on the center of her dining room table).

Hotel garden corridor:

We headed out and drove back across the Corinth canal down to Sounion, to see the temple of Poseidon. Samantha (possibly our biggest Percy Jackson fan) had really been looking forward to this, but the drive was a little bit twisty, and she started feeling sick in the car. We made it there, though, and it was absolutely worth it--so windy and cool, not really crowded, and very impressive views both of the temple and from the temple down. We talked about the story of Aegeus and his inconsiderate son Theseus, who forgot to hang up the proper colored sail, as one of the legends says that this was the spot where Aegeus threw himself into the sea upon seeing the fleet returning, and we all had a great time walking around. 

Happy windblown Temple of Poseidon pictures:

All day while driving around, I'd been researching how to pay parking tickets in Greece (because there was no QR code, URL, or English on the ticket). Giving it to the rental car company for them to pay seemed like an absolute last resort--they would charge us the full value of the ticket, plus an "administrative fee" that varied depending on the agency and country from 30 to 80 euros (joy! We later found out Avis and Greece are on the top end of that spectrum!). Meanwhile, the interwebz seemed to tell me that if you pay a ticket within the first 10 days it's half price (20 euros instead of 40? yes!), but that parking tickets from Athens can be paid online only if you're a Greek citizen and have a special taxpayer number; tickets from smaller towns and tickets for non-citizens seemed to be strictly an in-person kind of deal. Just go to the post office in the town you got the ticket (uh...) on any weekday (uh...) between 9 and 2, and you can pay it in person (uh...)! So yes. It was proving to be a thorny problem. Back into my pocketbook went the ticket, to deal with when we were in Athens. 

Roadside shrines (Helen at first thought they were Little Free Libraries and got very excited, but then I looked them up and explained that they were more like a Greek Orthodox ghost bike equivalent for traffic fatalities. She peered into all that we saw and checked on their candles):

We drove back up the western coastal route, and unfortunately that had even twistier roads, so at one point we had to pull over at a random beach to avert carsickness. Robert and Marcus walked out on the rocks while Samantha drank tiny sips of water and breathed deeply.

Stopping to climb out on rocks:

Back in the car we went for the final push to Athens! We checked in a little early to the Pi Athens hotel, just a block from the marble Olympic stadium and a block from the National Gardens, and had quite the adventure parking the car. The hotel offered free parking at a parking garage a few blocks away, but we showed up at the hotel first on a narrow one-way street and saw a street spot right in spot that, despite Robert's expert maneuvering, was just a bit too small for our small car. The friendly hotel front desk woman came out and gave advice, but it was still looking grim. Eventually we noticed the parked car a few spots behind Robert was trying to leave, so the good news was that car was trying to leave (soon-to-be free parking spot!), but the bad news was that the car was trying to leave (narrow one-way street....nowhere to go!). The hotel woman thought she had it all under control--with the other car still in its spot, Robert would back down the street so he was behind the car, then the car could leave and Robert could take its spot. Unfortunately, the other driver got very unhappy and decided to zoom forward out of his spot, so Robert had to go partially around the block to avoid being hit, and Samantha and I went to stand in the spot the car sped out of, to save it for when Robert came back around the block completely. Just then another driver came up the block, also interested in that spot, but I was pretty proud of myself for (in Greek and hand motions) politely negotiating with her that she could have the back half of the spot (it was a larger car that had been poorly parked, so there was plenty of space now) and we would take the front half. It was all for nought, though, since Robert just found a spot around the corner and we just called it a day—took out our stuff and figured we’d leave the car until it was time to head to the airport the following day. 

A garden ornaments shop in Athens, and some gardens:

After checking in, we went back out and walked across the gardens to Syntagma station, then took the subway two stops to the main market area. I had been reading aloud in the car about the hero (or caviar importer, or pirate, depending on your perspective, apparently) for whom the market is named, and when we stumbled upon a statue of him everyone was delighted. “Christina, it’s your guy!” Robert said.

Market moments--fruit, and pork products:

So we wandered around the Varvakios market, the largest fish market in Europe (second in the world only to Tokyo), and also looked at its meat stalls and the fruit and veg markets across the street. We went into Mokka, right next to the market, for coffee for Robert, and iced (frozen) chocolates for the kids, and ice cream and spoon sweets (though Helen didn’t like the sour cherry as much here as she had that one particular kind in the orchard). 

Mokka coffee shop:

After a snack, we set out on some errands on the way to dinner, aiming to finally pay that parking ticket. I had read that you could pay it at the main police station in Athens, which was open 24/7, but from google maps I couldn’t totally tell which one was the “main” police station. We walked to a station and had a long conversation with a security guard at the door (while, in a comic touch, movers were busy moving out some unwanted office furniture through the main door around us), and she explained something about municipal vs national police, and directed us to a different station. As we walked, it seemed that we were in an area with a lot of Asian-owned electronics stores, so Robert chose the best-looking store and ducked us all inside. 

Just as we'd attempted four times to get money out of an ATM before we finally succeeded, so we had also attempted numerous times to buy another power adaptor. We had one that we had brought with us from home, but it was proving frustrating to keep unplugging devices and swapping out chargers in the middle of the night in order to make sure that four Apple phones and three Apple watches (all charged daily) and three Apple iPads (not necessarily charged daily, thank goodness) and two Kindles (not even charged once the whole week! Hooray for good Kindle battery life!) remained fully usable. Still, in Athens that Saturday afternoon, we finally succeeded in finding another adaptor--and for an excellent price. With fewer than ten words in common, Robert and the electronics store owner arrived at an understanding—we found the adaptor, and it was only 1 euro. “Quick, buy two!” I said. 

We kept going to the other police station, stopping for dinner along the way at a nice seafood restaurant—again at an unfashionably early hour. (Eating at 8:30 on the beach in Corinth was pretty much the only time (by the end of our meal) that we saw restaurants buzzing.) We had grilled shrimp pasta, grilled sardines with a pesto sauce, fried squid, fried cod on skordalia, and Helen got locked in the bathroom. Bathrooms again! She was in there for ages before I finally went to check—I was worried that she was feeling dehydrated and/or sick, but no. Just locked in—a lot of the bathroom doors had keys, first of all, and also were often big and old and would stick. Poor kid! The restaurant gave us shots of some liquor (not ouzo or sambuca—beyond that I have no idea) and more of those little ice cream pops as a complimentary ending to the meal (I think those actually are free even if you don’t spend half an hour locked in their bathroom, but it was especially nice to come out to in that case). 

A sign shop, and an Athens sunset:

After dinner we went, of course, to another police station. I feel like there might have been a third police station in the mix too, but it was all such a blur. Hi, Athens! Electronic stores, police stations, and more! I book us on the fun walking tours, clearly. The area was feeling like one that needed a police station, actually—I saw two people shooting up (don’t worry, I still had my emergency-just-in-case Narcan in my purse) and two different sex workers throwing themselves (literally, in the case of one woman) at cars. This police station also had a security guard at the door, but he was less helpful than the woman at the first one—he kept indicating a sign on the wall, which, when we translated it, told us to go to a post office Monday to Friday from 9-2. It was all getting beyond absurd—here we are trying to pay the ticket, trying to do the right thing before we leave the country, and no one would take our money or do more than shrug and say “Monday!” Also, the tolls on the highway could be paid with Apple Pay, tapping Robert’s watch… but parking tickets are stuck in the 1960s?

We headed back to the subway and stopped at Stani, a milk bar that had your choice of goat, sheep, or cow yogurts, as well as galetkoboureko, baklava, and rivani. Back near syntagma square, we gawked at the protestors (both pro Ukraine and pro Palestine) in front of parliament, and at the huge police presence: no wonder no one was available at the stations to let us pay our ticket! They were all here, in riot gear, with massive shields, flanked by urban assault trucks. I tried to hustle us past them, but we did stop for ice cream (goat’s milk) at Goat It, and then we ducked into a McDonald’s to see if we observed any interesting differences with US McDonald’s. No worries, I thought—we are almost home! Just a quick walk through the gardens and we’ll be there! But wait: the gardens close at dark, and there was a middle-aged woman sitting on a chair just inside the gate to helpfully tell people that. We hailed a cab home instead. 

On Sunday we woke up on our last day in Greece and had a lovely breakfast at the hotel, prepared and served by the (genuinely) helpful hotel woman who had sorted us out with parking the day before. She took a look at our parking ticket too, and confirmed everything we’d found out, but her advice was just to ignore the ticket, that there was no way Nafplio was going to get the ticket back to the rental car people. That seemed possible, but like a risk we didn’t want to take, so we were almost resigned to paying the huge administrative fee. There seemed to be no other option, after all. 

Meanwhile, she let us pile our bags in the kitchen (apologizing that we couldn’t leave them in the dining room, which was more spacious, because a Filipino congregation rents out their dining room on Sunday mornings to use for church services. I kind of wanted to stick around and ask about any great Filipino-Greek restaurants in the area....

First view of the acropolis, and yogurt shop before our tour:

Instead, we walked over through the now-reopened gardens to the touristy area that approached the acropolis, meeting Athens Walking Tours for a skip-the-line tour. The kids weren't a fan of the guide, whose delivery made her "jokes" fall flat, but she knew all the best paths up to maximize shade and views and minimize sun and crowds, and the cost of the tour itself wasn't that much of a premium over the cost of admission, so it seemed worth it. The acropolis was by far the most crowded sight we'd seen in all of Greece, except perhaps the airport or the protest and police response (which, by the way, the nice hotel woman had told us was absolutely typical for Athens--there were protests there nightly, she said, and the police presence was always that dramatic, even at peaceful protests, and there would often be tear gas used on protesters, even if they had kids. So ooookay. Good to know), and because of the large amount of scaffolding all over the site, it had much more the feel of a modern construction site than an ancient temple. It was interesting, for sure, but maybe my favorite part of it was looking at it up on the hill over other parts of Athens just as we were walking around--that felt other-worldly (and the scaffolding wasn't visible then). 

Acropolis (edge of the city):

We walked down from the acropolis out the other gate than we had entered from, to see a bit more of the city and to get us closer to the Monastiriki flea market. This time it was Helen's turn to feel a little under the weather due to heat and walking, though, so we stopped into a cafe around the corner from the flea market, on a street with at least three different ice cream places, and ordered a baked eggplant dish, a plate of dolmades (which we hadn't had up until now in Greece), and a "small meat platter," which turned out to be a fabulous assortment of chicken, pork, and beef souvlaki; sausage; spicy feta dip and tzatziki; cheese balls and zucchini fritters; cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, and Greek potatoes. Everyone found something they enjoyed on the platter, shockingly, and there was also some free rivani at the end of the meal. Around the corner, we poked into lots of little stands selling Grecian "crown" headbands for 1 euro and fifty cents, or worry beads ("1 for 2, 3 for 5!"), socks, postcards, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and more. The girls picked out some things for themselves and some to bring back for friends, and around yet another corner we poked through some of the vintage sellers, until doubling back for bathrooms at the restaurant again and ice cream. Some old men were playing Greek instruments and an accordion and people on the street leapt up to dance ("I swear that's the 'Game of Thrones' theme song," said Marcus), and we bought more bottled water, admired the ruins across the street, and took the subway back toward the hotel.

Flea market, ice cream stop, and turtles in the park:

Walking home through the gardens one final time, we tried to go to the large and lovely playground we had seen there, but it was closed due to "construction" (none that we saw, at all, but who knows!). Instead, we spent a long time watching a surprisingly speedy turtle, and then we went to the Olympic stadium to read a little about it and take some victorious pictures. 

Olympic stadium (marble):

In the hotel, we picked up our bags, used the bathroom, and wished the nice hotel woman a good vacation (she was on her way to meet her family on one of the islands). She listened to updates in our ticket saga and referred us to the hotel man who told us just not to pay it. Doubtful, we thanked them, loaded the car, and drove off.

Our final pre-airport stop was a "hypermarket" (searching for "supermarkets" tended to give us little grocery stores--but this was what we think of as a supermarket!) at one end of an outlet mall. The parking was confusing (but hey, no ticket!), but we got more oregano chips, chocolate milk, orange soda, and Greek chocolate, and then we ducked into a bakery in the outdoor portion of the mall for a final spanekopita (disappointing, unfortunately--the crust was not as good, and it was too oniony) and another ogle of the mini ice cream cones (but here they were 22 euros a kilo, so there was no way we were getting any! Almost twice as expensive as in Corinth!). 

At the airport, Robert asked the rental car guy who was checking in the car about the ticket. He read it, and also agreed that we shouldn't bother paying it, and said that if we gave it to the higher-up Avis people at their inside desk, we would be charged 80 euros on top of the ticket. But here he also added something that we hadn't known until now: we could, he said, go to the post office inside the airport and just pay it there. A post office inside the airport? Yes, right across from the Avis booth on the lower level. For real? He looked puzzled. Yes, for real. And...open on Sundays? Yes, he said.

In we went, only to discover that it was now 5:39 p.m. and the post office had closed officially at 5:30. Unofficially, the post office woman was just barely pulling down the gate in front of Robert, and we missed it by perhaps 30 seconds. Robert talked to her through the grate and explained the ticket, and she told him to take it over to Avis. It was clear that she was not going to reopen the post office, so he did walk across the hall to Avis. We were feeling pretty dejected by this point. The post office woman followed him, though, and told him to hand the Avis people the cash. "This is what you will do," she told the Avis people, and seemed to give them instructions about bringing the ticket right back across the hall to her the next morning. The Avis people may have been cowed by the superior force of her personality, or they might just not have cared that much, but they seem to have agreed. Robert paid the full price of the ticket to Avis, but they said they wouldn't charge the fee, and it seemed, perhaps, that it all actually worked out. 

Somewhat shocked, and almost not knowing what to do with ourselves now that that was taken care of, we found our way to the correct desk for check-in at SAS and spent some time in a lounge eating more grape leaves and also keftedes (plus a delicious chocolate-topped panna cotta that Samantha was at first suspicious of, then in love with, then angry at for being the very last of its kind in the entire lounge). It was a short three-hour flight to Copenhagen, once we were actually in the air.

Obligatory airport tram photo, and plane cuddles:

We had a bit of excitement, and a delay, at first because there were "unauthorized" people on our plane--the crew was having trouble squaring the number of people on the plane with the number of people on the manifest, and eventually they had police take a few people off the flight. Then they had everyone take their carry-ons down and hold them on their laps while they walked up and down the aisles, to make sure that the people they took off the plane hadn't left any items in the overhead bins. I slept through basically all of this, but the people around us were buzzing about it for sure. Did I mention I had a very restful flight?

Airport shopping:

We arrived in Copenhagen over an hour later than we should have, because of the delay, but we had a family room (two sets of bunk beds, with two king-sized beds on the bottom and twins above, plus two other twin beds, and two full bathrooms) in the Comfort Hotel in the airport. The airport was so easy to navigate and efficiently laid out, and our checked bags were hanging out (presumably) somewhere in the care of SAS overnight, so we just had an easy walk of ourselves and a few personal items over to the hotel, and then people collapsed in bed. The next morning, we were up and down at breakfast early to take advantage of a layover that gave us our first-ever glimpse of Denmark. Breakfast was superb: pickled fish, fresh elderflower juice, delicious breads and cheeses, plus hard and soft-boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, rosti, sausages and bacon, and croissants and yogurts. Helen made blackberry tea for me and coffee for Robert, and tried everything ("The yogurt and spoon sweets aren't as good as in Greece," she pronounced); Robert put pickled fish on bread and Marcus put caviar in scrambled eggs; I made a soft-boiled egg and chive rosti plate; and Samantha ate croissants, sausages, and bacon. Meanwhile I had downloaded the Copenhagen subway app, so I was able to buy tickets right through there, and after breakfast we left all but my pocketbook in the hotel checked bags room, and took the subway 15 minutes into Nyhavn.

Arriving in Nyhavn for the canal tour:

Copenhagen is a place all of us would like to go back to, I think. Adorable architecture, tons of boats, tons of bikes, and it wasn't 97 degrees? We were sold. We browsed through a Danish McDonalds, just for fun, and walked around a bit before taking the Stroma canal tour. There was a bit of a snafu with the tickets, but we did make it onto the 10:00 boat--just barely, though, and thanks to Robert's efficient maneuvering. Helen liked seeing the Little Mermaid statue, and we all had fun picking out which houseboat was our favorite. The bridges over the canals were great, especially one built just for bikes.

Views from the boat in Copenhagen:

Before and after the boat tour, Marcus seemed content just to stand on the corner with me and look at and talk about bikes--how many there are, how orderly they ride, how upright they ride, how many trikes there are (many. I counted 15 in the first 5 minutes and then stopped counting), how many of them have internal gears, how close to the body they tend to signal...Marcus and I could have kept going for quite awhile, but sadly our plane left at 2:00.

Happy Copenhagen smiles:

We didn't have time to do more than head back to the airport on the subway after the boat ride, sadly, but even the subways themselves were an attraction--they are autonomous, but they have lovely "controls" that Helen enjoyed sitting in front of and pretending to use. On the way back to the airport, a little Greek girl sat next to her and Samantha, but on the way into the city, Helen "drove" the whole way.

Subway in Copenhagen:

Back in the airport, we collected the rest of our personal items and then navigated the different terminals and security lines, bought some Kindereggs (shhhh) in an adorable Kinderegg-shaped container, and bought out the last of the chicken souvlaki from a 7-11 for an airplane snack. We landed back in Boston around 3:30, after a wonderful week-long trip.

Robert's favorite trip experiences, in no particular order:

• private pool,
• swimming off the sailboat,
• and eating a seafood dinner on the beach at night

Christina's favorites:

• private pool,
• temple of Poseidon,
• and eating Greek food all the time and in context

Marcus's favorites:

• sailboat day,
• temple of Poseidon,
• and juicy and flavorful pork souvlaki (with a bonus: the cat in our villa as a fourth)

Samantha's favorites:

• the Parthenon,
• the temple of Poseidon,
• and swimming and cats tied for third

Helen's favorites:

• the villa (cat + private pool),
• sailboat day,
• and ancient Mycenae (cats + ruins)

A consensus of least favorite experiences:

• bathrooms
• even bottled water that only tasted palatable when icy cold (though Marcus would like to note that the water was still better than Florida water, and didn't rate so low for him)
• and for some of us, the heat, while for others (bonus! Samantha votes for both of these!), the lack of diversity in the food--Greek food all the time, all the days.