Kraków

The overnight train from Prague was definitely one of the nicer train experiences we've had to date. That said, sleeping on a train is never really a great night's rest so we were feeling a little out of it by the time we arrived at our hotel in Kraków. We were grateful to be allowed an extremely early check-in - before 8am! - and napped for a couple hours before setting out for the day. The moment we stepped outside we realized we were lucky to have such great weather - it was 75 degrees and sunny! Our first stop was lunch at Milkbar Tomasza, which was near the main square and easily walkable from our hotel. Feeling energized, we walked around Rynek Glowny and checked out the various landmarks while dodging the many touts.

We can't help but be charmed by the beautiful pre-war architecture.

Alex and I are loving the huge town squares in Europe!

St. Mary's Basilica, like many of the other churches we have seen so far, was difficult to photograph because of its height!

Gorgeous view of the historic sites in town center.

Springtime in Krakow is beautiful.

I loved the random archways we found at nearly every church nearby. (Also, my outfit should indicate just how warm it was!)

I've never seen so many priests and nuns in one area before.

Deciding we really needed to maximize our time outdoors on such a beautiful day, we headed to Wawel Castle to continue our sightseeing.

Nothing beats a Medieval castle in the spring.

Wawel Cathedral.

Not the first time Alex and I have wondered if we are in a Disney fairytale.

One more of the castle grounds.

I picked Drukarnia for sunset drinks based on online reviews, hoping for a great view of the city skyline at dusk. Unfortunately, the view was really just of the Vistula River and various bridges but we still enjoyed a beer while watching the sun go down.

Dusk in Krakow.

Not the view we planned on, but still pretty great!

Dinner was - naturally - at a traditional Polish restaurant called Starka where we sampled the local specialties: boneless pork knuckle and vodka. The sweeter flavored cherry and ginger vodkas were definitely more similar to an after-dinner drink; I actually enjoyed the horseradish flavor but Alex stuck to "safer" varieties. Pork knuckle has shown up quite a bit on the menus in Eastern Europe but I think the "boneless" adjective is what sold us here. I can attest to the delicious flavor and crispy skin but it is not a heart-healthy or waistline-friendly meal!

Feeling pretty full from our previous night's feast, I woke up early to go for a run - and drastically misgauged the weather! Overnight the temperature had chilled to a cool 35 degrees in the morning and I returned freezing and wide awake! Next time I will remember to check the weather report - we sort of forgot that springtime sometimes brings seemingly sudden shifts in temperatures.

Alex and I needed to continue planning the upcoming Spain leg of our trip so we gathered the computer and walked to the charming Cafe Camelot to perch for a few hours. After we refueled and felt sufficiently productive for the day, we walked to Schindler's Factory, now a museum dedicated to the history of Kraków during World War II.

The museum's visual exhibits were eerily historically accurate.

One of the more horrifying pictures I saw - German soldiers laughing as they cut the beards off of Orthodox Jewish men.

The visual impact of the museum was very unique and we did learn a lot about Poland during the war but it was a little difficult to follow. There was also very little information on Schindler himself, which was disappointing, so I'm trying to force Alex to watch Schindler's List with me (a real uplifter, I know).  Most interesting was learning about how the people of Poland and Krakow suffered during Nazi rule. Sounds obvious now, but so much of our experience and knowledge about World War II in Europe focuses on the Holocaust and those murdered in the concentration camps that it's easy to forget all the other conquered peoples and the tragedies inflicted upon them. It has become painfully obvious that every country in Europe has a difficult past and considering the historical context for each place we visit has been important in appreciating our travel experiences.

Next to Schindler's Factory sits Krakow's Contemporary Art Museum so we briefly stepped inside to check it out. Uber-modern art is definitely not our thing but we figured "why not?" Well, we are still not modern art people. A few of the exhibits were interesting enough, but we drew the line at a doll with a raven's head perched on a branch that just screamed obscenities at an empty room.

We understood the message of this piece - paint splatters that individuals had "washed their hands of" to symbolize the various genocides committed around the world - but still don't fully appreciate art that requires such detailed explanation.

Is this really art?

Finished with museums for day, we walked through the Kazmirez district and ended up at Pesto, a quiet Italian restaurant for dinner.  Tomorrow we have a guided tour of Auschwitz so we are both preparing for an emotional day.

Prague

We were a little more relaxed about our train ride to Prague because we learned from our last RailJet experience and booked seats in advance. Unfortunately for us, the seats we booked happened to be right in the middle of a block of seats reserved for some high school / teen-tour trip. These kids were ridiculously loud – screaming at each other from opposite ends of the car, playing loud music, etc. – and their chaperones did nothing about it. Fortunately they didn’t ride all the way to Prague and we had a quieter second half of the ride. I seriously hope we weren’t obnoxious like that when we were 16 or 17…

We got to Prague in the early evening and set out to get a cab to our hotel. We’d read about the atrocious taxi situation in Prague and were well-prepared to deal with drivers trying to rip us off. The first guy we talked to (at an official taxi stand!) said it would cost 25 euros for the 2-mile journey. After quite impolitely telling him no, we were able to find another taxi stand with some cops nearby. Here we got an honest driver and our fare was less than 8 euros…even with a generous thanks-for-not-ripping-us-off tip!

We settled into our hotel and found a great spot for dinner right around the corner: Vidlicky a Noze. This place was incredible - great food at very reasonable prices, smooth house wine and excellent service. It’s not super close to the main tourist center of Prague (neither is our hotel) but we’d highly recommend it to anyone who visits – probably our favorite meal here!

Our day on Thursday revolved mostly around a walking tour we booked through New Europe Free Tours. We grabbed a quick bite at our hotel, then walked over to Prague’s Old Town for our tour at 10am. Tijo, our guide for the next couple hours, showed us many of the city’s tourist attractions and gave us some history about each site. The tour stopped for lunch after a couple hours – something we didn’t think was going to happen – so we split off on our own at that point so we could try one of the restaurants Sarah had already scouted out on TripAdvisor.

Old Town Square is lined by beautiful houses, which now contain mostly shops. There was someone making big bubbles in the square too…which was nice to photograph, but a bit of a hazard in person (no one wants a giant splash of soapy water on their face!).

Prague's famous astronomical clock. It's the oldest one that still works!

The Church of Our Lady before Týn.

Another of the beautiful buildings surrounding old town square.

After leaving the tour, Sarah and I headed to Rainer Maria Rilke for lunch. The food was very good – though not quite as good as Wednesday night! – and we both enjoyed taking a break from walking around while we ate a hearty Czech meal.

An hour or so later, we set out to see more of the city since it was such a nice day. We didn’t spend too much time at each site because we have four full days to see the city – so we took notes on what we liked best and where we’ll want to come back.

Walking across the Charles Bridge, Prague’s most famous bridge, we were amazed by the quantity of statues around the area. And how well maintained they all are!

One of the most interesting statues we saw: The Crucifix and the Calvary.

Looking across the river at the Prague Castle. This could practically be a postcard!

After we walked around the Prague Castle area for a bit, we headed back to Old Town across the Manesuv Most Bridge. From here we got a good view of the Charles Bridge…and the throngs of tourists still meandering across it!

We were both ready to sit down for a while at this point. So, on the recommendation of our tour guide from earlier, we headed to the Prague Beer Museum to sample some local brews. Prague is definitely known for its beer and has some of the highest beer consumption per capita in the world (about 1.5 liters PER DAY, PER ADULT). The beers we tasted were very different than what we’ve had recently, but it was a nice break. And we both discovered a blueberry beer that turned out to be our favorite! We strolled back to our hotel, but paused a few times to snap some photos along the river as the sun began to set.

Probably our favorite photo from the day – the colorful houses and their reflection in the water was just awesome.

After two heavy Czech meals in a row, we were both eager to try something a little different. We were happy to see that a Spanish tapas restaurant was right around the corner from our hotel (lots of good eats around here!). We enjoyed a bunch of small plates, then rolled ourselves home to get some rest.

Friday we had a slower morning because we were both still a little worn out from the 7-ish miles we covered on Thursday. After sleeping in and working on the computer for a bit, we headed to Prostor for a healthier, lighter lunch. Sarah got the grilled salmon, I got the grilled chicken. We shared 50/50 (she was especially happy about that part). Next we walked around the neighborhood near our hotel en route to the Prague Castle for a closer look at some of the sights we saw from a distance on Thursday.

A park a few blocks from our hotel.

You don’t get architecture - or color! - like this on a random street in NYC!

Looking across the river at some of the houses we photographed yesterday evening.

Wonder if these swans realize how good their view is?

There’s a smaller bridge near the Charles Bridge that the locals have tried to turn into their version of Paris’ Love Locks. They still have a ways to go, but it was certainly a charming little corner of the city.

The Holy Trinity Column, outside St. Nicholas Church.

We began the walk up the hill to the Prague Castle. Fortunately most of the uphill part was on this street with a very gradual incline.

St. Vitus Cathedral, one of Prague Castle's most prominent features.

Another shot from the side – it’s so tall it’s very hard to photograph well!

Looking out on Prague from the Castle.

Sarah was so inspired by the number of selfies being taken around us that she insisted on this one. Also she wanted to make sure I didn’t have any food in my beard ha!

We meandered our way down the hill and back across the river to T Anker, a rooftop bar that has good views of the city. Sarah’s research on T Anker proved very accurate – we had great views of the sunset from up there! Once the sun was behind the mountains, we walked over to Hanabi Sushi for another meal of non-heavy-Czech food. We had to wait a bit for a spot at the sushi bar to open up – apparently this is quite popular among the locals – but the delicious sushi was definitely worth the wait!

Most of the roofs in Prague are an orangy-red; this one we saw from T Anker stood out as defiantly bright red.

Sunset in Prague.

Sushi dinner at Hanabi.

Saturday began with something we’d been planning since we arrived: sunrise on Charles Bridge. The bridge is usually mobbed with tourists and locals trying to sell souvenirs so we were happy to see that at 5:30am on Saturday morning there were only a couple other people up to take photographs and a handful of gap-year drunks wandering around singing. The views were stunning and we were glad we got up so early for it…though we went back to the hotel and took a nap for a few hours afterward!

Sunrise on Charles Bridge.

Much better view at this hour than mid-day.

The sun is just about to peek over the roofs of Prague.

The streets at the base of Prague Castle - usually completely mobbed - were also deserted.

St. Nicholas Church with a Czech flag in the foreground.

Around the corner from the main tourist area here is a wall called the “John Lennon Wall.” During the day, there are about 200 tourists posing here at any given time. When we were there, though, we had it all to ourselves.

Getting up for the sunrise definitely has its benefits.

We set an alarm for 10:45, 15 minutes before the breakfast at our hotel ended. We hurried downstairs and had a big brunch, then showered and headed out to see more of the city. Our plan was to see the Jewish Museum today, but (foolishly) we didn’t think about Shabbat and found that everything was closed. Undeterred we decided to save that for our final day in Prague on Sunday and went back to the Prague Castle to see some of the areas we missed on Friday.

There were a bunch of locals around the Prague Castle on Saturday, more so than when we were there on Friday. We stumbled upon a picnic of sorts, and, since they were selling local food and beer, decided to join them for a bit to watch the people stroll through the area. We walked around the rest of the Castle for an hour or so, then made our way back down the hill toward Agave, a Mexican restaurant Sarah found for dinner. We’ve definitely been taking advantage of the non-traditional food while in Prague, but it's been necessary since Czech, Austrian and Hungarian food are all basically the same...

A nearly deserted alley we passed on our way to dinner.

We spent the day today exploring the Jewish Museum. It’s not one specific museum, but rather a collection of extraordinarily well preserved Jewish buildings in Prague. Hitler decided to maintain this area of Prague in order to keep a record of the “culture of the former Jewish race.” Though that’s a deplorable thought, we’re fortunate that some buildings like these survived World War II so we can visit and learn from them today.

The old Jewish Town Hall. It’s famous for its two clocks: one with Roman numerals, one with Hebrew numerals.

The old Jewish cemetery. The graves were literally stacked on top of each other because there was not enough space to bury the dead.

Close up of a tombstone.

The Bima in the Spanish Synagogue.

Looking up at the ceiling of the Spanish Synagogue.

We headed back to our hotel early today to grab a bite to eat at Vidlicky a Noze again, then took a cab to the train station. I’m writing this from our overnight train to Krakow, Poland, where we’ll spend the next three days. Compared to our overnight trains in Thailand and Vietnam, this train is awesome!!

Vienna

When Sarah and I bought our train tickets to Vienna, the cashier told us not to worry about seat assignments, there would be plenty of seats. Not quite true. There were a few unreserved seats scattered throughout the train, but no two together. So we spent the three hour journey at a table in the café car…which actually was probably more comfortable than a proper seat anyway.

We arrived exactly on time, walked the short distance to our hotel, checked in and set out to explore Vienna. Our first stop: lunch at Ulrich. This hip gastropub was a great way to kick off our time in Vienna – we’d say we highly recommend it, but after we ate there we found out that the NY Times included it on their recent 36-Hours in Vienna tour…so I’m sure we’re not the only ones who feel that way!

After lunch we walked down to the Museum Quarter, an area that (unsurprisingly) houses most of the city’s museums. We just walked through on Monday (we saved some museum time for today) and headed into the historic city center to see some of the city’s main attractions.

A statue in the center of the Museum Quarter.

The Austrian National Library.

The streets of the historic city center are lined with old buildings that now have either retail or coffee shops on the first floor.

St. Stephen's Cathedral.

Sculpture around the back of St. Stephen's.

Looking up at St. Stephen's – the scale is hard to appreciate from up close, but it’s so tall that you can see it from almost anywhere else in the city.

 A few blocks further, we popped into University Church. Unlike St. Stephen's, there were no other tourists around here so we were able to enjoy the splendor of the building by ourselves.

One of the many beautiful cafés nestled on the side streets of Vienna. Clearly we were a little early for lunch

Once we’d strolled around the historic city center for a few hours, we decided to walk over to the Volksgarten nearby. The weather was perfect on Monday afternoon and we lazily strolled through the well-manicured gardens before meandering back to our hotel.

Sarah’s favorite corner of the gardens.

View from the Volksgarten, looking across the street at the Museum Quarter.

After we got cleaned up for dinner, we strolled over to Schilling's, a local bar known also for their traditional Austrian food. We indulged in Austrian beers, wiener schnitzel and beef stew – the perfect end to our first day in Vienna.

It tasted amazing. No idea how most Austrians aren’t completely obese with diet-staples like this!

We slept in a little later than normal this morning so we’d be well rested for a full day of sightseeing in Vienna. After a quick breakfast at our hotel, our first stop was Rathaus. We’d seen this from a distance yesterday but up close the detail on the building was incredible.

The side view of Rathaus; these are functional offices but the building is still beautifully maintained.

A block away we found this other building, which was Sarah’s favorite. Couldn’t tell if it was residential or commercial…either way, a great place to work / live.

Fantastic day for a stroll through Vienna. A view of Rathaus through the budding trees.

One more, front-on shot of Rathaus.

Our next stop, right around the corner from Rathaus, was Austria's Parliament Building. Though very impressive on its own, it didn’t quite compare to Budapest’s!

Austria's Parliament.

Detailed view of the sculpture in front of Parliament.

After a quick coffee break we checked out the Opera House briefly. We weren’t going to buy a ticket to a show, so there was only so much to see from the outside. Still very nice though!

One of the corners of the Opera House.

From here, we headed to the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum for a few hours. The exhibits were great but the architecture of the building itself was worthy of a visit. A very cool way to spend a couple hours.

There was a big collection of Egyptian artifacts. In addition to the historical pieces, the room was painted with recreations of traditional Egyptian art.

One of my favorite sculptures from the Egyptian exhibit.

I had beard-envy of this guy…

In the Roman wing.

The main staircase in the museum.

At this point we were both starving so we walked over to Garage01 for lunch. Unfortunately, since this was a bit off the beaten path, there was only a German menu. And the staff was too “hip” to help translate for us. So we didn’t stay long. Fortunately, Wild was just across the street and the staff there were more than happy to help us decide on a delicious meal!

We chose this area for lunch because it is close to Hundertwasserhaus, a very modern art display in the form of apartments. It wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but Sarah liked looking at the unique and colorful architecture.

The colorful Hundertwasserhaus.

As we walked back to the city center, we stopped at a bar on the river to enjoy the views for a few minutes. It reminded us of some bars back home and the happy hour people-watching was very entertaining.

No beach in Vienna? No problem – just bring the sand in!

Our final destination was the Sofitel. Also featured on the NY Times’ 36-Hours in Vienna, the rooftop bar at the Sofitel boasts some of the best views in the city. We tasted three traditional Austrian wines and watched the sun set slowly before heading back to our hotel. Tomorrow we’re taking another train to Prague, where we’ll have more time to explore the city (which sounds great to me because it's been a busy two days in Vienna!).

Wine tasting with a view!

Budapest

Budapest was the first stop on our completely reworked European itinerary and neither Alex nor I knew much about the city...or really Hungary in general. We weren’t even sure it was “worth a visit” given we only have so much time (I know, it seems ridiculous) but we are both happy we made a point to spend three days here!

Our Friday night Ryanair flight from Athens was quick and we were at our hotel in the Castle District by 8pm. It was drizzling but we wanted to maximize our time in Budapest so we headed out for a local dinner near the river and down the hill (the Buda side of Budapest has lots of steep hills, by the way).

We ended up at Kacsa Etterem, a charming local place I found on TripAdvisor (obviously) that served a fixed menu with wine pairing for $30 a person. Apparently, Hungary is famous for its locally produced wines (we are starting to notice a theme here!), which went very well with the meat-heavy dishes we had for dinner. Standouts from our night include the live music, crispy duck and free bottle of rose to take home (Alex later realized that we had accidentally tipped more generously than the locals expected!). Our walk back up the hill was a little more grueling, especially since we were so full from dinner, but we both made it to our beds before falling into a deep food coma!

We spent Saturday morning walking around Castle Hill, which was a convenient stone’s throw away from our hotel. We dodged the various tour groups – we later learned that most were on a Viking Cruise down the Danube river – and explored Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthias Church and the Buda Castle area.

Matthias Church. I couldn't get over how cool the roof looked!

Fisherman's Bastion was beautiful, even with a cloudy sky on Saturday morning.

Charming homes and cobblestone streets in Castle Hill.

The Ludwig Museum.

Another shot of the courtyard in front of the Ludwig Museum.

A lion in front of the Budapest History Museum.

We walked across the Chain Bridge and headed to Hungarikum Bistro for a traditional Hungarian lunch. Alex and I shared the goulash, a must when in this part of the world, and a daily beef special – both were delicious. The blustery weather outside definitely called for comfort food and I sense this is going to be a theme for our time in Eastern Europe! The place was packed by the time we left and we were thrilled we got a table after watching the hostess turn away many other couples.

The Chain Bridge, the first permanent bridge across the Danube in Hungary.

Both of us were pretty happy to dig into some hearty Hungarian food on a cold day!

After lunch we checked out the Parliament Building and the nearby Holocaust monument, Shoes on the Danube. Like in many other nearby countries, Nazis inflicted unspeakable horrors on the Hungarian Jews and there are various monuments in the city to commemorate the many lives lost during the war.

The Hungarian Parliament Building is the second largest in Europe.

Shoes on the Danube.

Alex took a picture of me taking in the gravity of the monument.

We continued to walk east until we reached St. Stephen’s Basilica, where we popped our heads inside and got to see a wedding taking place!

Approaching St. Stephen's Basilica.

Here we are at St. Stephen's Basilica.

Alex took this cool shot of the back-side of the Basilica as we continued our walk through the city.

In need of a little warmth we headed to the famous New York Café, which deserves its notoriety as the World’s Most Beautiful Café. The prices were a little steep so we just sipped our drinks slowly and enjoyed our gorgeous surroundings.

Can you say "ornate?"

We waited on line to get inside for about half an hour, but we both think it was worth it!

We need to buy our train tickets to Vienna, our next stop, so we headed to the train station before walking over to Heroes' Square. The walk was longer, colder and less scenic than we were expecting so we decided to call it a day after checking out the various monuments in the square.

Found some other tourists to take our picture at Heroes' Square.

Some of the heroes of the square.

Obligatory picture of me in front of a Budapest sign at Heroes' Square.

Our day wasn’t quite complete though – we were tired, cold and hungry and subsequently without our tough tourist armor when our taxi driver totally scammed us. We paid quickly as we hurried into a restaurant, only realizing after we were inside that he'd overcharged us (we're not quite used to the Forint / Dollar exchange rate) and, even worse, upon closer inspection of the change we got, he'd given us a mix of Hungarian and INDONESIAN currency. And Indonesian currency is worth basically nothing. We were both pissed off and frustrated that we had let our guard down...we ordered drinks and resolved to be back on our A-game for the remainder of our trip.

We woke up to a beautiful day in Budapest on Saturday so we headed back to Castle Hill for coffee and strudel. Alex’s apple was way better than my poppyseed (I felt compelled to try the local specialty) but really I still couldn’t complain – plus Alex gave me a bite! The weather was so much nicer and we were happy we got to take in the sights with a beautiful blue sky background.

Beautiful view of Parliament through the Fisherman's Bastion.

Beautiful start to the day in Budapest!

Looks a little different in the sunshine!

Compare this to my picture yesterday - what a difference a clear day makes!

We took care of a few trip-planning logistics and then headed back over toward the Parliament for lunch at Culinaris, a smaller version of Whole Foods. On our way, we passed a monument dedicated to all the victims of Hungary’s German occupation. The monument was covered in protest signs and other items so we spent some time reading and learned that the monument is in fact very controversial among Hungarians and Jews.

This is the view of the monument covered by protest signs and memorial tokens.

View of the monument as is.

After refueling at lunch, we walked to the House of Terror to learn more about Hungary’s time under Nazi and Communist rule, which was certainly terrifying.

The museum - a building formerly used by both the Nazis and Soviets for central operations and torture - has been redone in quite a striking fashion.

A wall of photographs of the many victims inside the museum.

The museum was informative and very visually striking but honestly it was a little too much reading. Every room – nearly 20 – contained a handout, some of which were multiple pages, in 12 point font. Alex and I are notoriously not museum people, but we do enjoy a good history lesson; this was just overkill.

We had planned to go to a Hungarian Bath at this point, but unfortunately we ran out of time. We stopped back at our hotel and then had another great dinner nearby at Hunyadi Café. After dinner we walked to the water, where Alex managed to capture this impressive shot of Parliament lit up at night!

I can see why Travel & Leisure featured his shot!

This morning I battled Alex for best photographer by waking up and watching the sun rise over Budapest. Incredibly, I had the entire Castle Hill area to myself and managed to capture a few beautiful shots.

Sun rising behind Parliament.

Recreating my shot of Parliament through the archways - can you blame me?

Such a beautiful sunrise.

One of my favorites. Most impressive was the fact that there was NO ONE else around. During the day, this entire area is teeming with other tourists! Enjoying the sunrise alone was really an amazing experience.

I can't stop gushing over the light.

One more of Matthias Church right after sunrise.

After five hours of sleep, I’m pretty exhausted but the experience was definitely worth it! We are currently on a train to Vienna and I am trying to stay awake so we can explore the city once we arrive!

Aegina

This post is not titled Hydra because the ferry to Hydra was sold out! After a momentary panic at the pier – our hotel assured us that it wouldn’t be an issue to get a ticket the day-of – we re-grouped and decided to catch a ferry to Aegina, another island nearby. Turns out this island is much closer but offers pretty similar attractions so neither of us were all that disappointed. We walked onto the ferry with two minutes to spare and headed out to sea.

Pulling out of Piraeus, the harbor in Athens…

…and into the port at Aegina an hour later.

The harbor in Aegina was very charming – there were rows and rows of boats bobbing in the water and numerous cafés lining the coast. We decided to grab a quick breakfast at Nisos, one of the busier places we saw. The coffees were good but the standout was Sarah’s order of Strapatsada, a mixture of eggs, tomatoes and sausage…I definitely had order-envy. After we ate, we walked around the harbor for an hour or so to take in the views.

Really nice day to be by the water!

Looking out past the harbor to the Aegean.

Once we’d watched a few fishermen pack up their boats and set sail, we headed inland a few blocks to see the rest of the town. We didn’t have much company as we strolled around the streets but that was fine with us!

The church we saw from our ferry when pulling into port. It was decorated with these flags for Easter.

All of the houses were painted bright colors but I think this one was Sarah’s favorite.

Walking back towards the water.

The main attraction on Aegina is the Temple of Aphaia, an isolated temple on the top of a hill dedicated to the goddess Aphaia. Interestingly, this is the only temple where the ancient Greeks worshiped her - seriously nowhere else.

The temple is about seven kilometers from port, all uphill; we decided it would be a better idea to take a cab rather than try to get there under our own power on a rental bike. This was definitely the right choice - not that we couldn’t have made it, but we would’ve been exhausted by the time we got to the top of the hill!

The Temple of Aphaia.

It was hard to capture both the views down to the water and the temple in a photograph – but once I stood on some rocks I was able to get a better perspective for this shot.

One more of the temple.

After we’d seen the temple we took our cab back down to the port to get some lunch. Greek salad and gyros again? Yes, please. We ate at a very leisurely pace, taking in the views of the harbor as the boats came and went. Before long though, it was time to get back on the ferry to Athens. We could’ve taken a later one, but we wanted to be back to see the sunset at the Acropolis rather than at Aegina.

Before boarding the ferry we had to stop to check out this beautiful little church in the harbor.

Our destination for the rest of the evening was A is for Athens. We’d seen this rooftop bar from the Acropolis so we thought the views looking up would be good. The service was terrible, it was overcrowded and the drinks were twice what they would’ve cost elsewhere…but it was all worth it for the views!

Fortunately we were able to get a seat on the edge of the roof that faced the Acropolis.

The Temple of Hephaestus was lit up as the sun set over the hills.

Dusk in Athens at the Acropolis – what a sight!

We woke up this morning to another day of perfect weather and figured a lazy stroll around the city would be a great way to spend our last few hours here. We wandered to Liondi for our last meal in Greece – mezzes and chicken souvlaki – before heading to the Temple of Zeus. There isn’t actually that much to see within the grounds of the Temple of Zeus (we kind of got the same experience walking by on Monday) but it was nice to sit around and people-watch for a little bit (some tourists take the most ridiculous photos!).

The Temple of Zeus with the Acropolis looming in the background.

We took a different route back to our hotel and stumbled upon the Academy of Athens, which might as well be a tourist attraction in itself.

The Academy of Athens.

We have a flight to Budapest tonight – on Ryanair, our first experience on this cheap but notoriously lousy airline – and are looking forward to exploring the city for the next couple days.