Up for an early start as we have a longish drive to Athens today however before we leave we have to not only have breakfast, which starts at 8, but drive down to Kala Nera first to go to the ATM cos not one of us thought before now that we'd need cash to pay the hotel bill. You'd think after all the time we've been driving around we would have organised to have cash as so many places you go don't have eftpos facilities and ATMs can be few and far between. We left around 7am thinking we could be down and back well before breakfast time, off to a great start, made it down into Kala Nera and found the ATM along the waterfront in about 20 minutes only to discover it was out of order!! So what now? We discussed our options, maybe we could explain to Maria about the ATM being broken and we could do an internet transfer or give her our credit card number.. as a desperate move we stopped at the corner store and Deb went in to ask if perhaps they had an eftpos machine but the guy in there said closest one was in Agria, he said 10kms away so we programmed Jane to get us there, which I might say she did perfectly... except... when we got there the road was closed for some reason so we had to work our way around the block with lots of one way streets but finally we found one and managed to get some money... as it was we got back just before 8 so a nice little side trip to start the day!! Breakfast done, billed payed we headed off around 9... once again we had a great trip, after we'd got through Volos at a fairly busy time of day we hit the freeway and had a dream drive all the way to Athens.... I'll say it again, the roads here are awesome but there are a lot of tolls along the way too, we never had any trouble using notes at the tolls as there was always a manned booth or two and they never batted an eyelid at being given a 50€ note. Along the way Deb, who is an Ancient History buff was telling us tales of Ancient Greece, now when I say buff this is a woman who as a teenager had a major crush on Pericles, I mean really.. what teenage girl didn't have a crush on Pericles!! LOL. As we approached the exit for Thermopylae she told us the story of the battle of Thermopylae... I of course had never heard of it and found it a fascinating tale but Gwendoline knew all about it.. like mother like daughter?? no well actually GJ, like most of the younger generation apparently learns her history through movies, 300 The Battle of Thermopylae to be precise, starring Gerard Butler .. at least it wasn't from the Simpsons which is where my son Jack seems to learn quite a few facts!! One thing we did notice not only on this leg of our road trip is that there are wind farms and solar panel farms all over the country, a really good indication that Greece is harnessing ecopower. A minor hiccup finding a petrol station close to the airport as the exit is marked Cargo, Airport Services but it's pretty easy to go around and get back there.. except for the roundabouts, now they are some confusing intersections. Speaking of roundabouts I never did quite work out what the road rules are on those, do you give way to the left? and if you're on the roundabout do you have right of way? We found people already on the roundabout would stop for us to enter ahead of them... very confusing!! Back to the petrol briefly... we had stopped at 2 other petrol stations on our way in, the first one had just had a big petrol spill so they waved us away, no problem we've got a drop or two left in the tank surely there'll be another not too far on... so another 10 minutes and yes, there's another one... but no they were all blocked off too as they had the big petrol tanker there... are you kidding me??? We were scraping the bottom of the petrol tank I think by the time we finally filled up!! Dropped the car off without any problems total cost for our car hire was €383 + €80 for the GPS, we had a Hyundai Accent which on reflection was probably the wrong choice, yeah sure it got us there but there were many times on the trip that we could have used a good bit of acceleration and some of the mountains we climbed may have been easier if we'd had some more oomph.... I had read on TripAdvisor before I booked it that it is wisest to have something more than a 1.4lt engine but somehow had ignored that advice when booking... oh well we managed ok with what we had.... total petrol for the trip was €314 total kms was about 2000. We jumped in a taxi to get to our hotel, The Hotel Attalos in Athinas Street a couple of blocks from Monastiraki. Am I ever glad I wasn't still driving, now that is some crazy traffic, so many times I was sure we were going to lose a side mirror or collect a bike rider but somehow our driver managed to deliver us safely and unscathed to the Hotel. There is a flat rate for taxis from the airport into town, different areas are slightly different prices but to the centre of Athens it's €35, we had thought originally about getting the bus as the cheaper option but really 35 divided by 3 people is still pretty cheap. We checked into the hotel around 2.30-3 pm and still had some daylight hours so wandered into the Monastriaki square to find somewhere for a late lunch. It's always fun finding somewhere to eat with all the hawkers out the front enticing you in, here was the first time we'd come across them carrying ipads with their menus on.. ahh well it is the city! There was some very nice young charming men out the front of a few places so we had to tell them we'd be back to see them at some time during our stay and chose one to eat in, it was so funny watching the different hawkers interacting, calling out to each other and us as we sat down at "the opposition", all in fun and good humour. The meal was beautiful, well really apart from the feta incident we haven't had a bad meal in Greece, we got a gift of some shots.. not sure what they were but Deb ended up with all of them cos I didn't really like the taste and GJ doesn't really drink. This was probably our most expensive meal so far I think Athens is going to prove somewhat more expensive than the rest of the trip. After lunch we wandered around some of the shops in the Flea Market, oh my goodness I could spend forever in these places, so many of them are my kind of shop... hippy clothes and lots of silver jewelery. Deb and Gwendols bought me the most gorgeous earrings for by birthday from a jeweler named George.. he gave us a great price because he said I reminded him of an Australian woman he met 30 years ago.. was it perhaps me? or my mother he asked? I said yes it may have been my mother, she would have been here around about then!! Of course we couldn't leave the shop without George giving us all a cuddle and European kisses!! Ah it's all good fun. Then I went on to buy myself some boots as with London coming up I'm sure I'll be needing them.. I found a pair I loved for €45, Deb looked at a leather bag but she's such a sensible shopper she decided to sleep on it, I'm sure GJ bought some things too but I've lost track of all her purchases!! Time to go back to the motel for a rest, well GJ stayed in the room but after a quick email check Deb and I headed up to the rooftop bar for a pre-dinner cocktail.. or two... and to soak up the amazing view of the Acropolis with the Parthenon all lit up, what an amazing sight! After this we headed out for dinner, Gwendols decided not to come, I think her wisdom teeth are giving her lots of pain. We headed back to the street we had lunch as we had decided to go to the second place we'd walked past earlier and as we walked up to the charming young spruiker he raised his hands and said "Ladies, finally you come back"... smooth talker!! We sat outside and had a divine meal topped off by a fantastic band playing wonderful greek music, as our gift we were given some yummy shots of (we think) muscato.. when we asked the waiter what it was he replied "the elixir of love" ... ok it's the elixir of love but what's it called?.. " you don't need to know what it's called, you just need to know that once you drink it you will fall madly in love with the waiter that gave it to you"!!! Really?? I wonder if that line works? But needless to say Deb and I were both blushing and probably even giggling like school girls!! Another amazing day over, tomorrow we get to discover all the delights that Athens has to offer us.