First Day in Athens: Shopping for Necessities and Visiting the Plaka

We had an excuse to go out, even if we had been traveling for twenty-four hours. In my haste to make sure I had packed all the right clothes and set up my computer to download and organize images from my new Nikon digital camera, I forgot to take my green travel bag with toothpaste, toothbrush, and dental floss. Ron was expecting me to bring toothpaste, so he had none either. You would think it easy to find toiletries in downtown Athens. Wrong. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, stores close at 3:00 p.m., even in the central area, and don't reopen until the next day. Ron and I walked the streets looking for a 7-11, a mom-and-pop grocery store, a Boots, a Walgreen's--nothing. Where, incidentally, do you buy toothpaste in Greece? Not in an expensive pharmacy, which seemed to sell only perfumes, not in a high-end department store selling even more expensive perfumes, not from a street-corner kiosk, although I did find the right Greek word (odontokrema) in my I-pod "Essential Greek" app. Finally I sent Ron home and set out on my own, following the main street running south from the square. I turned down a side street just to get a closer look at an interesting Byzantine church, and lo and behold I was in the Plaka, where everything was open. Found a neighborhood pharmacy that did stock toiletries, found a stand selling hats (another thing I had forgotten to pack) and then wandered around the Plaka, looking at shops I would like to come back and visit. For example, a display of hand-embroidered linens caught my eye.

Back at the hotel, we decided on a restaurant around the corner, Pasaji, which was offering a free glass of Prosecco and a 20% dinner discount on Voyages to Antiquity travel participants. We were the only ones to take advantage of the offer. The waiter was a newbie and, unfortunately, a klutz. The first thing he did was spill a glass of Prosecco all over the table--not on us, thank goodness, but the menus and tablecloth were through for the night. After we were reseated, reassuring him that we had suffered no injury, we ordered two very good fish entrees and a glass each of premium wine in addition to the Prosecco. Total bill was only 47 euros!

We finished the evening on the rooftop bar of the Grande Bretagne hotel, where we watched the setting sun reflected off the Parthenon marble, or what remains of it, and had our pictures taken to prove we were there.