Returning to a city that you’ve already visited has its advantages: you can revisit some favorite spots, explore some new ones that you missed before, and discover others that you didn’t even know existed. That was the case when our English friends Pete and Gaynor suggested meeting up in Spain, as we had done with them in previous years in Belgium, Switzerland, and the Channel Islands. They had already seen us in Carcassonne soon after we moved here, so we all liked the idea of meeting up elsewhere in Europe for another adventure. Madrid seemed to be the logical choice, since they could fly there non-stop and we could take a direct train from Narbonne.

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Every year my brother and sister-in-law go sailing and always invite us along for the ride. It’s definitely not a rowboat on a pond; these are cruising class yachts with a crew in destinations including the Caribbean, Fiji, and this year Greece. Since they were going to fly into Athens, we all agreed that meeting up for several days in the capital would give us the time to catch up with each other and to explore a new city. With our travel agent hats firmly in place, Bill and I began the planning of how we were going to get to the Hellenic Republic, where we would stay, and what we would see. A future blog post will highlight the journey there while today I wanted to describe our visit and provide some tips to anyone who might want to vacation there as well.

Continue reading “Athens in 4 days”