Athens: My Journey Through Ancient Greece

We docked in Piraeus at dawn and the Acropolis was already lit up like a crown above the city haze. The metro ride into Athens took exactly 19 minutes and dropped us at the foot of the Acropolis hill just as the gates opened. We beat most of the crowds and walked the Panathenaic Way alone for twenty glorious minutes, marble warm under our hands, cicadas screaming, the Parthenon suddenly right there, scarred but standing proud. I actually got goosebumps when the first rays of sun hit the columns and turned them honey-gold.

We wandered down through the Ancient Agora, bought sour cherry juice from a street cart, then spent the afternoon in Plaka getting happily lost in bougainvillea tunnels and tiny churches. Lunch was at Scholarhio in Psyrri — octopus slow-cooked until it tasted like the sea concentrated, washed down with cold Mythos while the waiter argued passionately about football. The heat was brutal by 2 p.m., but the narrow shaded alleys and occasional breeze off the Saronic Gulf saved us.

The pros: you are literally walking through the birthplace of democracy, philosophy, and theater — nowhere else on Earth does that. The cons: summer crowds are intense and the city is chaotic, but the chaos is part of the soul.