Introduction
Flight and Athens
The Acropolis
Athens Protest 2011 and Mount Lycabettus
Acropolis Museum
Trip to Gythio, Mystras, and Ouzo
Monemvasia – a fortress you can live in
Diros Caves near Gythio and Night-Before Dinner/Antics
Back to Athens and homeward bound

July 2011:

When my close friend told me where his wedding was and when, I had booked the award ticket before I flew back to Boston from DC, where he lives. In hindsight, it was a bad use of miles as I had to fly to Greece with BA using AA miles. I had tons of AA miles at the time since I started collecting AA miles with Citibank credit cards for the last 5 years, but never had a chance to use them. I figured that a ticket to Greece in July was probably not going to be cheap, so I used the miles anyway. 60k miles roundtrip and $400 in taxes/fees back in 2010. The flight itself was over 4th of July in 2011. Not too bad.

Before the trip, I borrowed my brothers Nokia N95. Even though it was a few years old, even back then, it had many great apps like maps and a good web browser.

The trip was fairly simple. There was a slight ticketing issue for my first BOS-LHR leg, then overnight to LHR then morning flight to Athens. Spend a few days in Athens and then meet up with other wedding guests and take a bus down to Gythio.

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps?q=gythio&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Gytheio,+Lakonia,+Greece&gl=us&ll=36.760219,22.565537&spn=1.337164,2.592773&t=m&z=9&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

Luckily we both figured out which bus terminal to go to and then got to Gythio without a problem. It looks pretty far on the map but it was about a 4 hour bus ride with a rest stop in between.

The wedding party then organized some day trips to see the surrounding area. As most of the guests were Greek, it was easy for us to get help ordering or buying things as none of the non-Greek guests spoke or understood Greek.

After the wedding, most of us took the first bus back to Athens. The only flight available was a later afternoon flight with an overnight at LHR. I stayed with a distant cousin that lives close to the airport. Then an uneventful coach flight back to BOS.