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Athens Day 3

Aegina

By Mundane Babble

December 21^st, 2023

We were told by the hotel staff that there was going to be a massive protest in the city centre on our third day in Athens. The roads leading to the hotel would be blocked and the metro would not stop at the stations nearest to our hotel from noon onwards, which is when the protest was scheduled to start. They were not sure if the protest would turn ugly so they advised us to either stay indoors in the hotel or get away from the city centre and return late that night.

We decided that it would be a good day to take a day trip out of Athens to the Greek island called Aegina.

We checked the schedule and there was a ferry leaving to the island almost every hour. We left the hotel as early as we could to avoid the protest. When we arrived at the port area, we checked Google Maps and decided to walk in the direction of the big cruise liner ships we saw. It was quite a distance to walk and then we realised we were walking in the opposite direction!

We arrived at the ticketing booth and the ferry was going to leave in 5 minutes. The lady (shown below) was at the ticketing booth when we purchased our tickets. It took a while because they had to key in our passport details. The moment the tickets were printed, she hurried us along. The ferry was about a 100 metres away from the booth and she ran ahead of us. She informed the Captain (shown below) to hold the ferry for us to board. We finally caught up with her and we made it just in time!

Time and time again, we have been touched by the kindness of the local Greeks. They have helped us and I cannot say this enough, they have been very patient with clueless tourists like us.

The journey on the high speed ferry took about 40 minutes. On arrival at Aegina, we walked towards the town centre. The sun was shining so strongly in our face that it was quite impossible to take a photo of the town area.

Breakfast

We had a full breakfast to start the day.

Temple of Athena Aphaia

We booked a taxi to take us to the two main sights on the island.

The first is the Temple of Athena Aphaia. It was indeed the low season because besides us, there was only another pair of couple at the site.

Paleachora

En-route to our second destination, the taxi driver stopped for us to take a photo of this hill called Paleachora. It used to be the old capital of Aegina from the year 900 to 1826.

Today, it is an abandoned village and there are still 365 churches dotting the hilly site. Most of these churches are crumbling from disrepair.

Holy Church of Saint Nectarios of Aegina

One of the most visited sites on Aegina is the Church of Saint Nectarios and the monastery of The Holy Trinity that is located on a higher level overlooking the church. Saint Nektarios of Aegina (1846-1920), is one of the most widely known Greek Orthodox Saints. He was officially recognized as a saint in 1961. Yearly, thousands of people from all over the world visit Aegina to visit the tomb of Agios Nektarios for healing reasons, to pray to him or ask for his blessings.

Temple of Apollo

The Temple of Apollo sits on a small hill overlooking the port. It was one of the first sights we saw from afar when we arrived at the port. The temple of Apollo is also known as Kolona, meaning column, because just one column out of 17 remains today. It dates from the 6th century BC, even earlier than the Parthenon in Athens.

Lunch

We had a late lunch at a seafood taverna. This small Greek restaurant is located right next to the seafood market. Freshly caught seafood cooked on the spot tasted fantastic. I am sure by now you would have noticed that calamari is our favourite. We had it for practically all our meals.

STREETS OF AEGINA

Church of Agios Nikolaos

The Protest

When we arrived back in the city centre, we had to drop off one metro station away from our hotel because the station nearest to our hotel was shut. We walked on another street which was parallel to the street where the protestors had gathered. We could hear slogan chanting as the protestors marched. We were a little worried that things would get out of hand and result in fights between the police and the protestors. However as we neared our hotel. we managed to get a closer glimpse of the protestors. They seemed quite orderly and peaceful. I managed to snap some photos at a safe distance. Thankfully they marched passed our hotel and we made it back safely.