Day 10 - Tuesday, June 20th, 2023 - Athens, Greece - Beach Day

Day 10 - Tuesday, June 20th, 2023 - Athens, Greece - Beach Day

We got to sleep in until 7 on our last day of the trip.  Trek ran & got us some delicious breakfast at a Greek bakery down the road & we had breakfast at our apartment.  The ham & cheese croissants were amazing.  The kids love chocolate croissants!  And the baklava was the best I’ve ever had. 

We met all our friends at the Acropolis train station, then the big group of us got onto the hop on hop off bus that went to the Athen’s beaches.  The kids were itching to go swimming again & I wanted to experience the famous Athen’s beaches everyone talks about.  We were NOT disappointed.  The bus ride was about an hour & we wound up going to a beautiful beach with a full on island in the middle of the water with Ancient Greek ruins on top.  We were able to rent some umbrellas & chairs for $15 & we just relaxed ALL DAY LONG.  It was amazing. 

The kids spent the entire time in the water playing or swimming out to the island to explore the ruins.  Trek was able to get some good drone shots of them climbing the ruins.  Bladen found an actual crab in a shell, so the boys spent a good chunk of the day creating a habitat for their new crab friend. 

Trek & I enjoyed the shade of the umbrella while we visited with our adult friends.  We ordered some fun little hot ham & cheese sandwiches & Trek got a non-alcholholic mojito.  We spent about 5.5 hours at that beach & if you ask my kids, it was the highlight of our trip.  Water, friends, & fun for the win.

Our bus back to the city was about 30 minutes late, but we got on when it came & it was another hour ride back to the city.  One of our friends had to catch a ferry to Crete later that night so we wanted to make sure to give them plenty of time to get back to the city.  After we got off the bus, we wandered in & out of the many shops downtown.  There were so many fun things to look at. 

For dinner we stopped at an adorable outdoor Greek restaurant in the middle of EVERYTHING.  I loved the hustle & bustle of the city.  The restaurant was in a garden area & they had wonderful misters & large fans to cool you off.  The kids LOVED those.  We ordered a wonderful Mediterranean dinner & loved every bit of it.  I had chicken souvlaki & Trek had the Greek lasagne.  Everything we ate was amazing. 

After dinner we walked to Little Kook.  Our friends recommended it when they went to Athen’s the week before & I knew we had to go see it for ourselves.  It’s a famous dessert alleyway. . . As in FULL alleyway.  They have ice cream, crepes, cakes, milkshakes & more.  Every inch of that entire alley is decorated in Alice in Wonderland things.  It’s SO crazy, your eyes don’t even know what to focus on.  There is stuff EVERYWHERE.  I guess they pick a theme each year & decorate the entire alley in that theme, then they change the decorations after summer for Halloween & then again for Christmas . . . Then they start a new theme in January for the next year.  Alice in Wonderland was 2023’s theme & it was INCREDIBLE.  We were in awe of every little decoration in every nook & cranny. 

We all ordered really fun desserts & had a blast.  I had the King Louie Coco milkshake & it came with a DONUT ON TOP!!!  It was SO good.  Coconut & chocolate ice cream & then a chocolate donut, whipped cream, & a cookie on top.  The desserts were completely over the top like the restaurant itself.  It was so fun.  What an experience.  I’m glad we went.

After that, one of the families left for their ferry, while the rest of us walked to Haphaestus’ temple to look around.  It was closed, but we could see it through the gates.  There was a little marketplace set up just outside & we were able to buy a few Greek laurel headbands for my costume collection.  We said goodbye to our friends & rode the subway back to our apartment for bed.

The next morning we woke up at 2:30am & had a driver pick us up outside the apartment who drove us straight to the Athens airport.  Our final European vacation was finally over & it was our best yet.  I’m SO grateful we were able to go on this cruise/vacation.  We will never forget the fun we had there together as a family.