Lycabettus Hill Funicular and more museums

Hello there! Stay and read my Athens, Greece travel diary. This is day 5.

Day 1 can be found here
Day 2 can be found here
Day 3 can be found here
Day 4 can be found here
Day 6 can be found here

My daughter and I took a two week trip, and in the first week we travelled through Romania, then we took a flight from Bucharest to Athens for the second week. We travelled in July, and needless to say, it was quite a hot experience! But so worth it.

I hope you enjoy reading about the trip as much as I enjoyed visiting!

Today it is meant to be slightly cooler, so we decide to get up early and make the most of it. We stop by a bakery for breakfast and get a cheese and ham pastry and juice. After we’ve finished eating, I call an Uber and we head over to the highest point in Athens.

The Uber drops us off at the entrance to the Lycabettus Hill Funicular. We pay the (overpriced) 12€ each for the return trip. I expected the trip to go for as long as the cable car did in Braşov, but it was a super short ride. I wouldn’t want to walk from the bottom of the hill, but a taxi will take you almost to the top, just saying.

We climb the remaining stairs to the viewing area. I am surprised that the area is quite small, considering it would probably be quite a busy attraction. There is a small church here (closed) as well as a bell tower. Some souvenir stalls open up as well. There are some cafes, but they are not up on the top viewing deck.

We take some photos and hang out with a couple of cats. The view of the Parthenon is pretty good from up here! But honestly, there’s not much to do. So we head to one of the cafes and grab a cool drink. We get completely inundated by a big group and wow, do they talk loudly! We can’t hear ourselves think, so we decide it’s time for us to go.

There is a 25 minute wait for the funicular ride. I can’t be bothered standing in a queue for 25 minutes so I suggest to Amy that we should walk down.

She reluctantly agrees and off we go. The way down isn’t so bad, well, not compared to the poor people walking up.

Once we’re at the very bottom, we keep walking to the next attraction of the day, the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology.

Now, this was a suggestion from our guide the other day, and usually guides suggest good stuff. We pay the entrance fee and in we go.

The museum has lots of information about all the things the Greek people did first, such as messaging, pulley systems, designing augers, etc etc. The museum also has a few hands on exhibits. Amy and I play a few rounds of Ancient Greek naughts and crosses.

The museum has three galleries. The first one is about the general technology, the second one is on warfare, and the third is about musical instruments. After the second gallery, I noted to Amy that everything here was a recreation. There were no ancient artefacts at all. Not even the musical instruments. So, I was overall quite disappointed.

The only thing I wasn’t disappointed in was one of the experiments was absolutely ear piercing and annoying. The whole premise was for a plunger type water thing to make a ‘brilliant chirping sound’. We had to cover our ears as it was so horrible.

And the other thing we saw was a horrible contraption that tried to pass itself off as a speculum. No one is fooling me. That’s a torture device.

Once we’d looking through the three galleries, it was time to go to our next attraction, the Benaki Museum. I only wanted to come here as the guide the other day told us some ancient children’s toys were held in the Benaki Museum. Little did I know that there are several across the city and the thing I wanted to see wasn’t here.

Anyway, we still go in because we don’t know that yet. However, I must say, I quite liked this museum. Sure, it had a bit of stuff that we saw yesterday at the National Archaeology Museum, but this one felt different. It also had more of the type of items I like, weird looking stuff. I find it way more eye catching and interesting.

This museum has a couple of levels and different galleries. It has done amazing rooms set up, which I’m assuming is in relation to when the Ottoman Empire controlled Greece. There are galleries with traditional dress. And there is a gallery dedicated to more recent wars (1800’s onwards).

Once we’d finished looking through the museum, we continued our walk over to the Archaeological Site of the Lyceum of Aristotle. There is not much to see here, it’s basically just building foundations now. But this location was the first gymnasium in Athens. Athletes would train here for wrestling and boxing etc. These gymnasiums evolved to become schools.

Now, you might ask yourself why athletes developed so much here in Greece. The answer, as I found out from my guide the other day, is because Athens was the most heavily fought over city. So the population needed to be strong and able to defend their city.

As there’s not much to see here, we didn’t stay long. We kept walking in the general direction of our accommodation, but firstly it was way past lunch time, so we decided to stop for lunch.

I ordered a cheese gyros and baked potato, while Amy orders a chicken gyros plate. The cheese isn’t halloumi, but it is similar and it is absolutely delicious. The potato has sour cream mixed with dill and it is so good. I’m very full eating all that!

We start walking again after lunch to a tiny little church that reminds me of the little engine that could. The Holy Church of Hagia Dynamis is a church that refused to give their land up to make way for development. So, a hotel was just built over the top of it. The church sits right under the awning. It’s a bit cute.

We then point our feet in the direction of home and keep going. By the time we get back it is 4pm and we left just after 9am. So, we are a little tired and my feet are sore.

We rest for a bit. Yes, we nap.

After a while we play a few rounds of uno before discussing what we would like for dinner. Because we had such a late lunch, we thought going out for just dessert would be nice. So we reluctantly put our shoes back on and head out.

We were looking at the dessert menus of the restaurants, but nothing was taking our fancy. Until we came across a restaurant that only did crepes, pancakes and waffles. This was perfect! So, we ordered our dessert of waffles. It was really yummy, but very rich. We couldn’t eat it all.

We then decided to just walk around for a bit more and soak up the atmosphere of Athens as it’s our last night here. Sad face.

And if you would like to see how this day looked, head over to my YouTube video

Check back soon for the video!

More journal entries from this trip

Greece Travel Journal / Day 1
Greece Travel Journal / Day 2
Greece Travel Journal / Day 3
Greece Travel Journal / Day 4
Greece Travel Journal / Day 6

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