We knew it would happen eventually. We just didn’t know when, where or how.

We board a flight from Sofia to Athens in and effort to take advantage of every last day we have left on our 90 day visa for the Schengen area. After double checking our math, if we fly to Greece and then leave five days later, we will have exactly reached the 90 day mark. So we go for it.

We walk toward the arrivals area of the airport when we hear someone holler “Stephen!” We turn to look and see a familiar face. It’s Stephen’s friend, Mitch Favrow! He and his wife are traveling to Italy for their honeymoon and just landed in Athens after an overnight flight from Newark. Our first truly random encounter. Unfortunately, Mitch had a connection flight to catch, otherwise we definitely would have crashed his honeymoon.

The train from the airport to the city is much longer than I expect and it takes us over an hour to get the stop where our AirBNB is located. As we planned this stop only a few days before, we only book one night in Athens with the hope that we can hop on a ferry and get to an island in our short time restriction, and then leave the Schengen zone by taking a ferry to Turkey. However, with the ferry routes taking up to a full day or overnight and the ferry to Turkey only running from one port, we’d be traveling nearly the entire time and still may not leave the zone on time.

ASIDE: The internet provides mixed reviews on what happens if you overstay your 90 days in the Schengen zone. Some say certain countries are really lax (Spain, Greece..) and others are extremely strict (France). The penalty ranges from a verbal warning to a full inquisition to a European travel ban. Needless to say, we didn’t want to risk it – especially since our friend Louis is getting married in France next August and we hope to make it.

Okay, back to our story. Our apartment is located near a pedestrian street called Drakou in the Athens neighborhood of Koukaki.

After we meet our host and drop off our bags, we leave in search for dinner. Most of the restaurants are open air and filled with people laughing and enjoying long, late-night meals. We choose a place called Riza Riza (in Greek, Ρίζα Ρίζα) and have to wait for a table. It’s a cozy place with bookshelves, trendy industrial details, and live plants lined up on wooden floating shelves. We’re seated inside and I observe a few things:

1. Everyone has plates of giant, sauce covered pancakes in front of them
2. There are no-smoking signs posted everywhere
3. Everyone is smoking

We haven’t eaten since the airport lounge food we had in Sofia so we order full meals, but decide to come back for breakfast the next morning to try those pancakes.

The next morning is one for the books, because this is the day that we officially taste the best pancakes of our lives. Perfectly fresh, ripe strawberries, crunchy chocolate cookie pieces and thick, white chocolate hazelnut praline top the perfectly soft, fluffy, buttery pancakes. Every single bite is absolute heaven.

After breakfast, we have to move AirBNBs, so we grab our bags and walk the short distance to our new place and make plans for how to spend our next few days in Athens.

Per usual, we start exploring the city with our good friend Rick Steves! We download what will likely be the last tour we do with Rick, as his app is called “Rick Steves Audio Europe.” Rick – what about Rick Steves Asia? We’d be fans. Love you Rick.

We start our tour at Syntagma Square, in the heart of Athens, and then work our way through the ancient, winding streets of the Plaka neighborhood (the oldest in Athens) toward the acropolis.

We walk our way through Athens history, and learn interesting facts like:

• The growth of Athens happened very rapidly during the 20th century, and unfortunately the infrastructure of the city failed to catch up. The city was built to support a population of only 150,000, but today, the metropolitan area houses 40% of Greece’s population, about 4 million people.
• In the 80s and 90s, Athens earned the shameful badge of the Western Europe’s most polluted city. The smog was a huge threat to the city’s ancient monuments. This, in addition to extreme traffic problems, is said to be one of the reasons Athens was not awarded the 1996 Centennial Olympic games (which instead went to Atlanta), even though Athens argued that it was their divine right to host the games.
• After losing the Olympic bid in 96, Athens made some major overhauls in order to host the 2000 Olympic games. They built a ring road to divert traffic out of the city center, constructed a new international airport, deemed several streets through the old neighborhoods as pedestrian only, and implemented a traffic-reducing strategy the included only allowing certain registered cars to drive on certain days.

We finally make our way to the base of the acropolis. For those of you wondering, an acropolis is an Ancient Greek Citadel that is usually built on a hill. The acropolis housed many temples that were used for worship and public ceremonies and celebrations.

Our walking tour took us through a little neighborhood tucked right under the acropolis called Anafiotika.

After we walk all day, we can’t stop thinking about those pancakes. But, we make dinner at our AirBNB and prepare for a long day at the Acropolis Museum and the acropolis temples.

After much anticipation–planning for this museum began in 1976–the Acropolis Museum opened to the public in 2009. For many, many years, there was no where to display the artifacts that have been uncovered from the acropolis and surrounding neighborhoods throughout the years.

Thus, the museum mostly consists of thousands of vases, coins, jewelry, statues, and clay cooking vessels used throughout the centuries. Unfortunately, photos are only allowed on the third level, which is designed to reflect the precise dimensions of the Parthenon – which is the largest temple of the acropolis. The pediments, the metopes and the frieze are all set up in the order they originally surrounded the temple. We notice gaps in some of the displays, and learn that many pieces of the Parthenon have been looted or stolen by early European explorers.

One of the most notable pieces are the Elgin Marbles, or Parthenon Marbles. From 1801 to 1812, British agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the remaining sculptures from the Parthenon. Bruce claims he was given permission from the Ottoman rulers who occupied Greece at the time to remove the sculptures, but the decree granting permission has never been found. Today, they sculptures sit in the British Museum, but many people attest the acquisition of these sculptures to looting and campaign for them to be returned to Athens where they belong. Until then, the museum leaves a space for them with hopes they can join their siblings.

After the museum, we walk up to the grand daddy itself – the acropolis! What remains of the massive structures have been carefully restored, cleaned and rebuilt over the years. Their presence is stunning and the ancient walkways feel sacred, even among the hundreds of other tourists.

We did manage to get in one Greek Island when we took the ferry from Athens to Aegina. It was only a {beautiful} 1 1/2 hour ferry ride, but the difference between the bustling city of Athens and the quaint quiet streets of charming Aegina was like night and day.

While we only had five days in Greece (which is not even close to enough), it was the perfect way to end our 90 days in Europe. After we arrive back to the port in Athens, we go right to bed for our early flight and leave Greece forever.

JUST KIDDING. We went and had pancakes for dinner. Come on, you didn’t think we’d leave without having another, did ya?

Well, that wraps up Greece. Next up, we’ve got what I would consider the most random country on our list…Georgia. Stephen’s all over this one.

And one last thing. We wouldn’t ever consider failing Aristo and skipping the Ouzo. Ope!