Hi!! And welcome back to Teen Scene in Enid Monthly. This past June, my dad and I took a vacation to GREECE!! So for July, I will tell you about our journeys each day and let you know a little about Athens’ history. Let’s go!!
To start off on our first full day we traveled all around the mythological areas of Athens. We visited the Parthenon (a temple dedicated to the Greek’s beloved Athena, goddess of war, wisdom, and handicraft), the Acropolis (a huge building used for a fortress and military base that later became a religious center also for Athena), the Theatre of Dionysus (god of drama and wine), which could seat up to 17,000 people, the Temple of Zeus, which we learned that there are only 15 out of 104 standing columns left, and many more incredible buildings. My dad and I were both very surprised by how many of the buildings in Athens were dedicated to Athena. The hotel that we stayed at was very nice but the rooftop view was one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen. You could see the whole city of Athens, the sea and a few of the buildings we had seen.
The next day we took a 4 ½ hour train ride to the city of Meteora. We went to the original Monasteries of Meteora and even got to go inside 2 active ones and learn about monks’ and nuns’ ways of life. I even got dress coded by a nun!! Our tour bus stopped at a few places to take pictures of the village and take in the views from the mountains. On the third day, we went on an island tour where we took a boat to 2 different Greek islands. We got to explore the towns, eat local foods, and even got to try locally grown pistachios which led to the tasting of pistachio ice cream, butter, and chocolate crisps!! This was our last day in Athens before we flew out to Santorini so when we got back we enjoyed some delicious food and relaxed on the rooftop of our hotel.
On the fifth day, we flew to Santorini which is an Island southeast of Athens. When we arrived at our hotel me and my dad were just in awe about how beautiful the island was. We again got very lucky with an amazing view. Our day consisted of traveling around the island, seeing the ancient city of Akrotiri, visiting a winery and wine museum, and spending our evening in the beautiful village of Oia. Akrotiri just blew my mind seeing how people lived thousands of years ago. Did you know they had working plumbing in the 16th century BC?! We got to see thousands of years old pottery, houses, trees, and public buildings. When we were driving from the airport through Santorini, I was a little surprised at how it looked. I was expecting what I saw on Google with hundreds of white buildings from the top of the mountains all the way to the beaches of the Aegean Sea but as we arrived in Oia I realized that it is what we think of when you hear Santorini. It was out of this world. We were hoping to see what Santorini is famous for, those beautiful sunsets, but the clouds ruined it for us. The next afternoon we flew back to Athens for our last night in Greece.
To end I would like to share that the people in Greece were the nicest people I have ever met, not one person was mean. Also, the food was very different from America but it was an experience trying the local meals. Almost every night in Athens we walked streets lined with different restaurants and got to taste many different foods. There are also lots of stray cats that come visit you while eating and they are all so sweet and taken care of. I even met one very special cat on our last night in Greece, that stays at the hotel we stayed at, and her name was Sofia!! I 100% recommend Greece for parents to take their teens.
Thank you so much for reading this month’s article! I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for upcoming articles email me at tweensceneenid@gmail.com I would also love to hear from you about your vacations this summer so email me or that too!! I hope you all have an amazing July and a great 4th of July. Bye for now!!
