Sunday 15th – Monday 16th March, 2026 – Home to Athens

So, Athens, finally – a trip we had intended to take in 2020 (and we all know how that panned out) has been completed and was generally fabulous. Back sometime in 2025 British Airways were doing one of their periodic sales of “holidays” which means combined flight and hotel offers. We had a look, thought about it briefly, then booked for March, assuming that would mean fewer fellow tourists and weather conditions that would be ideal for a lot of walking about.

The initial flight booking was quite early on the Monday morning, so I blew some of my IHG points on a night at the Crowne Plaza at Heathrow’s Terminal 4, not the terminal we would be leaving from, but close enough to mean we could catch the shuttle bus between terminals, or, of we were feeling a little more energetic, use the Heathrow Express to connect to T5 via T1-3. BA then changed the flight time, and moved it back to 10:10. I debated cancelling the hotel room, but decided not to – it would have meant getting up around 5am to get to the airport in time without getting tangled up in Monday morning traffic, not something I was keen on. Our friend R lives near to T4 so we arranged to meet up for dinner the night before somewhere local to him, thus saving us from hotel food prices. I also figured out that booking a taxi to and from the airport would work out about the same as parking at Heathrow and booking a second hotel for the night we got back (we were due in at 21:50 on the Friday) instead of trying to stay awake on the drive home.

Plans in place, we were picked up at home om Sunday afternoon, and 70 minutes later the driver dropped us at the hotel. We reorganised ourselves, grabbed a taxi to Bedfont, and were soon settled in the rather wonderful O Calhau, which calls itself “Mediterranean” but is probably best described as extremely Portuguese/Brazilian. The certainly do a might fine caipirinha! R arrived just as we’d settled in to enjoy our cocktails, and was immediately tempted into one as well. It then became a case of trying to decide what appealed most from a menu containing many things that I really, really liked!

There were pasteis de bacalhau, there was whitebait, there was chorizo in red wine, there were all sorts of goodies and that was just the starters. We ended up going fishy with me almost inevitably choosing the pasteis, and the other two going for the whitebait. For mains I was delighted when R agreed to join me in the arroz mariscos which requires 30 minutes waiting time, and Lynne went for the lamb with some chips. Sounds rather dull but turned out to be a hanging skewer with the most deliciously tender lamb chunks, soft and perfectly cooked. The chips were gloriously crispy too, but it was all more than enough for us. R ended up going home with some substantial chunks of lamb, and two full plastic tubs of leftover seafood rice! Afterwards, I had a coconut flavoured caramel pudding, and R tackled a massive affogato.

We managed to get the H25 bus back to the airport, and then walked from T4 to the hotel, collapsing for a good night’s sleep ahead of our flight.

Monday dawned and we checked out, then caught the H5 shuttle to T5, the driver insisting on loading our cases for us and then also unloading them. We’d checked in online so only needed to drop our bags off, and then get through security. The offer of fast track security for £24 struck me as worth it so we were very quickly airside and settled in the lounge. I have the say that the Premium Plaza lounge is looking very shabby these days, and the food offering isn’t especially appetising either – for £24 a visit (using a Priority Pass card – it’s £48 otherwise) it needs sorting out and soon. We managed to cobble some sort of breakfast together but it’s a long way from airport lounges being especially welcoming and a haven of sanity in a tense environment. The flight itself was fine (again, I’d splashed out on two emergency exit seats so had plenty of legroom) though the seats in row 27 meant no view out of the window at all. We read and did puzzles and drank prosecco to pass the time, and before we knew it we were on the ground in Athens. Passport control was slowed by the need to supply fingerprints and be photographed but was still reasonably quick, as we seemed to be the only incoming flight at that stage of the day. Anyway, it’s done now and is apparently good for three years, so that’s one bureaucratic hurdle cleared, although our passports were still stamped as well.

Through a Facebook group (Athens Tips (transfers & tours, accommodation, sights, food and more) – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1087981382528059/user/661405444) I’d arranged a driver to meet us and take us to the hotel. The costs was 5 more than the official taxi fare and meant we didn’t need to go looking for the taxi rank. If you’re headed to Athens and you want to do this, the Dimitris Nikolopoulos is your man. He even managed to cope brilliantly when I realised the day before that I’d booked the transfers for April and not March! Dimitrios was completely unphased by my incompetence, and had it all sorted inside half a hour. And so, Apostolis picked us up at the airport, drove us in comfort to our hotel, and gave us a raft of useful information during the course of the journey.

On arrival at the Hotel Intercontinental Athenaum we were sent to the 10th floor to check in because we’d booked a Club Intercontinental-level room. The lovely Elina soon had us checked in after offering us the last Acropolis-view room they had left. It carried a 74 Euro supplement per night but was well worth it. We ended up leaving the curtains open all night so we could see the view whenever we woke up. It was glorious. As was the ability to have breakfast up on the 10th floor every day, afternoon tea if we were around, and aperitifs and canapes every evening. We seemed to have fallen on our feet once again. The receptionist also called that evening’s restaurant to ask if we could move our booking back from 20:00 to 21:00 given we’d only arrived at 18:00 and really wanted to shower. The restaurants I had chosen based on what Michelin had to say about them, and I’d then booked the closest one first. In theory it was a 10 minute walk from the hotel although that really doesn’t take into account the amount of time you need to spend trying to cross the main roads that sweep into the city centre. There’s almost certainly an easy way through somewhere – but we never found it in the five days we were there. Instead we had to use numerous crossings and trust that the moped riders in particular would actually stop if the lights were against them.

A bath, a glass of fizz and a couple of canapes later, and we were on our way to Gallina.

It was a Monday night, fairly cold, and I’d been told that the Greeks really don’t go out to eat before around 9pm. Taking all that into account it was incredibly busy when we got there. We were offered bar stools, but as Lynne is short this isn’t really an option. So we sat outside, where we were kept warm by some very powerful gas heaters, and ate our way through some fabulous food. We started with cocktails though – it would have been rude not to!

Having done some research, I knew in advance that for Greeks dining out, you usually get plate for all the table to share, rather than individual dishes. This suited us both down to the ground, so we chose a couple of items initially and decided to see how we got on before ordering another set of dished.

A beautifully delicate veal sweetbread skewer, with a honey mustard glaze, mustard seed pickles, and caper mayonnaise took the initial edge off. It was so soft but with a lovely crustiness to the outside.

We paired it with the liver parfait on brioche, with onion marmalade, and cru de cacao, which was rich and dense and coated your teeth delightfully, and looked a lot more like a cake than a savoury item.

Next up, on the grounds that meat alone does not a balanced diet make, we sought out some fish with two luscious charcoaled langoustines, with a citrus bisque and some equally charred cabbage.

We also snagged a tuna carpaccio with green apple, cucumber and chilli. It was crisp and fresh and delicious.

However, none of it was a patch on the final savoury dish that we shared, which was lamb brains, with trahanas, lamb jus, beetroot and saffron. Greek trahanas is made of cracked wheat or a couscous-like paste and fermented milk but stands in for pasta and has a similar texture though with a slight acidic kick and I’d not encountered it before, but would be happy to encounter it again! I could have kept on eating it all night, but I was now running out of capacity. We’d also added a bowl of fresh potato chips to the table – they were terrific but we couldn’t finish them.

All of this was accompanied by the sommelier’s recommendation – we’d told him we wanted a red Greek wine that would go with everything we’d ordered. This was a 2020 Apoi, from Jason Ligas-Vol, a mix of Xinomavro, Krassato and Stavroto that was very good. It was probably as well we’d taken a recommendation, because the wine list was far too varied and interesting (and more than a bit avant garde) to make decision making easy or quick.

Afterwards, happy, we walked back to the hotel and discovered just how close the nearest tram stop (Kasomouli) was to the front door. That would be of use the following morning when we needed to meet our guide for a food tour of Kerameikos by 10:30.