Need shoes?

Friday 7th July 

A free day in Athens today to recover from a full on 4 days touring on the bus. No need to drag ourselves out of bed and on to the bus.

Our hotel seems to cater to a lot of younger tour groups; TopDeck is one of them. Last night a new large group of 20+ yr olds arrived, and this morning there was another group at breakfast. We headed out late morning with the washing in tow with the plan to get the washing done, have lunch early then back to the hotel for a nap. The laundry was not self serve so we were able to leave it while we chilled over a freddo espresso nearby, then had lunch.

Not quite dog of the day, but almost. 

I really liked these coffee cups.

I'm not sure how to label the area we are staying in. Move 2 streets back from the main street the hotel is on, and I'd maybe label it like old Fitzroy or Collingwood (think back streets). Run down, crowded, not nice to look at, working class. Almost like tenement 4 or 5 storey apartment blocks. The streets are narrow, could do with repair, footpaths with broken paving - but the broken footpath paving is also in the city blocks we have walked.

Tonight we headed in to the city to first of all get sunnies for Rob. After visiting 5 shops (in a 100m stretch) we finally got a pair of clip ons. One place tried to talk us into a pair of sunnies for 190 euro - but wait, you get another free pair with them. I don't think so! In this same 100m stretch plus a bit there were at least a dozen shoe shops. A shoe shoppers paradise. We have labelled this the street of bored husbands. 

We went back to Ella's for dinner and again it was lovely. Still lots of people about in the streets as we finished dinner and headed back to the hotel. This is probably quite normal all the time in busy cities and with the heat here it is much more pleasant to be out and about in the evening. We still noted a lot of american accents to be heard.

Oven baked lamb - we think this is maybe the neck.
Must look at this as a dinner option at home.

Chicken for me.

Tomorrow we head for the boat - a new experience for us.