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When in Rome, do what the Athenians do (ie not very much)

The world’s greatest holiday destinations are all well and good, but who really wants to go there, asks Phil Brown

Sep 30, 2024, updated Sep 30, 2024
Five days in Athens sounds just like the kind of holiday your correspondent might enjoy. (Image: Supplied)

Five days in Athens sounds just like the kind of holiday your correspondent might enjoy. (Image: Supplied)

We are planning an overseas holiday again next year and I have already started organising it. This is strange since I prefer to spend my life within a ten-kilometre radius of home.

But the fact is I like to be in exotic or interesting places too. So, we are starting our trip in Athens for five nights and I’ve already had lots of helpful suggestions: such as “You must visit the Peloponnese” or “Santorini is wonderful” or “Corfu is lovely that time of year.”

“No,” I said. “We are going to Athens. And staying there.”

We may take a day trip to Hydra, the island where Leonard Cohen lived, as did Australian writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift. But that would be it as far as excursions go and I can assure you that if the sea is too rough that day, I won’t be setting foot on the ferry.

What’s wrong with just lounging around Athens? We will check out the Acropolis, drink a lot of coffee, eat some souvlaki and watch Netflix in our room in the afternoons.

It’s a holiday, not an Outward-Bound expedition.

I don’t know why people insist on doing so much on their holidays. Some people’s itineraries are so chock full that by the time they get home they are shattered.

This is why I never go on organized trips. Famils, they call them in the journalistic trade and on such trips, you are at the mercy of people who bang on your door at 6am to get you downstairs in the lobby for a full day out.

I have been on two famils in my life and on the first I locked myself in my room and feigned a migraine.

The second one was on a train and that was good because I could just stay in my cabin. There was an excursion on the first day of that trip and I asked how long it would take.

“Only seven hours,” was the answer. I lost the will to live thinking about a seven-hour tour of Newcastle and surrounds. Luckily, I’d had Covid just before the trip so this time I feigned Covid exhaustion and stayed on the train all day reading and drinking coffee while other people went on four-wheel drive adventures and walking tours of Newcastle in 30-degree heat.

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So, the trip I’m planning doesn’t include too much exertion and may involve spending a lot of time in hotels and malls. Of course, we will go to some museums and visit other attractions but it’s more about just being there for me.

I like the idea of being in Athens since I’ve never been. I have been to London a few times and feel a certain kinship with it since my father was born there.

Still, we will just mooch around happily in the knowledge that we are in London. And then we will move on to Paris and by the time we get there I will probably be exhausted so don’t expect me to do much there beyond shopping at Shakespeare and Company bookstore and Galeries Lafayette, my favourite department store.

But even now, writing this, I’m looking forward to getting home.

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