A Delayed Honeymoon: Part 11 – Athens, Greece & Business Class Home

Note: This post was apparently never finished nor published, and is thus being finished over four years after the completion of the trip. Some details, ahem, are a bit foggy.

We landed in Athens for our final two days and one night of the trip. We opted to stay at the Intercontinental hotel, given we had our annual free night certificate that comes along the the Chase IHG Card (at the time it was a $49 annual fee, making it a $49 room rate). The hotel was large, and nice, though the room rather simplistic. One nice touch was a check-in amenity of greek olive oil:

Intercontinental Hotel Welcome Amenity – Athens, Greece

Intercontinental Hotel – Athens, Greece

Intercontinental Hotel – Athens, Greece

Intercontinental Hotel – Athens, Greece

Intercontinental Hotel – Athens, Greece

Intercontinental Hotel Standard Room – Athens, Greece

Intercontinental Hotel Standard Room – Athens, Greece

Intercontinental Hotel Standard Room – Athens, Greece

Intercontinental Hotel Standard Room – Athens, Greece

Intercontinental Hotel Standard Room – Athens, Greece

We spent our time exploring the many ruins in Athens:

Sanctuary of Asclepius – Athens, Greece

Arch of Hadrian – Athens, Greece

Acropolis – Athens, Greece

Temple of Hephaestus – Athens, Greece

Acropolis – Athens, Greece

Acropolis – Athens, Greece

Parthenon – Athens, Greece

Parthenon – Athens, Greece

Temple of Olympian Zeus – Athens, Greece

Acropolis – Athens, Greece

Acropolis – Athens, Greece

Odeon of Herodes Atticus – Athens, Greece

Acropolis – Athens, Greece

We walked the entire day, taking in the sites. While the ruins and history were amazing, the sheer density of people was overwhelming. It didn’t help that much of the city was seemingly unkempt, with trash and graffiti everywhere. When on top of the hilltops, while the view was stunning, all you could see were rolling hills with houses piled up one on top of the other:

Rolling Hills of Athens, Greece

One highlight was exploring the Panathenaic Stadium, made of marble:

Panathenaic Stadium – Athens, Greece

Panathenaic Stadium – Athens, Greece

Running the Stairs at Panathenaic Stadium – Athens, Greece

Running a Lap at Panathenaic Stadium – Athens, Greece

We were dead tired by time we got back to the hotel. We opted for a nice restaurant which was about a five minute walk from the hotel, called it a night, knowing that the morning was going to take us back to reality.

The next morning, we arose very early. We had changed our flights when availability for a more direct routing opened up just the day before. Our original itinerary had us departing Athens at 6:10am, flying Lufthansa Business Class to Munich, followed by Lufthansa Business Class to Amsterdam, then United Business Class to Washington Dulles, landing at 3pm. The new routing gave us a wonderful 20 minutes of additional rest, flying out of Athens at 6:30am to Zurich on Swiss Air Business Class, then straight to Washington Dulles on United in Business Class landing at 3:25pm. The change not only gave us 20 minutes of more sleep and one less stop, it also allowed for a relaxing layover rather than non-stop running from one plane to the next.

I was excited to try out Swiss Air’s Business Class product as I had heard good reviews of it. Sadly, the experience did not live up to the hype. In addition to having regular economy seats (business class meant they placed a tray over the middle seat so no one was sitting next to you, they played cartoons on old-school drop-down TVs and had mediocre food:

Swiss Air – Business Class, Athens, Greece to Zurich, Switzerland

Swiss Air – Business Class, Athens, Greece to Zurich, Switzerland

The one nice touch was providing some Swiss chocolate:

Swiss Air – Business Class, Athens, Greece to Zurich, Switzerland

Once we arrived in Zurich, we headed to the Lufthansa Business Class Lounge. It was a nice lounge, very large, and despite the early hour, had multiple fully-stocked bars: