26-Day Western Europe Backpacking Trip PART 4: Nice, Spain & Greece

Welcome back to the grand Dana & Alicia Adventure backpacking across Western Europe in May 2005!

We are nearing the end of our whirlwind tour, and so far on this trip we have had warm beds to sleep in each night (if not in the nicest accommodations ever) and basic facilities. We have come to the point of our trip where time and money are running out, and we don’t always have the means for such essentials. And this is what our lives have come to. 

Day 20: Nice, France

We spent the day on the “pebbly” beach in Nice, France. We bought sandwiches for a picnic dinner and carried everything we thought we would need for the day.

We woke up this morning in Nice, France expecting to spend a nice day on the beach. When we arrived we realized the train station was missing the 3 essentials: bathrooms, lockers, and McDonalds. We went to a little cafe right outside the train station and enjoyed a traditional French breakfast. Here we used the bathroom to brush our teeth, wash our faces, and change into our bathing suits. With no lockers to store our bags in the train station, we headed next to the tourism office to see if we could leave our bags. They gave us the names of two random hotels that would accept them. We dropped them off at one and headed out to the beach. 

On our trip so far, we had heard from other tourists who had been that Nice had a pebbly beach. Well, that was an understatement! It was more like big stones. This made it very hard to lay out on a towel, but it wasn’t bad once you got yourself situated. The weather was perfect. The water was chilly, but of course we had to take a dip in the Mediterranean anyway! We learned quickly as the day wore on that the beach we were at was a topless beach…but we chose to keep our tops on. 

At about 2:30 it started to get cloudy and a little rainy, so we packed up our stuff and went across the street for lunch. When things cleared we headed back out. We found our comfy positions and took a little nap. When we woke up again it was about 5:30. We ate the food we had purchased earlier that day for a beach picnic for dinner, used the restroom (AKA the ocean) and went to take a shower…at the outside public showers at the beach. Unfortunately we soon learned that using soap in the showers at the beach was forbidden (which now seems pretty obvious, but then we were young and dumb), so our showers were cut short when we got yelled at by some other beachgoers. We rinsed off quickly, picked up our bags, and made our way back to the train station to await our next overnight train to Barcelona. We don’t have another room to stay in until our arrival in Greece. 

Day 21: Barcelona, Spain

We arrived in Barcelona at 10 am. Since we didn’t have a place to stay that night, we used the bathrooms in the train station to change our clothes and brush our teeth. We haven’t showered in 3 days at this point! We stowed our bags in a locker and headed out for our day. 

We loved the street performers on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain

First stop was Las Ramblas, a famous pedestrian street lined with shops, florists, street artists & performers, and cafes. Our favorite were the living statues. These were people who dressed up in elaborate costumes and make up and would stand still like a statue. When someone gives them a tip, they come to life and do a little skit and allow you to take pictures with them. We took a picture with an angel and a devil playing chess. We also really enjoyed the pet stalls which sold song birds and other small animals which were all so cute (of course I wanted to buy one, if only I could have figured out a way to sneak it through customs). Note from Dana: My current self questions the care of the animals on Las Ramblas, and a little research informed me that most vendors were shut down due to complaints about animal cruelty.

Next we visited the Gothic Quarter (or at least we tried to), but of course we got lost and ended up at a coffee shop for a break since we were both so exhausted. Once we refueled we hit some cultural sites starting with the Picasso museum and then heading to the Sagrada Familia. We were quite impressed by the Sagrada Familia, which was a gothic-style temple made by artist Antoni Gaudi. We’d seen a lot of churches on this trip so far, but none looked quite like this. What made it even more interesting is that it was still under construction, and it had been for over 100 years (and is still under construction at the time of writing this blog)! 

Since we were more impressed by Gaudi than Picasso (Sorry Picasso, I know you weren’t a fan!), we headed next to Park Guell, also designed by Gaudi. We had to hike up a hill to get to the park at the top, and when we got there we were rewarded with a great view of the city. It was lovely to walk around the park and enjoy both the scenic views and the art features, many of which were mosaic pieces made of small tiles. 

When you haven’t been able to shower in 3 days…you wash your hair in the sink on the train.

After we had our fill at the park, it was time for dinner. We headed back to Las Ramblas to eat a a cute cafe we saw earlier. Next the plan was to visit St. Maria’s Basilica…but we ended up shopping instead. Whoops! Alicia bought a skirt, but I was a good girl and saved my money. We finally made our way to the church, but we were under enthused (sorry St. Maria, we were dumb, uncultured kids), so we just sat on the curb and people watched for a while before making our way back to the train station to catch our overnight train to Madrid.

We boarded our train at 11 pm. Mind you, this is the 3rd overnight train we’ve taken in a row. The couchettes (sleeper cars) on the first two trains had 6 bunks to a cabin-just enough space to feel like you’re laying in a coffin. Tonight’s couchette was luxury-only 4 beds AND a sink in our cabin! That meant we could brush our teeth and (after a short contemplation) wash our hair (remember we haven’t showered in 3 days). Well at least I decided to wash my hair. Alicia stood back laughing and taking pictures. Her loss, I’d say! 

Day 22: Madrid, Spain

The next morning we woke up in Madrid. Our first plan of action was to figure out our plan of action. We decided to save some money and skip booking a hostel again that night (who needs beds and showers anyway?), and instead we planned to sleep in the airport (the next morning we would be flying to Greece). So we headed next to the airport to stow our luggage. That was easy enough. Now off to explore!

Our first official stop in Madrid was El Rasto-a giant open air shopping plaza. We were assuming it would be similar to Las Ramblas, but we were wrong. There were no stalls or stands on the street and most of the shops were closed. We thought maybe there was a holiday or something we didn’t know about it (a quick Google search from my present day self learned that it is only open on Sundays and holidays). 

Solemn Changing of the Guard ceremony in Madrid, Spain

We headed next to the Palace Real. The palace is the official residence of the royal family, but they do not actually live there. We arrived in the middle of an elaborate Changing of the Guards ceremony that we were not aware of or expecting, but we were pleasantly surprised to get to enjoy it. Of course this made us even more convinced it was some type of holiday (spoiler alert-it was not). Since this was the pre-smartphone era, we decided to try and find a tourism center to find out what was going on. We tried to locate two tourist kiosks that were on our paper map, but neither one seemed to exist in reality, so we gave up. Alas! We may never know (another quick Google search in present day determined that the regular Changing of the Guard occurs every Wednesday and Saturday, but a more elaborate ceremony called the Solemn Changing of the Guard takes place on the first Wednesday of the month which is what we witnessed). 

Having not been able to find a tourist office, we started our classic “Dana and Alicia wandering around aimlessly in Europe” thing. We stopped and had a quick lunch, and then stumbled upon a metro which we planned to take to our next destination. While we were waiting for our train to arrive, we noticed lots of people standing around with what looked like bags to a department store. We figured there must be a store nearby. This was a very dangerous observation since I had become increasingly jealous of the skirt Alicia bought in Barcelona. 

We headed back upstairs and right on the corner of the street we were on we saw the store…and a lot more stores that lined that same street. Uh Oh! I was not a good girl saving money this time. We each bought enough items to create an entire outfit. We won’t talk about how much we spent, but we had no regrets!

After shopping we figured we should probably do something cultural. We went back down to the metro and headed to the Prado Museum. The place was huge, but we underwhelmed because we were young and dumb and ready for our afternoon nap.

Parque del Retiro

Since we weren’t checked into a hostel, we decided to head next to the Parque del Retiro where we would rest underneath the pruned trees of the beautiful park. We found a shady spot to lie down and relax. After a while an older man came and sat next to us and started talking. Of course he spoke in Spanish, of which we understood very little. He didn’t seem to mind, he just sat there and kept talking. We didn’t really know what to do! Then all of a sudden he ran his hand down my leg. I freaked out and started to yell “No tocar! No tocar!”. He still didn’t seem to take the hint and move away, so we figured that was our cue to get the hell out of there! As we walked away we saw him go up to some other girl who was laying down in the grass. Super creepy!

We went to the other side of the park where there were more people and stopped to get some ice cream. At this point, we no longer felt like lounging, so we headed to another museum. The Centre de Arte Sofia housed several works from Dali and Picasso, which was more interesting to us. We liked it better than the last museum stop anyway (which my 2005 self called “way boring”). 

Next it was time for dinner and drinks at a Tapas bar and then off to bed-at the airport!. This plan of course didn’t turn out how we expected. We weren’t able to check in early for our flight, therefore we weren’t able to get to any of the lobby areas in which we planned to sleep. Luckily we found an area with some seats where some people seemed to be spending the night, so we camped out there. It wasn’t super comfortable, but not as bad as we thought it would be! We only got a few hours sleep though because we had to wake up at 4:30 to check in for our flight to Greece!

Day 23: Athens, Greece

After a quick layover in Milan, we arrived in Athens, Greece around 2 pm. We quickly found it is much more difficult to get from an airport to where you are going than from a train station. We also still didn’t have a place to stay for the night yet at this point. We decided we wanted to splurge for our room that night after 4 long nights with no place to sleep. We were tired and dirty! Our travel book recommended a few places, so we started to head in that direction. 

We took the metro and then followed the map to get to where we were going. When we got closer we were approached by a tour guide telling us about day trips out of Athens to some of the Greek Isles, which was something we wanted to do. We listened to his pitch, and then he helped us find a place to stay and gave us a more detailed map of the city that included all the tourist attractions. 

Heading out for a night on the town in Greece wearing the outfits we bought while in Spain.

We ended up staying in a hotel that was a little over our budget, but very nice considering our most recent accommodations. There were two twin beds and we had our own bathroom. Hooray for showers! By then it was close to dinner time, so we got dressed in our new outfits we bought in Spain and headed out for a night on the town. 

Unfortunately it was raining, but we didn’t let that stop us. We took our umbrellas and made our way to a Greek restaurant recommended by the travel guide we met earlier. We each had Chicken Slovaki and a Cheese & Spinach pie appetizer to share. Yum! When we were done eating, we walked around the area which had lots of cute little shops. So of course we bought some more souvenirs (we only have 3 days left, time to splurge!).

After some time wandering the shops in the rain we were ready to head back to the hotel…and of course we didn’t remember where it was. We wandered around lost for a bit (we are nothing if not consistent), and then we gave up and asked for help. Everyone was so nice! We were passed around to about 6 people before we found someone who could give us directions to where we were going. We finally made it back to our hotel ready for a good night’s sleep. 

Day 24: Athens, Greece

We slept in a little this morning. Ok we slept in a lot this morning and didn’t get out of bed until 12:30 (we called it recovery sleep)! Unfortunately we missed our free breakfast-Boo! Our first stop was back to the travel agency to book a trip to the Greek Isles. Sure, we have no money and we’ll be going back to the US in debt, but at least we won’t be going back with regrets!

We got lost again (of course). While we were wandering a host from one of the restaurants approached us asking us to come and eat at his restaurant. We told him we were on our way somewhere. Alicia continued to chat with him while I walked across the street to ask for directions. When I got back to Alicia our host friend had given her a business card promising us each a glass of wine on the house if we came back for dinner. We told him we would (even though we had no intentions of doing so), and he allowed us on our way. 

We found the tourist office and booked our tour, and then went to grab a quick lunch. We had to circle around out of our way because we promised the tour guide we wouldn’t eat at McDonalds, and that’s exactly where we were heading (gotta save money somewhere). 

Our first cultural stop for the day was The Acropolis, an ancient citadel located atop a high hill that contains the remains of several ancient buildings. Here we saw the Theater of Dionysos, The Temple of Athena, and the Parthenon. We were quite impressed with all the structures and amazed that they were able to sustain after so many years. We also got a very nice view of the city while atop the hill the site stood on. 

After a quick stop for some cold drinks (it was HOT outside!), we headed back out to find Ancient Agora. Ancient Agora was initially used as a gathering place, and like the Acropolis also holds a lot of ancient structures dating back to the 6th Century BC. 

On the way there we noticed lots of big, shaggy dogs roaming the streets. When we stopped to use the ATM, two of them came up to me and I couldn’t help but pet them. This made Alicia mad. She said I would get dog diseases! When we moved on, one of the dogs followed us around for 10 minutes. Alicia did not like this either. The dog finally wandered off elsewhere, but this was the start of a classic Dana & Alicia struggle we still battle to this day! 

When we finally made it to Ancient Agora, we saw the Temple of Agora, an old graveyard, and some other ruins of the city. We also went to the museum there. Next we headed in the general direction in which we thought was the Temple of Zeus, since this was to be our next stop. And in case you didn’t already guess this, of course we got lost again. 

We really had no idea where we were or where we were going, and somehow ended up wandering down a street lined with cute shops. So obviously we took a shopping detour, and then we took out our map to see if we could figure out where we should go. We ran into two other tourist girls who were also trying to figure out where to go. We shared our map with them, and while we were all huddled together a host came up to us trying to get us to eat at his restaurant. He started to give his business card to the other two girls. I looked at Alicia-it felt like we’d been here before! When the host handed us his card, she compared it to the business card she had received earlier. Sure enough, it was this same! 

The host introduced himself as Constantine. We took this as a sign, and decided to eat at that restaurant for dinner. Plus, at least we knew where we were now! For an appetizer we had a tomato and cucumber salad. I dropped one of my cucumbers on the floor, and instead of picking it up like a normal adult, Alicia and I laughed at all the people who walked by and slipped on it. Eventually Constantine picked it up, and that was the end of our 14-year old fun.

After our meals and our free glass of wine, Constantine also brought us desserts on the house! We tried to give him a tip when we left, but he wouldn’t accept it. After dinner, we did eventually find Zeus’s Temple, but unfortunately it was already closed so we just took a look from the outside. 

We headed back to our “fancy” hotel and stayed up late into the night talking, even though we should have been sleeping in preparation for our day trip to the Greek Isles tomorrow!

Day 25: Greek Isles, Greece

We woke up at 6:30 and grabbed our continental breakfast to go (2 pieces of toast, butter & jam), and then set out to the tourist office to catch the bus that would take us to meet up with our day cruise. As soon as we loaded the bus, we quickly realized we were the only people on it under the age of 65. What did we get ourselves into this time?

We arrived at the port and boarded our boat, which was very nice. It included a sun deck, lounges, bars, and a jewelry shop similar to multi-day cruises we had been on. We decided to head up to the sun deck where we found two chairs to enjoy the beautiful view and lovely weather. We sat back and relaxed as our ship sailed off. 

Our first stop was the island of Poros. There was no beach for us to lay on, but there was a pretty town with cute shops (oh boy) and a cafe. We each bought new sunglasses (between losing them and breaking them, we each went through 3 pairs this trip!), and got a snack to sit and eat along the water. 

When we got back on the boat we were served lunch. We got small salads (that looked more like coleslaw) and another small plate with a variety of other items including Spanakopita and Pastitsio (neither of which I knew of at the time, but I am assuming now based on my 22 year old description of “crispy spinach thingy” and “lasagna type thing”). Everything was very good and we stuffed our faces to make sure we wouldn’t be hungry again before our cheap dinner we planned to eat later. 

When we noticed waiters starting to carry out large platters of food a few minutes later, we realized what we had just scarfed down had been an appetizer. We were so full now, we weren’t hungry for the actual meal! It consisted of broccoli, carrots, a potato, and an unidentifiable meat. We picked at it for a bit, but we were just too full to eat any more. We didn’t want it to go to waste however, so we slyly wrapped the potatoes and veggies in tinfoil and slid them into my bag. We also helped ourselves to some additional rolls and butter. Maybe we wouldn’t even have to buy dinner at all later! We were super classy.

After lunch we arrived at the island of Hydros. We were excited because we were told this island had a beach near the port we could lay on. When we disembarked we realized the beach was less of a beach and more of small rock cliffs jutting out over the water. That wasn’t going to stop us from getting our tan on! We enjoyed the unique beach experience, and even got up the guts to jump in the water (off the ledge or our cliff). It was so cold it felt like our hearts stopped for a second, but it was wonderfully exhilarating. We liked this island so much we didn’t want to leave. We waited to the very last minute, and almost missed our boat. They pulled up the gangway right after we got on!

Back on the boat, we headed up to the top deck to lay out our towels and get in some sunbathing. We ended up falling asleep for awhile, and when we woke up we were fried! We headed back below deck and awaited our arrival to the island of Aegina. We had the most time to spend on this island, and it had a real beach!

The beach had a very long sandbar, and we were able to walk far out into the water. The shallowness of it made it slightly warmer than where we jumped in at Hydra, so that was nice. We alternated between wading in the water and lounging in the sand. Soon enough, we were both hungry again. We were glad we stowed away some of our food from lunch. Our snacking attracted a stray dog (Alicia, of course, was not thrilled about this) who enjoyed licking the towels we used to wipe the butter off our hands. When our beach time was up, we showered off and headed back up to the boat where we spent the remainder of our cruise back on the sun deck. 

When we returned to port we hopped back on the bus that took us back to the drop off point. We grabbed our cheap, staple dinner (McDonalds), and then started wandering around the shops again. Alicia was looking for a bead to complete a necklace set she had. We seemingly got ourselves lost again in the process, until where did we end up again? Constantine’s restaurant! He pointed us in the right direction, and Alicia found what she was looking for. But then we got lost again. We were hoping we would run into Constantine yet again, but I guess we only find him when we are not looking. We stopped to ask a shop owner, when a guy around our age overheard us and said he was staying at the same hotel and would show us how to get back. 

We’ve been really lucky with nice people and Greece! Based on his accent, we assumed this guy was American. We soon found out that he was from Louisiana, but he was currently living in Dublin. Since we were going back there tomorrow, we asked his advice on what to do. He didn’t help much, but he offered for us to stay in his flat while we were there (we did not take him up on this offer). We were strolling along and chatting, and then we realized that we had been walking for quite some time. And our sense of direction was (obviously) not great, but we seemed to be walking in the opposite direction of where we were supposed to be going. Did we just doing something stupid again? We started walking down a dark alleyway, and we were anxiously engaged in nonverbal communication as we registered danger and tried to determine if we needed to flee. After we emerged from the alleyway, we walked a few more blocks and arrived at our hotel. Thankfully he was a nice guy after all! He must have just taken us the scenic route back (or got lost himself and didn’t want to admit it).

Back in the room, we reminisced about our trip, in disbelief that it is coming to an end. Our cruise day in Greece was a perfect end to an amazing trip. 

Day 26: Dublin, Ireland

We caught an early flight back to Dublin and then took a bus to our 16-bed hostel. We had a quick lunch at Subway (we were McDonald’s-ed out), and then we walked around a cute little area with lots of pubs and shops that we didn’t see the last time. Then instead of doing one final hurrah in Ireland, we decided we wanted to develop our pictures (good old film cameras in 2005). We asked around at a few internet cafes until someone pointed us in the right direction. They would be ready in 2 hours!

We headed back to the hostel and took a nap, and when we woke up we had roomies! Two guys from Canada and a girl from Virginia. We swapped stories about where we’d been and what we’d done. We chatted for a little bit, and then went to pick up our pictures. 

“Exit” is one of the most important words you need to learn in other languages when traveling abroad. We learned it in Greek, French, German, Italian ad Spanish.

With our shopping bags of 889 pictures in hand, we stopped at a small restaurant for our final Irish meal of whiskey sausage and sorted through our pictures. After dinner we chatted with some fellow travelers at our hostel before heading to bed in preparation for our long trip home. 

So that was it. Our whirlwind trip to Europe traveling across 10 countries in 26 days. It was definitely a trip of a lifetime and the trip that sparked all future Dana & Alicia travel adventures. 

Until next time! :)

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