Working from Athens and Hydra, Greece

I spent 10 days in Greece with my friend, splitting our time between Athens and the island of Hydra. We were there to work remotely, and as a result didn't do a ton of sightseeing but I felt it worthwhile to share my favorite places anyway :)

Athens is my favorite city to work from! This was my third time going in during the October/November months, which is just when Amsterdam is getting colder and darker. The time difference is minimal and there’s plenty of fun cafes and nice apartments to work from. I generally stay in Thissio/Petralona, since it’s quiet. This year we also spent some days in Exarcheia (the opposite of quiet).

Day 1, 2, 3

Our first night we went to Wine is Fine. Their cacio e pepe is SO good! The staff is so friendly, too. The crowd’s pretty international, it could be in Amsterdam, honestly (so uhh why go to Athens??).

One night we had dinner at lsandsia. Their tuna steak was heavenly. We actually returned a week later but they didn’t have the tuna and we’re still talking about it

months later :(

The whole place was stainless steel, like a spaceship. We got offered a cigarette by the owner on the way out, which was a vibe and also kinda obnoxious lol.

Day 4, 5, 6

Hydra!! We took a ferry from Piraeus. Piraeus reminds me of Thailand: smoggy, stray dogs, crazy traffic, everyone smokes. There are so many cats on Hydra that getting from A to B took us twice as long as it should because I had to pet every kitty. #blessed.

Hydra was cold and rainy 3 ou of the 4 days we were there, which was a bummer. It still felt good to be somewhere with no cars and actual nature (even if that nature was mostly grey and wet).

My favorite cafes and restaurants in Hydra are The Lemon Tree for breakfast, Giasemi for dinner, and Hydronetta for cocktails. kamin was great for brunch, Papagalos had good pizza, and for people watching you can’t beat The Pirate Bar (do NOT get the grilled cheese here. It’s bad).

Day 7, 8, 9

Apartment in Exarcheia for the last stretch. We had coffee every day at Beholdtheman and went to The Black Salami at least 3 times.

There's a lot of anti-tourist graffiti around the neighborhood, which. I get it. What’s so interesting is that cafes will have posters up with like “stop Airbnb now” and then sell flat whites for 4 euros. Speaking as someone from a city that suffers under the yoke of tourists and expats - I hate that I’m making it worse but at the same time I feel like I, personally, am not the worst type of remote worker? Which probably does make me the worst. I don’t how to square these feelings so I just try real hard not to think too much about it.

The real highlight of our final stretch in Athens was dinner at the Association of Greeks From Egypt, which we randomly found on Google Maps and were intrigued by. We were the only non-Greek-Egyptians there, and by a wide margin the youngest people in the room. They didn't have an English menu, but we got pretty far with Google Translate. The food was good, but I genuinely don't remember what we ordered, we just pointed at things and hoped for the best. When we left they were setting up a bingo wheel and I kinda wish we’d stayed just for that.

All in all, a great workation!