Yesterday was my last night in the Acropolis House and Hotel, a two star hotel within ten minutes walking distance of the Acropolis. It is where I will stay the next time if, Inshallah, God willing, I get back to Athens. I love it.
Besides being shunted to a huge empty house last night down streets and around several corner
and being chilly all night a number of minor things have gone awry in the days I have stayed here. The first morning I politely asked if they had hot water since I didn’t seem to have any, a problem with the boiler and easily fixed. My new room has a bathroom so small, 4 feet by four feet or so that the toilet is in the center of the shower. The room itself is quite small with only foot between the sink and the hard corner of the bed on which I have hit my shins a number of times. Last night I replaced the chair I am sit on to type with one from the dining room because it slipped a socket and crumbled under me. The guest toilet if you are waiting for a room is deep in the basement down steep winding steps. I thought I knew where it was yesterday and climbed down the steps, the wrong steps, pushed open the door and was in a bedroom in a dungeon. Apparently no one is locked up there, a grandfather of the family lives there although I have never seen him. The first breakfast was straight out of Fawlty Towers with a cheerful, eager to please, clueless young woman with a cook’s hat trying to serve everyone at once but leaving all new arrivals in the hall for a half hour. There is an overhead airconditioner/heater that I have set on 85 F but which only blows out cold air, maybe functioning as an air conditioner instead.
It is not the accommodation that has stolen my heart, it is the people, all of them friendly and caring and smiling and helpful. It is a family run hotel, I feel like family, and family make allowances for each other.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 