Our hotel (Pucic Palace) in Dubrovnik was in the middle of Old Town which is a UNESCO heritage listed and protected area. The hotel was built in the 18th century and was home to the Dubrovnik noble family Pucić, and still includes the original doors, furniture and fittings. Old Town doesn’t allow any vehicles in and we needed to walk to the Polce Gate to meet our car for the drive to the airport.

Dubrovnik is a coastal town surrounded by hills and cliffs and as a result most roads are only one way to allow consistent movement of traffic. What it also means that sometimes going short distances takes longer by car as you need to do a longer loop. Moreover all roads are single lane and any single prang has a massive impact on traffic. With all this in mind we made sure our car picked us up well in advance to get us to the airport for our flight to Athens – but as luck would have it there were no issues along the way and we arrived well before even the check in gates had opened. Our flight was then delayed by another hour so we spent time in the cafe writing our journals and watching the world go by.

Our car and guide was waiting for us on arrival in Athens and it was about a 40 minute drive into town from the airport. The guide told us a bit about the layout of the city and some of the landmarks along the way. After one false stop at the wrong hotel, we arrived at our accommodation and have the rest of the afternoon to ourselves. The kids were desperate to have a swim, especially given the temperature was over 35 degrees and we took advantage of the roof top pool. We have an uninterrupted view of the Acropolis from our hotel and it looks quite impressive – even from afar. Our guide had provided some restaurant recommendations and we walked over to one that was reasonably close by. We got some traditional Greek dishes like kebab (with pita) and herb roasted chicken and they were all fantastic. I haven’t tasted such succulent and juicy kebabs. There is a one hour time difference between Athens and Croatia, but given the early start today everyone was ready for bed.