Good morning from Athens, Greece (or as the Greeks would say “Καλημέρα από Αθήνα, Ελλάδα).  I am writing to you from the InterContinental Athenaeum Athens (35,000 IHG points/night).  If you are heading to Athens, Greece, I highly recommend the Athens Small-Group Culinary Walking Tour, where you walk around the city, lead by a local, English-speaking tour guide and try some of the best, most authentic Greek food in the world.

I am not going to cover everything we saw, ate, smelled or learned on the tour, but here some of my favorite photos.  Our tour guide handed us a piece of paper showing us which foods we would be experiencing on this tour (I will reference names and restaurants throughout the post).  At the beginning of the tour, we stopped by a local street vendor selling Koulouri, the “Greek breakfast” that is a round piece of bread covered in sesame seeds.  You can find Koulouri all around Athens, at any time of day, and the price is only 0.5 Euros.  I ate a few of these around Athens :)

We then went to a Cretan Store (items from the island of Crete – which is where I will be later on this trip).  We tried several types of olives, olive oils, olive pastes, honey, and rusks (twice baked bread).  Even though the olive paste looked like cat food, it certainly tasted much better than it looked.

We stopped for a quick snack at Krinos for their “famous rounded shaped doughnuts called loukoumades” that were covered in sweet syrup and cinnamon (a sweet tooth’s delight!).

Later in the tour, we visited a Pastourma and tried a local Greek cured meat with rusks.  After that, we went to cafe called Bougatsadiko.

At Bougatsadiko, we had a sweet and savory pie (Greek pie is a crispy, layered meal).  The one on the left was the “famous Greek Spanakopita filled with spinach and feta cheese” and the one on the right was a “Bougatsa filled with custard.”  They were both delicious, but I have a sweet tooth, so I loved the Bougatsa with custard more (but my girlfriend preferred the spinach and feta cheese pie more).

If that sounds like a fun tour, you can purchase this tour on Viator for $58.14:

If you do purchase from Viator, make sure to go through Cash Back Monitor and earn some cash back or miles on your purchase.

If you have Chase Ultimate Rewards Points available, you can purchase the tour for 4,644 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.  I’m not sure why Viator has the price of $58.14 and the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall has the price of $69.66, but you will get 1.25 CPP to 1.5 CPP, based on which value you assign to the tour.

If you have any questions about the tour, please leave a comment below.  Have a great day everyone (or as the Greeks would say “Κάντε μια υπέροχη μέρα σε όλους!”)