It was a warm day today, so when I got down to the coast – although most locals were sitting on the benches in their coats, hats, scarves and gloves, for me it was warm enough to go for a paddle, followed by a short swim.

Ιt felt like an English spring day and it was warm enough that I could take my coat off. Warm enough that I forgot that we are only 2 and a bit weeks away from Christmas.

The weather in Greece at this time of year isn’t exactly cold, but it is the sort of weather where you might want to have a jumber with you. In the sunshine it is pleasantly warm – like an English spring day.

This is in fact the first time I have been to Greece ‘out of season’. It is that time of year when the nights are drawing in, temperatures are dropping and the tourists are leaving.

After breakfast this morning we checked out of the hotel, leaving our luggage in their store room to collect later. We headed down on to the Underground to go and spend our last morning in Central Athens.

We left the Underground at Syntagma/Σύνταγμα and walked through the Kolonaki/Κολωνάκι district, going up Ploutarchou/Πλουτάρχου Street until we reached the cable car which goes up the mountain.

We spent the afternoon down on the “Athens Riviera” coast, down by Glyfada/Γλυφάδα.

The most famous building on the site of the Acropolis is the Parthenon – a building which dates back to 447 BC.

Porto Rafti (and Avlaki) both have a selection of bars and tavernas; listening to people talking around me they were mostly Greek and because of the proximity to Athens many Athenians come here for their days out to the beach.

One interesting site I went to last time I visited Athens was the Panathenaic Stadium/Παναθηναϊκό Στάδιο. Built of marble, it dates back to 330 BC and the stadium hosted the first Modern Olympic Games in 1896.