Some trips you plan for a year. This one I planned for about two and a half hours.
What follows is the story of four days that were honestly more travelling than holiday — Cape Town to Addis Ababa to Athens, then Addis Ababa and home again — and if you asked me right now whether I'd do it all over again, I'd already be packing. It started, like all the best bad ideas, with a phone call.
Day 1, 2:30pm — the phone call
I was having a completely ordinary Monday. Then a mate phoned. He had something urgent he needed to sort out, we got talking about getting away, and somewhere in that conversation one of us said the dangerous words: "Let's just look at flights."
That's usually where these things die. You look, you wince, you go back to work. Not this time.
Day 1, 5pm — flights booked, paid, done
We stumbled onto return Ethiopian Airlines flights from Cape Town to Athens for around R9,500 per person. Return. To Greece. I read it twice. At a price like that the conversation flips very quickly from "maybe we should" to "why on earth aren't we?" — and once you're asking the second question, you already know the answer.
By 5pm the flights were booked, purchased and paid for. We were leaving the next morning. There was no itinerary, no packing list, no plan beyond "get to the airport." If you've ever wanted proof that the perfect time to travel doesn't exist — that you just go — this was it.
Day 2 — Cape Town to Addis Ababa
By Tuesday we were at Cape Town International, boarding passes in hand, still slightly amazed at ourselves. First leg: Cape Town up to Addis Ababa, a little under three hours on the map, watching the whole of Africa slide by underneath.
The catch with these fares is the routing: everything runs through Addis, so the plan was a night there on the way up, a short burst in Athens, and another night in Addis on the way home. On paper it's a ridiculous amount of flying for such a short trip. In reality, it turned the stopover into a second destination — and Addis turned out to be one of the best surprises of the whole thing.
We landed on a wet apron late at night, the whole fleet lined up and glossy in the rain.
Discovering Addis Ababa
Here's the thing nobody tells you about a stopover: if you treat it like an airport, it stays an airport. If you treat it like a city, it becomes one. We dropped our bags, stepped onto the hotel balcony, and there was Addis humming below us — wet streets, warm lights, a city very much awake.
The food was superb and the hospitality was on another level — genuinely warm, genuinely curious about us. We ended up out among people, eating things we couldn't name, being looked after by strangers who acted like hosts. I came home wanting to go back to Ethiopia, which is not a sentence I expected to write about a connection I booked by accident.
The Black Rose
The unplanned highlight of Addis was a place called The Black Rose, a Moroccan-style French club a short walk from the Friendship International Hotel. We had no idea it existed until we were standing inside it.
Deep red walls, low couches buried in patterned cushions, candles on the tables and mosaic lamps throwing colour across the room. It's the kind of spot you couldn't design on purpose — atmospheric, a little theatrical, completely its own thing.
Honestly, it's one of the best Moroccan-style French clubs I've come across anywhere, and if you find yourself in Addis I'd tell you to go. If you want to read up on it first, there's a Black Rose listing on Tripadvisor — but this recommendation is purely mine, nobody's paying me to make it.
Addis has more nightlife than I'd have guessed, too — clubs like LUX lit up over the rooftops as we made our way around. Everything about Addis said come back and give me more than one night. Filed under "definitely returning."
Addis to Athens
And then, almost before we'd unpacked, it was back to the airport. That was the rhythm of this whole trip: plane, airport, hotel, explore, eat, drink, sleep, plane again. Chaotic — but the good kind. The kind where you're never quite sure what country's breakfast you're eating.
The second leg took us over the Mediterranean, and somewhere over the water the Greek islands started appearing under the wing.
Athens in a hurry
We celebrated landing in Greece the correct way: a small anise spirit at the airport before we'd even left the terminal. This one was tsipouro — ouzo's country cousin — poured over ice until it turned that milky white. First taste of Greece, still standing next to the luggage carousel.
Athens hits you all at once — the heat, the noise, the layers of it. Ancient marble on one corner, a scooter nearly taking your toes off on the next. You turn down a street looking for nothing in particular and end up under a two-thousand-year-old statue.
We weren't there to tick off monuments. We were there to be in it — the ouzo, the rooftops, the taxi drivers with opinions, the tangle of tourists and travellers and locals all moving through the same hot streets. I dragged my bag through town in flip-flops like I had all the time in the world, which, given the schedule, I absolutely did not.
Postcard Athens — Monastiraki and the Acropolis
You do get pulled toward the famous stuff, of course, and you should. We wandered the old centre — past one of those squares where an ancient church just sits there in the middle of the modern city like it's no big deal — until the Acropolis appeared above the rooftops, keeping an eye on the crowds down in Monastiraki like it's done for two and a half thousand years.
Then you find the shade, order a Mythos, and let the street do the entertaining. This is the Athens everyone photographs — and it earns it. But the evening I actually can't stop thinking about came later, and it didn't involve a single landmark.
The €20 Athens transport hack
Right, one genuinely useful bit before I get carried away. When you land at Athens International Airport, don't just jump in the first taxi — the metro is brilliant, and there's a ticket that pays for itself.
Here's the maths, checked against the current Athens public transport fares as I write this:
| Getting into town | What it costs | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 3-day tourist ticket | around €20 | Includes one airport trip in and one out, plus unlimited metro, bus and tram for three days |
| Airport single (metro Line 3) | around €9 | So a return airport transfer alone is roughly €18 |
| Airport taxi | roughly €40–€50+ | Depends on time, traffic and how busy it is |
Look at that middle row. Two airport journeys on their own are about €18, so the €20 three-day ticket is basically paid off before you've even left the airport — and then you get three days of city travel thrown in for free. Take the Blue Line (Line 3) from the airport towards the centre; it's about 45 minutes to an hour to reach the middle of town, and Monastiraki is a perfect place to get off, with dozens of places to stay right there.
I'm not going to tell you taxis are bad. If you've got heavy bags, or you land at some ungodly hour, or you just want the door-to-door ease, a taxi is absolutely worth the extra. But for us, the journey was part of the trip — which brings me to the accordion.
The accordion player on the train
Somewhere on the metro, a local fellow came walking through the carriages playing Greek music on an accordion. Just working the train, filling it with this warm, slightly wonky tune while the city rattled past outside. We got chatting to a few interesting people in the same carriage, the way you only do when you're not sealed in the back of a cab.
If we'd taken a taxi we'd have saved twenty minutes and missed all of it. The train wasn't transport that day. It was part of the holiday. That's the whole lesson of this trip in one small moment: the cheaper, slower option is very often the better story.
Finding the real Athens
The best evening of the whole trip wasn't a landmark at all. It was a small neighbourhood square, a couple of tables outside a little bar, and a few hours spent talking to people who actually live in Athens.
We'd wandered off the tourist track and into an ordinary residential street — apartment blocks, a palm tree, people getting on with their evening — and just sort of stayed.
This wasn't a table full of other travellers doing the same thing we were doing. It was locals — walking their dogs, catching up with neighbours, ending their day — who happened to let two strangers into the conversation. Real Greece, real people, real life. No entrance fee, no queue, no photo everyone else already has. If you take one thing from this whole story, let it be this: see the Acropolis, absolutely, then go and get pleasantly lost in a neighbourhood. The landmarks are why you come; the squares are why you remember it.
Athens to Addis, one more time
And then — you guessed it — back to the airport. We'd barely broken Athens in and we were already filming the wing on the way out.
Another night in Addis
The return routing gave us a second night in Addis, which I was not going to waste. One more taste of that food, that warmth, that easy hospitality — a proper reason to be glad the cheap fare forced us through Ethiopia twice.
Cape Town — and the night still isn't over
By Friday we were back in Cape Town. You'd think that's where a four-day, four-flight trip quietly ends. It did not.
We rolled straight into a fantastic dinner at Dias Tavern (reviews), then kept the wheels turning with a late one at Dust & Dynamite, the cowboy bar. The ladies joined, a cousin I hadn't seen in years came down for it, and the whole thing turned into a proper reunion — which is a strange and lovely way to end a trip that began with a phone call four days earlier.
Lion's Head at sunrise
The next morning, running on fumes and good decisions, we went up for sunrise. And Cape Town did the thing Cape Town does.
We'd flown to Addis, found the Black Rose, crossed to Athens, met locals in a square, ridden a train serenaded by an accordion, flown back through Addis, landed home, gone out again — and here we were, standing above the whole city while the sun came up over Table Mountain.
Funny how travelling halfway around the world makes you appreciate your own doorstep. We sat there thinking the same simple thing: we are unbelievably lucky to live here.
Just go
So that's the 96 hours. More time in the air than on the ground, four flights, two cities I'd never planned to visit, one square full of strangers who felt like friends by the end of the night.
Here's what I took from it. You don't need a six-month itinerary and a perfectly organised holiday. Sometimes you need a phone call on a Monday afternoon, a ridiculously cheap flight, and the nerve to say yes. Don't get stuck in the rut of waiting for the right time — it doesn't come. Book the ticket. Go meet people. Get slightly out of your depth. That's where the good stories live.
Live the dream, guys. Sometimes you just do it.
Frequently asked questions
How much are flights from Cape Town to Athens?
On this trip we paid around R9,500 per person for a return Ethiopian Airlines fare from Cape Town to Athens, routed via Addis Ababa. Prices like that come and go — they're not on the board every day — which is exactly why it pays to grab a good one when it appears rather than waiting for the "perfect" travel dates.
Do South Africans need a visa for Greece?
Yes. Greece is in the Schengen Area, so South African passport holders need a Schengen visa before travelling, even for a short trip. It's worth starting early and getting the paperwork right — see our visa assistance page — and it's always sensible to have travel insurance in place before you fly.
How do you get from Athens airport to the city centre?
Take the metro. The Blue Line (Line 3) runs from Athens International Airport into the centre, stopping at Monastiraki and Syntagma, and takes roughly 45 minutes to an hour. A single airport ticket is about €9, but the three-day tourist ticket (around €20) includes an airport trip each way plus unlimited metro, bus and tram — so it effectively pays for itself on the airport transfers alone. A taxi is quicker and easier with heavy bags but usually costs €40–€50 or more.
Is Addis Ababa worth a stopover?
Absolutely. If your Ethiopian Airlines routing gives you a night in Addis, treat it as a mini-destination rather than a layover. The food and hospitality are excellent, there's more nightlife than you'd expect, and a single evening was enough to make us want to go back properly.
How long do you need in Athens?
We did it in a wild rush and still loved it, but two or three days is a much more comfortable amount of time — enough for the Acropolis and Monastiraki, plus at least one unplanned evening in a neighbourhood square, which is where the best memories tend to happen.
Planning a Athens trip?
Traville Travel arranges Athens holidays personally, from flights to the finer details. Tell us what you have in mind and we will build a tailor-made quote, no obligation.
