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Breakfast in Athens
Greece is not the land of hearty American-style breakfast. Most Greeks consider coffee and a cigarette their breakfast. They may eat a piece of hard crusty bread (paxamadia) to fill the gaping hole in their stomach but this has little do do with nutrition. But we travellers know better.
After all it is no secret that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and if you just have a couple cups of coffee and a piece of bread you may find yourself on top of the Acropolis, staring at the magestic beauty of the Parthenon and thinking about nothing except food.
If you are staying at a fancy hotel like the Grande Bretagne or the Electra Palace you will be quite pleased when you see their breakfast buffet table, piled high with croissants, fruit, yogurt, eggs, bacon, sausage, cheeses, cakes, pastries, cookies and more, constantly being refilled. You get what you pay for and these are high end hotels which take pride in their ability to make their customers happy at the breakfast table.
 But if you are staying at an inexpensive hotel then breakfast may be at the sustenance level with coffee just strong enough to get you to a real cafe, paximadia, maybe some yogurt and a boiled egg. So after gazing at the table at the piles of pre-packaged butter, honey and marmalade you may want to go and search for greener pastures. Like loukamades (fried dough with honey) at Doris the famous old shop at 30 Praxitelous.
I sometimes have a coffee at the Attalos. Their coffee is pretty good for a budget hotel. If I am on the move I can go get a cheese-pie(teeropita), or spinach-pie (spanakopita) from one of the small shops or bakeries. There's a great one on Voulis Street, two blocks down from Syntagma called Ariston where you can get pies with many different things baked into it from zuchini to artichokes or versa-visa. But these shops are all over Athens now and though Ariston has the most impressive collection of any of them you can usually find something right around the corner from where you are. Or you can just get a tiropita from a stand if you are not choosy and don't require variety.
One of our favorite hangouts is the Oionos Cafe at 7 Aggelou Geronda Street, on the little square in the Plaka known as Platia Filomoussou Etairias. It is owned by a very nice guy named Christos and has a great selection of coffee, capuccino, expresso, Greek coffee, filter coffee, Nescafe and Frappe, plus deserts, toast and lots of other stuff. For breakfast he makes great yogurt with fruit. Many of the cafes serve this, in Athens and in the islands where it is a staple for sensible tourists. You can have it with honey and nuts too.
Just down the street is a wonderful breakfast place on the corner of Geronda and Daedelou, just a block from the square. It is called Tristrato and it is run by a middle aged gentleman and his daughter, or maybe it's his wife, or his sister, or just someone who works there. Or maybe he works for her since her name is on the card. I don't really know or care and neither should you. But it is a lovely traditional galatadiko which is a milk and pastry shop.
Great yogurt which you can get with fruit, nuts, honey or all of the above. Lots of different coffees and pastries and the whole place is furnished in antiques.
A frequent breakfast stop for us, also mentioned in my important coffee section, is the Aiolou Cafe on Aioulis street in front of the Church of Agia Irini. They make these delicious tarts that are like quiche. Not exactly bacon and eggs but pretty good for you and it tastes as good as it looks. But many of the cafes will have stuff like this on the menu.
The Fantasy Cafe at 17 Nikis street in the Plaka specializes in excellent coffee and espresso and crepes of all different styles. There is a selection of croissants, pastries and sandwiches. They also serve cereal with milk, American style which is an easy way to please your kids. They have yogurt with fruit and honey and nuts and fruit juices too. The two girls who work there are Soula and Spyridoula, both very sweet and friendly.
Across from the post office on Metropoleos at Syntagma is Metropol, a cafeteria where you can get any style of omelet, coffee, pastries, tea or bread. It's not what you would call a "Greek experience", but if you are one of those people who requires a hearty breakfast to get yourself going, this is a good bet. They even have espresso and cappuccino.
FLOU on the corner of Voulis and Appolonis streets has a selection of spanakopitas, tiropitas, crepes, croissants, fresh fruit juices, ice-creams, omelets, milk-shakes and sweets and croissants you can get everywhere.
 If you want to be like the working class Greeks why not go down to the meat market to one of the restaurants there for a nice steaming bowl of patsa, made from the innards of sheep and famous for it's life-saving properties in the event of a serious hangover, or I suppose even jet lag. What could be more invigorating than a ladle full of intestines and other animal organs before you begin the climb up the Acropolis.
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