Brussels greeted me with a heat wave and a three-hour line to get through customs.

The heat was ridiculous. The line was ridiculous. But somewhere along the way, something very European happened. Airport staff started passing out water. Later came cookies. And, eventually, paper fans.

I kept mine, and as it turned out, that little paper fan would follow me through Brussels, Athens and back to Brussels again.

My first stop was the Stanhope Hotel, where I stayed for one night before heading to Greece. The stay was beyond extraordinary. My room literally had a flight of stairs leading up to the bed. I have no idea why this delighted me as much as it did, but for one night I felt like some sort of Belgian princess. Maybe it was the staircase. Maybe it was the old-world feel of the place. Maybe I was simply delirious from the heat and three hours at the airport. Whatever it was, it worked.

The next morning, breakfast in the courtyard was divine. Even with Brussels baking under the heat wave, sitting outside in that setting felt like exactly where I was supposed to be.

Then Brussels got weird.

In the best possible way.

I went to ökēn, a Japanese-influenced spot that was completely out of sight. Tea arrived in a test tube. There were no traditional plates. There was an aquarium in the bathroom.
Legit European weird.

It was the kind of place that makes you look around every few minutes and ask yourself what exactly is happening while being perfectly happy you don’t know the answer.

Then it was time for Athens.

I flew from Brussels on Aegean, and somewhere along the way came another small surprise. They served a full meal. A full meal. The flight wasn’t particularly long, which made it stand out even more. Anyone accustomed to short-haul flying in the United States knows expectations tend to be substantially lower.

I landed in Athens close to midnight, and the city was humming.

There is something magical about arriving in a city late at night and realizing nobody seems particularly interested in going to bed. The streets were alive. The air felt different. I saw lemon trees with actual fruit hanging from them and flies buzzing around because, well, there were lemons growing right there.

I loved that. It sounds like such a small thing, but sometimes travel is about noticing what would be completely ordinary to everyone who lives there.

I stayed at the Golden Age Hotel for two nights, but one of the most memorable hospitality experiences of the trip came during a visit to the new Conrad Athens The Ilisian. There I experienced Greek and French cuisine that was simply divine. After the theatrical eccentricity of Brussels, Athens offered something entirely different: confident, contemporary luxury with a strong sense of place.

And no, I did not go to the Acropolis.

Not once.

I realize there are probably rules about admitting that after visiting Athens, but somehow I survived.

That may also be what I enjoyed most about this trip. I wasn’t moving through Europe with a checklist. I wasn’t trying to collect monuments or prove that I had seen everything one is supposed to see.

Instead, I remember a staircase leading to my bed, breakfast in a Brussels courtyard, tea in a test tube, an aquarium in a bathroom, a full meal on a relatively short flight, landing in Athens at midnight and finding the city wide awake, lemon trees, a memorable Greek and French dinner, and that paper fan.

By the time I flew back through Brussels on my way home to Washington, I was still carrying it.

Five nights. Two capitals. Several extraordinary meals. No Acropolis. One paper fan.

Definitely not a regular trip.

— Nneka Chiazor, Globility Board member and guest blogger