http status code 403 - 403 forbidden on Apache after trying to install nginx reverse proxy

My setup:

Digital Ocean droplet running Debian 8

2 websites with each their domain running on Apache2

Tried installing nginx and configure it as a reverse proxy following these instructions:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-nginx-as-a-web-server-and-reverse-proxy-for-apache-on-one-ubuntu-14-04-droplet

It instantly broke my sites, giving Forbidden 403 error when trying to access them.

I spent so many hours trying to make it work and now decided to leave it and just use Apache2 like i did before.

But now the sites are still showing Forbidden 403 even after nginx is stopped.
Briefly installed lighttpd + lighttpd php5-cgi and then i could access the sites, however, it was showing just 1 site on both domains.

I have chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www

Also did a chmod -R 755 /var/www

Please, if anyone could provide some input, I would be so happy. I am going crazy trying to fix this mess. :(

Apache ports.conf:

Listen 80


        Listen 443




        Listen 443

Sample from Apache error log:

[Thu Mar 03 13:56:36.965194 2016] [authz_core:error] [pid 31517] [client 185.106.92.253:55470] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /var/www/html/xmlrpc.php
[Thu Mar 03 13:56:43.316074 2016] [authz_core:error] [pid 31518] [client 185.106.92.253:52484] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /var/www/html/xmlrpc.php

[Thu Mar 03 13:56:47.635774 2016] [authz_core:error] [pid 31496] [client 185.106.92.253:53967] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /var/www/html/xmlrpc.php
[Thu Mar 03 13:57:00.853631 2016] [authz_core:error] [pid 31670] [client 185.106.92.253:50494] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /var/www/html/xmlrpc.php
[Thu Mar 03 13:57:08.455024 2016] [authz_core:error] [pid 31668] [client 185.106.92.253:45464] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /var/www/html/xmlrpc.php
[Thu Mar 03 13:57:21.641599 2016] [authz_core:error] [pid 31517] [client 185.106.92.253:38106] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /var/www/html/xmlrpc.php
[Thu Mar 03 13:57:28.132631 2016] [authz_core:error] [pid 31518] [client 185.106.92.253:48468] AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /var/www/html/xmlrpc.php

apache2.conf:

Mutex file:${APACHE_LOCK_DIR} default


PidFile ${APACHE_PID_FILE}

Timeout 300

KeepAlive On

MaxKeepAliveRequests 100

KeepAliveTimeout 100


User ${APACHE_RUN_USER}
Group ${APACHE_RUN_GROUP}

HostnameLookups Off

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

LogLevel warn


IncludeOptional mods-enabled/*.load
IncludeOptional mods-enabled/*.conf

Include ports.conf


    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all denied




    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted



    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted




        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted





    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Require all granted


AccessFileName .htaccess


    Require all denied



LogFormat "%v:%p %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" vhost_combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %O" common
LogFormat "%{Referer}i -> %U" referer
LogFormat "%{User-agent}i" agent

site1.conf:

    ServerName www.site1.com
    ServerAlias site1.com

    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/site1

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined


    
        Options FollowSymlinks
        AllowOverride none
        Require all granted
    

        
                AddHandler php5-fcgi .php
                Action php5-fcgi /php5-fcgi
                Alias /php5-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi

                FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -socket /tmp/php5-fpm.sock -pass-header Authorization
        



SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|ico|png)$ \ no-gzip dont-vary
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:exe|t?gz|zip|bz2|sit|rar)$ \no-gzip dont-vary
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.pdf$ no-gzip dont-vary


BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

site2.conf:

    ServerName www.site2.com
    ServerAlias site2.com


    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/site2

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    
        Options FollowSymlinks
        AllowOverride none

        Require all granted
    

        
                AddHandler php5-fcgi .php
                Action php5-fcgi /php5-fcgi
                Alias /php5-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi
                FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -socket /tmp/php5-fpm.sock -pass-header Authorization
        




SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|ico|png)$ \ no-gzip dont-vary
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:exe|t?gz|zip|bz2|sit|rar)$ \no-gzip dont-vary
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.pdf$ no-gzip dont-vary

BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html