Athens

The flight here was uneventful, I think of it as “that which must be endured”. Sleeping in a sitting position is a skill I haven’t mastered. We got between two and four hours of sleep. Took a cab to hotel, The InnAthens, pronounced the inn in Athens but spelled as one word, our room was ready so after lunch at “The Victory” cafe we came back and slept until 4:30 PM Athens time, then walked to the Acropolis museum. The Acropolis of Athens (most cities in Greece have an acropolis) is the third highest hill in Athens. Unlike the other two it has a flat top suitable for building. Its structures include the parthenon, the erechtheum, the theater of Dionysius and other smaller structures. The museum, located near the base of the hill holds many of the artifacts or fragments that remain. We took the self guided tour using our phones, my separate ear pods worked well, one in my right ear, the other in Noel’s left ear. We arrived at five, left at 7:15, not enough time but ok. Pictures were not allowed inside the Acropolis museum but I took one before I realized that, a dog sculpted 2,500 years ago. It is in a pointing position, one much like our Sammy would take:

After the museum we walked to a hotel with a rooftop view of the parthenon, after an elevator fail (the elevator door opened to what looked like a steel wall and I didn’t know to give it a good hard push) we had a nice leisurely meal:

Thursday began with an excellent breakfast buffet at the InnAthens then a short walk to Hadrian’s Arch to meet our tour guide, Marika:

From there we walked to the Acropolis. Despite winning the war(s) with the Persians the structures on the Acropolis were destroyed by the invaders. It was Pericles who led the effort to rebuild in the 5th century BC. Much of the subsequent destruction was due to neglect, Christians felt indifferent to or actually embarrassed by the pagan worship, or to war, with the Ottoman empire, WWI etc. This restored theater located about halfway up the hill is still used:

This much larger one, theater of Dionysius, is no longer in use. It could seat 17,000. The wall surrounding the acropolis is in the background.

On the acropolis itself was very windy, and the views of Athens were super. There are three notable structures on top, the parthenon, the Erechtheon (sometimes spelled Erecktheon) and the entrance gate, the Propylaia. Here are some pics:

We walked back down the acropolis hill to the temple of Haephestus, then the ruins of the ancient agora, the latter are in the picture with our guide. We walked though the very crowded contemporary agora, the monastiraki, full of restaurants and souvenir shops. Very unlike Rome where every other store seemed to be a designer outlet. This place left the biggest impression, Peggy insisted I put it in the blog. It had pillow sized pastel-colored mounds of gelato and this display of gelato popsicles:

Had lunch at Ydria then returned to the hotel for a nap before walking through the national gardens, basically a park, where we saw Monk parakeets, and heard Rose-ringed parakeets, both introduced species foreign to Athens. We then watched the changing of the guard, a Monty-Pythonesque display reminiscent of the ministry of silly walks (sorry but can’t help it) at the parliament building’s tomb of the unknown and finally ate at this place, pictured below on right: