Day 96-100 Atmospheric Athens

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In 1963 the most popular film in British Cinemas was ‘Summer Holiday’ the story where a group of young people take a converted bus to Athens. I don’t know if I was emotionally or psychologically damaged by watching the film at the Roxy Cinema in Blackheath, but since my early 20’s I have wanted to drive to Greece. Spookily here I am driving a converted vehicle, albeit a lot longer route than Cliff did it, into Athens.

Although I would have liked to say we arrived in style, alas no, Alison who had done a sterling job navigating us through, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and the best part of Greece (Tom Tom’s coverage ended once into Croatia) was overwhelmed by the Athens road system when trying to look for the campsite. Twenty quid of petrol and road tolls later we reached our goal.

Athens is a busy noisy metropolis, and our campsite seemed to be in the middle of it- don’t motorcycles have silencers these days!

Once in the city centre though-Oh boy, the sights, the history, the Greek hospitality and cuisine was wonderful.
Just to orientate ourselves its a good idea to jump on a tour bus, which we did on the first evening. We also liked the tube system, clean airy stations, it made getting around the city a dream. One surprise I had though, I thought the famous acropolis would be visible from all around Athens, but was more difficult to get a photograph from the ground than I thought. We did venture up to it very early one morning, it was incredible, hope the pictures do it justice. We also took in the modern Acropolis museum, the Archaeological museum, temple of Zeus and did a super audio tour of the Panathenic Stadium (used for both ancient and modern Olympic games) during our stay.

I’d seen it many times on TV but the Greek changing the guard, which is done every hour is a must see. How they stand for an hour, in the burning heat of the Athens sunset defies belief, maybe that’s why the funny walk!

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Photos

Zeus or Posiedon?
They dont know which

Comments

[lesley]

ZEUS OR POSIEDON ?
or could it be kim ? looking rather brown in all his glory !!!! lol x