Athens

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Welcome to Athens:

Actually, welcome to Patra and a 5AM train ride into Athens. We were in company of Rick, a very nice Canadian we met on the Ferry from Venice who's family owns a raspberry farm outside of Vancouver.

Heather seems to have a 6th sense at navagating the trains, subways, and buses of these cities and got us from Patra to Athens quite quickly. I tend to rely more heavily on my sense of taste and got us to the greek gyro stands quite quickly. I also found a wonderful pastry shop one block from our hostel that had the best baklava I've ever tasted.

We took a pretty relaxed approach to Athens, which had worked well for Florence and Venice. The first day we took a nap and then a walk. We walked in the National gardens, which turned out to be a wonderfully green oasis in the middle of a very overwhelming city. There were many, many citrus trees with ripe fruit. The oranges weren't edible and tasted more like lemons but were still great for impressing my cute travel companion with my juggling . Actually, I wasn't sure if she was laughing at me or with me but either way her laugh is like music. The gardens were close to our hostel and made a great place to run early the next morning before most of the town was up and about.

The next day we visited the Acropolis. The Acropolis was amazing. To see it helps to understand it's significance to the Athenians. It is a great, flat mountain/bluff that rises right in the center of a huge valley that is the city of Athens. Its dominance of the skyline is impresive and even more so at night when it is lit with flood lights. There is a large-scale ecavation/restoration going on and you get the feeling that it has been going on for a long time and does not look to be completed in the near future, if ever.

After visiting the Acropolis we went to the Agora, which was sort of the commercial district of acient Athens. It was impressive. The only way to really capture the majesty was to take a couple videos. Of course I needed someone to narrate but it was not always easy to find someone as enthusiastic about videos as myself. But we still had a lot of fun. I picked up a great book in Florence titled about the relationships between Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem and seeing some of the locations brings the book alive, especially to see structures, like the amplitheater, that was commissioned by the figures in the book.

We had a great meal after the Agora with great local food. We sat with the Agora to our back, the Acropolis above and to our left, and the Areopagus between the two. Afterward we climbed to the Areopagus which is a large rock on Mars Hill where Paul was brought before the council and shared the gospel with the men of Athens. Its amazing to stand and imagine the seen as it was 2 thousand years ago and the thrill as some of those Athenians accepted Christ. We had not considered it before hand, but our travels are criss-crossing much of Paul's journey to Rome.

On our last day in Athens we spilt up for the morning and I went to the National Achreogolical Museum and Heather toured the big produce market and climbed a mountain...not quite to the scale of Mountains in AK but a good climb none the less. We both had an excellent time and met at noon. Heather shared the good news and bad news with me, the bad being that our flight to Israel was last night not tonight. Actually, it was that morning at 1AM. The good news was that upon realizing it and beginning to fear the worst and oncoming anxiety, she prayed for peace and resolution, looking up a little later she noticed the Olympic Airways office across the street. A flight was arranged fairly easily and we got out the next day and into Tel Aviv.

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Photos

Future Olympians?
This was the track in which Stefano Baldini ran the final lap of his 1st place victory in the 2004 Olympic Marathon.

Columns, Columns Everywhere!
So many columns in acient Athens. They would have loved spreadsheets.

Titled: "Lady on Pillar"
Heather sitting on a pillar...we couldn't find a pedestal.

Theater
Theater below the Acropolis

Another Pillar
This is from our balcony at our hostel with full moon in background.

Acient Acropolis Scaffolding
I wonder what the Greeks would think if they could see it now.

More Acropolis
Anyone tired of the Acropolis yet?

Ben double fisting
Honestly, one of those gyros was for Heather!

Ampitheater
It's fun to sit in the stands and imagine being live at the Theater a few millenia ago...

Century Plants....
This one's for Mom & Ned. My mom has several century plants that have not yet "bloomed" but will someday. This hill was full of blooming century plants, which grow many, many years before erupting in a spectacular bloom like a small tree before dying.

Four & Twenty ...... catapillars?
Heather spent her time in Athens training catapillars to march in single file. This was a strange sight of 24 catapillars (Yes, I counted them) either marching to war or playing follow the leader.

Parallel Parking: European Style
These Europeans get very good at parallel parking. Heidi, notice the mini-cooper?

Ben next to greek statue
Hadrian's (a roman emperor) statue in Athens. I think we all know who the real emperor is in this one!

Hallway in the Athenian Agora
And wouldn't you know the bathroom was all the way on the other end.

Wonderful Supper
We had a great supper with the Athenian Agora (central business/political area) right at our backs.

Neat Neighboorhood
We took a back way around the Acropolis through a neat, white-walled neighborhood with great couryards.

Comments

[Steve]

Yumm
Look at all the delicious food you're eating! You just had to take pictures and show us huh? That supper at the Athenian Agora looks pretty tastey... and those gyros! Man-o-man! That picture of Ben on top of the hill with Athens in the background shows how huge the city really is! Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for showing us the pictures and keeping us up to date on your round-the-world adventures!!