Advertisement
Published: July 18th 2010
Edit Blog Post
John and Lauren in the National Garden
The lush vegetation provided welcome shade as we made our way to Mt. Likavitos We did not have well-defined plans for the day, and sleeping in seemed like a good first step. We stopped for breakfast at a nearby café and then headed off on foot through the National gardens. The gardens are well-irrigated and lush and provided welcome shade cover. The temperature was a bit cooler than the day before, but still not cool enough to be comfortable. We stopped along the way to see so a mini-zoo in the park which contained some Kri Kri’s (Greek wild goats), a donkey, some chickens, pigeons and geese. We exited the park just behind Syntagma square and entered a neighborhood we had not previously visited on our y to Mount Likavitos. We had kept the kids in suspense of our destination which was primarily a view spot high above the city. The surprise for the kids was that it was accessed by the “teleferik” a cable car that climbs steeply up the hillside (funicular). We climbed quite a few steps towards the teleferik station and stopped at a little souvenir shop that turned out to be all hand-made bronze figures. We chatted with the owner/craftsman and looked at one of the wax originals he uses to
Funicular
Lauren poses by the cable car, aka funicular, aka teleferik which brought us to the top of Mt. Likavitos do the sand-casting. John acquired a souvenir and we headed on to the cable car. After a 30 minute wait for the next “train”, we ascended the hill. The entire climb was inside a tunnel, so not very scenic, but it was a novel form of transportation and as far as the kids were concerned it was better than climbing more stairs. At the top, there was a café (with a remarkable number of empty tables), the closed chapel of Ayious Yioryios (St. George) and very few people. We enjoyed the sweeping views of the city and took some photos, then were fortunate to just catch the return car without any waiting. Overall, the visit to the view spot by way of the teleferik was not that impressive, but did serve the very important function of getting us out of the Plaka district to see more of Athens. Despite some objections, we decided to head to the National Archeological Museum. After a quick Starbucks stop and Metro Ride, we emerged near the museum and stopped for a 3PM “lunch”. We enjoyed the Museum’s sculpture collection which contains some remarkable pieces tracing the evolution of sculpture from the archaic to the
Lauren with view of the City
Lauren at the top of Mt. Likavitos. The view provides a sense of how large the city is - it goes on and on in all directions. classical period. Andrew enjoyed posing by a bronze statue that is possibly of Perseus holding the head of Medusa (whatever he was holding has been lost) and John enjoyed a beautiful statue of Aphrodite fending off the unwanted advances of Pan - she appears poised to whack him with her sandal. The kids were looking for their late afternoon siesta, but if we had taken a break we would have been too late to visit the ancient agora. After the Archeological Museum, the kids developed a bit of Agora-phobia, so we parked them at a café just outside the agora and Sonia and John took turns making quick visits to wander the ancient center of commerce where Socsrates once strolled. We went to the hotel for a break and had difficulty getting moving again for dinner. We had a destination in mind which brought us to yet another part of town where the streets were teeming with people and full of sidewalk vendors selling things (mostly jewelry). There was live music and quite a festive atmosphere, but, after taking a few wrong turns, we were a bit too weary to be festive or search on for our intended restaurant, so
Andrew with Minotaur
Andrew poses by the statue in the National Archeological museum. We noted that if you look up Minotaur on Wikipedia, you get a photo of this statue we turned back for a restaurant closer to our hotel. Our café table was all the way in the corner - away from the street and adjacent to a churchyard fence and we were visited by a family of very hungry kittens. Soon, everyone was well fed, including the kittens, and we ambled back to our hotel around midnight to get packed and get some sleep before our 5:45 AM pick-up for our flight home via Athens and London.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.176s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 14; qc: 73; dbt: 0.0839s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb