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Monday 4th July, 2011
Went down to breakfast at nine fifteen and had the usual, back up to the room and readied ourselves for the day.
The main objective for today was to visit the National Archaeological Museum. Most museums throughout Greece are shut on a Monday, but we had spotted that this museum was open from 1330 until 2000 hours today. So we had a little time to kill in the morning and decided to visit the big Hondos Centre.
We left the hotel at 1045 and after a quick trip on the Metro we came to Omonia square. Pat had seen that there were 6 exits from the Metro and I jokingly said that it was inevitable that we would come out at the one furthest from the shop.
However, as we came up the escalator the shop entrance was straight in front of us, our lucky day. The shop was pretty busy and Pat bought a couple of things, both for me. We split for a while and then met up in the Cafe on the 10th floor which of course has a view of the Acropolis. We had coffee and as it was
still a short while for the museum to open decided that our next move would be to visit a shopping mall that we had read about that was at the end of one of the Metro lines at Aghios Dimitrios.
We have Metro passes for the week so we are making full use of them.
The journey was no problem and we came out of the station and the Metro mall was again right by the station. The place was not big, but new and gave us plenty to look at for a while.
We wandered around for a fair while and then had lunch in the food court upstairs. Pat had a KFC and I had a Goody's burger. We were both happy and set off for the Museum.
Again another trip on the Metro and the Museum was between stops so we had a little walk to find it. Not signposted on the ground but we did get there.
The Museum is a wonderful piece of architecture in it's own right, set back from the road, with imposing columns on it's frontage. Entrance fee was €7 each and for a change you got
a small leaflet showing the plan of the building. It covers a vast area with lots of rooms and lots of historical explanations and pretty good labelling a lot of the time.
We studied things for quite a while and then needed a comfort break so found the museum cafe. Two cans of coke light €5.60!
Then back to the museum and found the Thira fresco's Pat was keen to see and also the Cyprus Antiquities rooms.
Then I had had enough as my back was getting weary and it was about 1845, so we had done about three and a half hours in the museum. We probably hadn't seen every room but we didn't miss many. It was definitely worth the money on this occasion and there are some fantastic exhibits, not least The Mask of Agememnon. There are museum staff in every single room ensuring nobody does anything out of place, like touching the statues.
We found the Metro again and after a change, a couple of stops we were back at our station.
Our objective was achieved and we think that the air quality of Athens is part of the reason that
we have been flagging so early in the day. It is reputed to have a very polluted atmosphere and we found ourselves exhausted after a few hours being outside. We have been on the move for two months and completed much more arduous events than just ambling around a few ancient sites in a day. Plus we live in Cyprus and the heat isn't a new issue for us. So we can only put it down to the bad atmosphere and lack of oxygen in Athens. When you look down at Athens from the Acropolis you don't see many green open spaces and trees are not around that much. Today we kept mainly kept indoors and it worked much better for us.
We arrived back at the hotel about 1930.
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