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Published: June 26th 2017
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Geo: 37.9792, 23.7166
We arrived in Athens,(strictly Piraeus) at 10am on Sunday, May 5th, Greek Easter Sunday. Consequently nothing was open. However we boarded the City Sightseeing tour, (the hop on hop off bus) and renewed our acquaintance with the city. It is nearly 20 yars since I accompanied a Classics tour there in 1994 so I was keen to see it all again. We took the bus from the port into the city and then swapped to the Red line which took us past all the major sights.
We started from the foot of the Acropolis and then went past the Temple of Zeus, Hadrian's Arch, the first Olympic stadium and up to the National Archaelogical Museum.going through Syntagma Square they were changing the guard at the Palace and we kept pace with the guards as they marched off. We got off the bus at the Agora. This was an area I had missed walking through last time.
It was a warm day and as it was lunch time we found a great cafe, Carte Postale and used their Wifi while we had a wonderful seafood platter. Good Easter lunch. We spent an hour or so there very happily. After that
we walked up to the fence surrounding the Agora and thence through the lovely park next to it. We eventually found the gates which informed us that though it was closed today it would be open tomorrow. So we walked back around the bottom of the Acropolis and returned to the shop on the bus.
The next day we left the ship about nine, got on the bus and went back to the Agora. Unfortunately the other place I wanted to see, the New Acropolis Museum was closed on Public Holidays and Mondays so no chance of going there. Anyway we paid our 4 Euros each and went into the Ancient Market place of Athens. The first monument we saw was the Temple of Hephaestus. This remains onre of the most complete of the ancient temples with its roof still intact due to being used as a Christian Church for many years. From there we strolled through the main roads finding buildings such as the Bouleterion,the Odeon of Arippa the several Stoas and the Temple to Ares. One of the Stoa has been restored and is now a museum, the Stoa of Attilus. This contained some great artefacts from several periods,
Geometric, Archaic and Classical. There were several interesting items related to the public functioning of Athens, like the stone "machine" which selected the jury as well as several statues found in the surrounding area.
After a couple of hours wandering there we walked out to find somewhere for lunch. We chose a modern looking cafe overlooking the museum and had a delicious lunch there of Meze, both seafood and cheese and cured meats which in total cost 13 Euros! Bargain. The wine added but the Rose was very drinkable. From there we wandered to the Plaka area and found a great T shirt shop and bought intereSting tops for small boys. Then after a frozen Greek yogurt for only 1 euro each it was back on the bus and back to the ship.
It is the nature of a cruise that there is never enough time to explore a city but with public holidays as well we were fairly restricted. However I was pleased to have finally seen the Agora and renewed acquaintance with other major sites.
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