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Published: September 5th 2017
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Acropolis in Athens
Here we are standing in ruins, of what I don't know. Geo: 37.9792, 23.7166
If you read the story about our day in Crete, then you know how a day began in Athens, only this time with Frank. He was holding a sign with our names on it when we exited the port. This time we rode in a 12 seat luxury van. He said that we were the only ones scheduled so it was all ours. To get ahead of the crowds, He took us straight to the Acropolis, showing us sites on the way. We got there and there wasn't hardly anyone there. By law, he can't enter the site since he is a driver and not a guide so he waited at the bottom while we started our ascent. The pathway up to the Acropolis is paved with marble and can be slippery even when dry. Mom had to be careful. We climbed up to see the theater. Portions have been restored and it is used for plays and concerts. We both remember Yanni playing there although it looked much bigger on tv.
We were close to the top when Mom said no more. At the top of the next 60 steps was the Parthenon, temple of Athena and a beautiful
Acropolis
Here's the theater. The walls are original but the seating has been restored. They hold concerts here and we saw a Yanni DVD with him playing here at night. view of the city. I made my way up to the top and took pictures of all of the above while Mom waited below. I returned to her, fighting the crowds as more and more people were arriving and I was going down and they were coming up. It's one way traffic but I had to go back that way. I told her about all the stuff up there but she was ready to go back down so we started down. We stopped at the hill where Paul, the apostle, spoke of Christianity to the ancient Greeks. Mom climbed up there. See pics. Then down to the car.
After that, we went to the Olympic stadium, up to the top of another mountain for views of the city, back to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to see the changing of the guard. See Mom standing next to the guard. After that, we went to lunch. I had 2 gyros, one pork and one chicken with a coke, Mom had salad with ice tea. All for €12 of about $16. The gyros were great and I could only eat one of them. Just too big. Then a walk through the shopping
See me?
Mom shot this from below since she wasn't climbing up to the building. That's me in front of the column. area, Temple of Zeus, a couple more buildings and finally a museum. Very interesting.
We arrived back at the ship at 4pm and thanked Frank for an interesting day. Time to get rested and cleaned up for our next event, a night out in Plaka.
We had three hours before we had to be ready for our evening tour. We had some lemonade, took showers and met the bus down at the port entrance. About 40 of us took the tour bus which spent about an hour rolling through Athens while the tour guide talked about much of the same stuff we had seen earlier. Then they dropped us in Plaka, the old part of the city known for its shopping and restaurants. We all walked slightly downhill for about 6 blocks past all kinds of shops and outdoor restaurants with musicians roaming about. Mom had no time to shop as we had to keep moving. We got to to the restaurant and were seated at long tables with a Greek band playing traditional Greek music. Appetizers of fave beans, tehni and assorted snacks, salad, kettle stew with a tomato sauce and feta cheese, wine and lots of olive oil. Desert
Me again
Coming down from the mountain looked like a donut and had ice cream with it. During the dinner, musicians and dancers performed for us. Lots of traditional Greek dances performed in native costumes. It all terminated with a rousing rendition of "Zorba, the Greek".
We left the restaurant and retraced our steps back to the bus and headed toward the port where we arrived at the ship at 11pm. All in all, a busy day.
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