Feeling ancient in Athens...

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We arrived safely in Athens after a very long trip here. All our flights were great and on time. Arrived into Athens around 4:10 PM local time on Saturday. Took the metro into the city and found our hotel easily. Took a long overdue nap and headed out for dinner (or lunch, depending on your perspective!). For those of you into Greek food, we had chicken and meat slouvakis and some local brew. First two much better than the latter. Had a good long sleep and then headed out this morning for our big tour today. We tried to get some food from the market, but it wasn't open early enough. So we saw some ancient ruins (Temple of Olympian Zeus) and watched the changing of the guard at the Parliament...quite amusing actually. See pictures. Had a quick coffee and breakfast and headed on a self-guided tour of the city. We saw the Acropolis and Parthenon, the Ancient Agora and had some more greek food. Even though the city is not all that well laid-out, we managed pretty well and despite a few detours, found everything we wanted to see. We're heading back to our hotel now to rest a bit, change and back out to a bar for dinner (dancing??)...well the official title is Palea Plakiotiki Taverna Stamatopoulos (trust me it's even longer in Greek). There is supposed to be traditional Greek music, etc here tonight. Should be good. The weather was actually quite nice today, sunny and comfortable. Evenings are cool, glad we brought our heavier jackets.

First impressions of Greece...stunning, old, ordered chaos. First impression of Greeks...friendly, wear stiletto heels to 2300 year old sites, laid back.

Tomorrow we are headed at 8 AM by train to Kalambaka. We have decided to switch around our itinerary from what I sent out before we left. We will see these monastery's that are tiny and perched up on cliffs...quite a sight. So tomorrow night we stay in Kalambaka and then the next day we head via bus to Delphi. So not sure when we will be able to write next. We're having a great time and we'll write again as soon as we can.

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Photos

Slouvaki
Yummy...

Parthenon
At the Acropolis

Comments

[mom]

food
Slovaki is great, but don't forget to taste and photograph the desserts! Too bad you can't bring me home some! Have fun.

[mom]

Is the best way to communicate with you? We were laying flooring this weekend, Now we are 3/4 done and it looks great. Hope you are having a dessert for me. I am surprised it is not waarmer. Lots of love, mom

[Dad]

Athens
Looks like fun. Thanks for the update. Things are slowly getting back to normal here.