Athens X 2

Athens and more

We arrived in the port city of Athens and awoke to a lovely harbour. I must let you all know we have breakfast outside over looking the back of the ship. So far lovely mornings, no wind, warm …..

Anyway our first shore excursion that you just walk out onto the buses. I must say they are all very organised for 3000 passengers, the majority of whom will do the excursions. We went up to the Acropolis ….. very ancient, lots of steps, boring guide but fascinating history. I learnt heaps about its history and destruction, re-building, destruction ….even an Englishman Lord Elgin was the last evil presence taking away all these artifacts (now housed in the British Museum). We got there reasonably early, but my god so many people arriving. And this is end of September! There has been major reconstruction/restoration done and is still on-going but not enough to distract from the splendour. We drove pass many of the other sites, and left me yearning for more.

Then it was pool, spa, cocktails, nana nap (again) more cocktails, winning a prize in a trivia competition! ( a backpack full of little travel goodies), then dinner about 8.30 for a show at 9pm. All go on this holiday! The show was a violinist, who I didn’t think Dave would go to, but he did and he was seriously impressed. I think he is expanding his cultural experiences slowly but surely! Afterwards there was a disco era band playing leading into a Zorba the Greek dancing at 10.30pm. Just letting you know what happens at night around here!

Today was back in Athens, but a do your own thing tour, where they drop you off show you the direction of things and away you go! We were in an older type of area, near the Acropolis, and Plaka ( the old town area). The first thing was go to the new Acropolis Museum, highly recommended by the guide and it has won lots of global awards. What has happened is that during restoration of the ruins and Parthenon a lot of the valuable relics have been slowly eroded by weather and human ‘pollution’, so they have taken all the statues etc and put them into this museum. It is fantastic! It is built over ruins so you keep walking over glass floors and look down onto excavated ruins down below to give you a feel of the era.

 They have made a whole top floor for the Parthenon, laid out to the same size (huge) with the same number of columns and then put the artifacts in the same place they were in on the original, with photos, explanations etc. Really worth a visit.

After that was a walk through the old town, lunch of mousakka and chicken slovakka? With beer that freezes the froth the glass is so cold!  Then onto the original stadium of the old games, which was reconstructed in 1876? For the very first Olympic games of the modern era. The stadium was made of marble …. All of it! …. Pretty small in the middle (400 metre track) … as Dave said he would hate to be a runner running while the javlin was on! Cool experience.

Then on to more ruins, Hadrians Arch (built by the same man who built Hadrians wall) and the ruins of temple of Zues. By then all ruined out … you look one way and there is the Acropolis, and another and there is Temple of Zeus.

As a city Athens wasn’t too bad. Not really English friendly but better than Paris. I hope they continue to preserve what they have.

Now it’s end of a long day …. We are about the move on out so will go up to the top to watch.