Athens

Over the Christmas vacation time we spent a few days each in Greece, Cyprus, and Malta and it was great. Before leaving I had mentioned to a colleague that we would be going to Athens and hoping for little warmth and sun. He said to not set the bar too high as he had lived there for some time and that there could be spats of clouds and cold. Well, we got lucky it seems as it was sunny and warm every day and perfectly cool every night. Nothing more than a light jacket was ever required and I was often going in short sleeves. 

To get to the city from the airport and then back again we took the bus which I do not recommend if you are returning and need to make a time. Traffic got snarled pretty quickly and the bus was packed to the gills. On the way in, this is fine since we were not in a rush, but on the way back it got a little nerve racking and quite sweaty, though we still had plenty of time at the airport. 

We didn’t have too much of a plan beyond seeing the normal sights in Athens, so here is a run down of how that went. As for planning, we did look into how to get to the main sites, etc. and to plan for just a few days in the city as well as watching a couple travel vids. Rick Steves’s video we watched twice! Although I would say he was a little too detailed for us, but really there was not much good video information out there. I really wish Globetrotter would do a new series, I really loved their videos but now everything is getting a bit outdated as most of those were made in the early 2000s! 

On day one we went to the Parthenon/Acropolis early arriving at the gates right when the opened, 8am. This was a good idea, it turned out. When we were entering there were maybe a dozen other people with us and shortly after we actually made it to the top a few dozen more. By the time we’d seen enough and started to descend there were a few hundred other souls on top with us. Nothing too bad, but you could tell it was only getting started. We had also downloaded Rick Steves guide to listen to and it was pretty good, thanks Rick! The monuments/temples were awfully beautiful and at that high point in the city the views were great, especially with the morning sun giving it all a warm glow. A few tidbits that I appreciated was learning about the various attempts at restoration and destructions that had occurred over the years. Sometimes restoration attempts left the Parthenon worse off! It is true that sometimes doing nothing is the best course of action. 

We had planned to try to make it to the (new) Parthenon Museum by 9am when it opened, but spent a bit more time on top of the Acropolis and getting down the north? Side then what we thought. We arrived at about 9:45. Still, the museum was not very crowded. It seems that most people did as we did, Acropolis first and then the museum as there seemingly weren’t many people entering from the north? To the Acropolis. About an hour around the museum was sufficient and then we took a break in the cafe, nicely enough priced considering tax and tip were included it was about three euros for a coffee. 

As we finished up our coffee around 11:00 the crowds and kids started to get thick. Apparently kids don’t like to get up early to go to museums, who knew?

As part of our route plan we decided to walk along the east? Side of the Acropolis to get to the Agora and then eventually to a market. The walk was nice enough, but somehow we took a right turn a little too early and ended up on the far western? side of the Agora, away from the main gate. By that point we decided to skip it and move on. Sorry Rick, we’ll pass on the Agora. 

We ended up going to the market and getting a magnet, we have one of every country we have been to, and then eating on the roof top of a place one of Aya’s coworkers had suggested. By that point we had walked about 15,000 steps so we were getting pretty tired and it was nearing 2pm. We decided it would be best to head back to the room and take a snooze. 

In the evening we decided to walk up Mt. Lycebettus as it was supposed to have good views of the city. From our hotel around Syntagma Square it was about a 45 minute walk, mostly up hill (yes, more walking, Athens city center is fairly compact). We got a bit turned around by Google’s directions on how to get up the hill, but it all worked out. By just after 5pm we were ready for sundown and indeed it was a nice view of the city as the lights on the Acropolis slowly came on. For anyone wondering, the lights begin to come on about 20 minutes after official sundown and took about 20 more minutes to come fully on. 

As the last rays of the sun faded we headed downhill and took the metro back to Syntagma Square and oh my there were a lot of tourists. The place was packed as was the shopping street off the square, but as you made your way to further side streets the crowds thinned. After dinner we made our plans for day two, a not as early wake up, but would it be a mistake!? Well, if we were starting out late, i was going to get up early and go for a run in the stadium!

I planned, a little too well, to arrive to the Olympic stadium right as it opened. I was early and so jogged a couple laps in a nearby park to keep warm and to rack up some kilometers. Being the first person in the stadium I naturally won every race I ran! It was very cool to see the stadium and have a run around all by. myself. Later that day Aya and I would come back to spend more time in the museum and with the audio guide, but that morning run was probably one of the best I will ever have. Very invigorating! 

Yes, kind of, but not really. We started a bit later and got the the Archeological Museum around 930, after it had opened, to find hordes of school kids at the entrance. We had visions of bleeding eardrums but in fact the groups were fairly quiet and since the museum was quite large we could just move in directions the groups were not.


Many parts of the museum we were entirely by ourselves, save for the attendants in each wing watching us, or their phones. It seemed the art was loosely guarded as each attendant had strategically placed their chairs by the outlets in the room to keep their phone charged as they crushed candy or killed angry birds or whatever one does day after day to kill the boredom of looking at thousands year old artwork. Many of the halls were only partially open and it seemed that there was some change and restoration going on. I couldn’t really tell, but it seems the museum pieces are well looked after. 

There were a few interesting tidbits here for me. One of the more interesting I thought was the, pictured, statue of a woman with her face bashed in. Apparently once you lose favor that was pretty common to have your statue destroyed. 

That afternoon after a quick nap at the hotel we circled south east to see the temple of Zeus and to go back to the Olympic stadium. I got to say, the Temple of Zeus is not much to see, though you can imagine how imposing it would have been so many years ago. Something that struck me, that always strikes me when seeing a lot of ruined ancient structures, is that the story goes that the temples or buildings or walls or whatever get slowly pilfered by the local community to build other stuff and then in the present you might get like, part of the Temple of Zeus in someone's backyard because a thousand years ago someone took it to build their chicken coop or whatever. I think we tend to look back on that and wonder how people could do that, but here we are in the present knocking down things left and right. Maybe a thousand years from now someone will find my piece of the Berlin wall resting in their basement and think, what a monster! How could they have taken away from such a historic site!? 

To cap off the end of another long day of walking (18,000 steps!) we decided to go to a rooftop restaurant Aya's coworker recommended and take in the Parthenon one last time. The next morning, we were off to Cyprus.