Athens

You guys, Greece charmed my socks off!  I would love to go back and see more of this beautiful country, visit with the gracious people, eat their delicious food, and soak in the sounds and smells.  2 days was really short, but that's all we had, so we did the best we could with it.

Right off the bat we had the most amazing meal.  Cora and I shared a sample platter that was mostly veggies, and Joe and Joseph shared a meat platter.  Everything on that plate was mouth-wateringly delicious.  Every.  Thing.

The best way for us to see a LOT of the city in a SHORT amount of time was the hop-on-hop-off bus, so that was the plan.  I think we ended up riding the entire route two times, getting off at a few places.  It was nice to just relax and enjoy the views, which included...

The Arch of Hadrian and the Temple of Olympian Zeus

 When the Romans conquered the Greeks, emperor Hadrian completed this temple, in A.D. 131 (which had been started in the 6th century B.C., but then abandoned for centuries).  Only 15 of the original 104 columns of this massive temple remain.

And Hadrian had this triumphal arch built (below) to celebrate the completion of the temple.

Panathenaic Stadium - it is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble.  A simple racecourse was built here in 330 BC, then a marble one in 144 AD, which was then abandoned, excavated in 1869, refurbished, and used in the first modern Olympics in 1896, again in 2004, and is the finishing point for the annual Athens Classic Marathon.

The Greek Parliament building and tomb of the unknown soldier.  Once built as a palace for King Otto (1840ish?), it's over-the-top luxury made the local people mad, because they were very poor.  They gathered on this square in 1843 to protest and demand a democratic constitution.  King Otto gave them what they wanted without a fight.  Keeping guard (but hard to see) are the Evzone, an elite infantry unit of the Greek army.

We got a little better look at them around the back of the building when they were crossing the street, and yes, they wear kilts (kilts that have 400 pleats, to be specific, to represent the 400 years of Ottoman occupation).

The Academy of Athens (1885) - Athena and Apollo stand on the flanking pillars, while Plato and Socrates are seated towards the center.

 The University of Athens (1837) - It is the biggest university in Europe.

The National Library (1829)

The National Archaeological Museum (1829)

The Kapnikarea Church - a classic 11th century Byzantine church.

The Monastiraki flea market and shopping district (you can see the Acropolis in the background) - the smell of spices on this street were intoxicating.  I could spend a great deal of time here.

Actually, it smells good EVERYWHERE in Greece.  I don't know if it was the perfect time of year or what, but around every corner we were smelling olive trees, and citrus trees, and yummy food, and I don't know what else, but it smelled good.

And finally we come to the crowning glory of Athens - The Acropolis

At the base are two things - the Theater of Dionysus

And the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. I didn't know this, but an odeon (like ode, which comes from the Greek word "song") is mainly used for musical, rather than theatrical performances.

Hiking up the hill, you come to the main gate - the Propylaea

 Inside, looking back towards the gate.

Off to the side of the gate is the little Temple of Athena Nike, which is dedicated to Athena specifically for the victory that she gave Athenians over Nike.  There was a huge statue of Athena inside, but it's gone now.  All the statues of Athena that were here are gone.

From 2001-2010 it was completely taken apart stone by stone, clean, shored up, and put back together again.

There was another statue of Athena, right as you came through the gate, this one a 30 foot bronze statue of Athena as a soldier, with spear and shield.  It was so tall that the tip of her spear could be seen by ships at sea.  Nobody knows what happened to it though.

The Porch of Caryatids - a porch that has 6 lovely ladies doubling as columns to support the roof.  They are actually copies of the originals, 5 of which are in the Acropolis museum, and 1 was stolen.

The porch is on the Erechtheion.  Outside was an olive tree planted by Athena herself (now that's impressive), and inside was a statue of Athena made from olive wood, shown as the protector of Athens.  Olive trees have been called "the gift of Athena to Athens".  Greece has more than 140 million of these trees.

Crowning the highest point of the Acropolis is the Parthenon (built 447-438 BC), the finest temple in the ancient world, which served the cult of the Virgin Athena (so many different versions of Athena on the Acropolis).

The scaffolding is part of an ongoing renovation project - ongoing since 1976, which means that they've been working on the renovation three times longer than it actually took to build it in the first place!  

The really white stones are new marble, to replace damaged or missing pieces.  It's from the same quarries as the original stone, and over time the marble will age and blend in more with the older stones.

If you've never studied about the building of the Parthenon, and the optical illusions it incorporates, you should look it up.  It's really quite a remarkable building.

From up here there were great views of Athens all around.

Not all of our kids were impressed with the Acropolis though.  Some of them entertained themselves in other ways.  Nature is sometimes a parents best friend ;)

The first night in Athens we stayed in an Airbnb that was a couple minutes' walk from the Acropolis, but the second night we wanted to stay closer to the airport, since we had another very early morning flight.  This place was not an Airbnb place, although it looked like one from pictures, even though it was called Hotel Tina.  It had good enough ratings though, so I booked it.  We took a long bus ride to the town, which was very small.  When we got off at our stop it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere.  I should have printed out directions to this place, but I didn't.  Instead I was relying on my phone, which unfortunately was running on a very low battery, so I didn't want to use it too much.  I headed in the direction I thought it was, but very quickly started to second guess myself.  We stopped in at a little convenience store, but nobody spoke any English at all.  I decided to backtrack just a bit and take a different road.  I was fairly certain we were on the right course, even though we were going into a small residential neighborhood with no businesses in sight.  And then the road turned into a dirt road and I really started to panic, and yet I was sure we were headed in the right direction, according to the address listed for the hotel.  

Joe wasn't panicked.  He was actually getting more and more excited, because he said it reminded him of his mission.  That didn't really make me feel any better ;)  We kept going.  Then we passed this house, and an older gentleman came out of his house to talk to us.  I'm sure we looked out of place, and he wanted to know if he could help, but he didn't speak any English either.  He indicated that we should wait, and then he went inside and brought back his son who spoke English.  He confirmed that we were headed in the right direction, and we were almost there.  It turned out the Hotel Tina was a....I don't know what to call it...a villa?  It was Tina's house (her and her husband and their son lived there), but they'd built an apartment onto it, and built an additional building/apartment off to the side, and they were working on building another house on the property too, and they rented these out to people, sometimes for a night, sometimes for a month.  It wasn't fancy, but it felt very homey, and we like it right away.

 Tina was so sweet, and she offered us a spaghetti dinner, which we gladly accepted.  It was delicious, and she was especially excited about the salad, which was made fresh from her garden, including a lemon vinaigrette with lemons from their lemon tree.  They put a couple of pitchers on the table with what we thought might be an herbal tea, but instead, Joe got his first taste of alcohol (before I could smell it and warn him), hahaha.  It was a homemade wine that Tina's husband was very proud of.  He asked me later:
"Did you like the wine?  I made it myself."
"No, I'm sorry, we don't drink alcohol."
"Why not?"
"For religious reasons."
An awkward pause and a funny look, followed by,
"Well, it's very good."
"I'm sure it is."

 I had planned on maybe taking another bus out to the beach for a few hours, but we ended up just hanging out at Hotel Tina for the day.  It was so relaxing there, it was really what we needed.  And Alex and Madelyn played quite a bit with Tina's little boy, even though he didn't speak any English.  He was just so excited to have kids around, it was really cute.

And that was our short little trip to Athens.  Man, I would love to see more of Greece.  Maybe some day.