Athens - Back to ruins!

November 22, 2006

Breakfast is included with this hotel and we had to get up in time for the free meal…we were trained very young to take advantage of the free meal…including Saturdays when we were kids driving around to various car dealers to enjoy the free hot dogs and pony rides…but I digress.

We walked out into the lobby this morning to find a security check point in the lobby ala airport. We stopped and asked what was going on and I guess the Czech president was visiting the hotel. Wow! Swanky place.

We took off for the Acropolis first as it’s Athens “must-see” on the Top 40 Ruins List!

It’s strange. When we were in Rome we were standing in the Colesseum, which was built or finished around 72 BC, but the buildings at the Acropolis are even older, hundreds and hundreds of years older, dating from 5th Century BC. The Parthenon itself was the first building built on the Acropolis site and to this day it is the most impressive building, which took over 15 years to build. The Acropolis is the central point of Athens and you can literally see it from all areas of the city. Of course, when standing on top, you can see the entire city of Athens and its white buildings that run down to the ocean.

What’s interesting is this place, which has been the center of religious worship in Athens since the 11th Century BC, still exists in some form today. There are ruins, which are undergoing years and years of restoration. The Parthenon’s renovations have been going on for 6 years now. It’s interesting to read the signs about the restorations because a lot of the work they are doing now is to correct incorrect restorations that were made in the earlier part of last century. I guess as the years go by researchers discover more and more about these sites. Who knows what they will be doing to these moments in 100 years when they discover even more.

What’s disappointing about visiting these amazing moments is that there are cranes and scaffolding along so much of the buildings during their restoration. I think I did a good job of avoiding the mess, but I took a very ‘messy’ photo to show you exactly what these sites do look like. All photos are of the Parthenon.

Just as we were finishing at the Acropolis, it started to rain, just a little. Such good timing. Luckily the rain didn’t last long. We then took off and just walked. We have done this several times and it so relaxing to not be on a timetable, not have anywhere to go and just breathe in a city like Athens by wandering the streets. We spent the next 2 hours just walking, stopping in shops, saying “hello” to several stray kitties and then stopping for a bite to eat.

The restaurant we found was a cute, hip restaurant. The menu was excellent and we both had a great salad and shared some ouzo…of course…we’re in Greece! We sat there and chatted for quite a while and then looked around at the fellow diners. There were about 3 men in the entire restaurant that was about 3/4 full and the rest were women. I think we may have stumbled across a lesbian establishment. What a hoot! We had no idea where we were and needed directions getting back to the hotel let alone what area of town we were in…it was a great lunch though…and that’s all that matters.

We then headed back to the hotel via another shopping street although by this time of night we were getting pretty tired. We got back to the hotel, went to the gym and then ordered some room service as we tried, pretty unsuccessfully I might add, to figure out the rest of our trip, which I cannot believe is only a week and a half now.

Room service arrived and with it the best French fries I’ve had in years! They were pretty amazing.

Tomorrow we definitely need to sort out what we are doing in Portugal and Madrid. It’s supposed to rain again…blah. But, we’ll make do.