Leanne and Don, life across the pond: Athens

Athens, home of the Acropolis, Parthenon, Greek salad,Greek yogurt and the Greek alphabet.

This is the view of the Acropolis from our hotel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acropolis_of_Athens

This a view you never get tired of seeing, and its a good thing because no mater where you are in Athens you will see it. Leanne and I must have taken fifty pictures of it. I will just show you a few.

The first day would just be a walk around the city. As with most of the city's we have been to so far they use marble and stones for the side walks. It looks great but is hard to walk on when wet.

The religion for most people in Greece is Greek Orthodox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Orthodox_Church

The church in the background was built in the 11th century.

Photos were not allowed inside so you'll have to take my word that it was very ornate inside. The walls were painted with religious settings. gold chandlers and basically a lot of bling.

This is the most important church in Athens, the Cathedral Mitropolis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Cathedral_of_Athens

and earthquake damaged it in 1989 and they have been working on it ever since. The donations for fixing it must be a little low.

Next to the big church is a little church, The Church of Agios Eletherios

http://www.mesogeia.net/athens/places/byzantineathens/mitropolistop_en.html

As we did our walk, we would see many of this style and size of church.

Today was also Greek independence day and there was a huge military parade going on in town. At one point military jets flew over and then helicopters.

Leanne counted 18 helicopters go over. As low as they were flying, it was good to know there was a parade going on.

Making a turn down another street we could see The Arch of Hadrian.

This was the entrance of Hadrianopolis and it was built in 132 AD.

Passing thru the arch we came to the ruins of the Temple of Olympian Zeus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Olympian_Zeus,_Athens

Started in the 6th century BC and not finished until the 2nd century AD.

From there we the walk took us near the Acropolis,

Thru the neighborhood of Anafiotika, (yes all the words are hard to say)

Up, down and around houses on small walking paths. And there also was a lot of cats.

All the paths were concrete and painted white like the houses. This was done to keep the house cool during the summer.

this house had flow thru ventilation

After we got to the top of the neighborhood we had to walk back down. But not before it rained on us and made the sidewalk wet. Here is Leanne making her way down the slippery steps of marble and stone. She kept telling me not to walk close to her in case i fell. She didn't want me to take here out as i rolled down the hill. If you look at the white marble steps, they put grooves in them so when you do fall it will leave a good mark in your head.

So after a scary walk down we rewarded ourselves with some fine Greek cuisine. We headed for Souvlaki row to have a souvlaki. Pita bread with lamb, beef, onions, tomatoes, potatoes and a yogurt sauce. The best way to eat them is to dive right in, as you can see by my demonstration.

Saturday was going to be a busy day for us, our first stop was to see the Acropolis.

As we walked up we passed the Odeon of Herodes Atticus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odeon_of_Herodes_Atticus

This amphitheater was built in 161 AD, destroyed in 267 AD and brought back to life again in the 1950's after is was rebuilt.

As we walked up we came upon this women. I think her husband wanted to see the ruins, she looked like she wanted to ruin him.

We got up early to see it because we heard it gets busier later in the day. This is a view of the entrance we walked thru.

This is the back side of the entrance

As much as we tried we always seem to get people in our pictures.

The view of the Parthenon you see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon

Built between 447 and 438 BC

It is amazing how big it is.

The end view without people.

Another temple near the Parthenon is the Erechtheion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erechtheion

Views of the town

Our hotel is down there someplace. I'll give you a hint, it by a church.

Another view, some time people walk right in front of you when your taking a picture.

like this person.

Our next stop is the Agora ruins on the right. The rock with all the people on it is called Mars hill. For any Catholics reading this, the Apostle Paul preached to Athenians from Mars Hill.

As we left the Acropolis the mobs of people had arrived. What difference a few hours make.

A different view of the Acropolis, this is from the Agora ruins

The Temple of Hephaistos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Hephaestus

It was built in 415 BC and used until 1833----they got some use out of this building.

There was also museum on site, this is some of the potty-re they had there.

Sunday was a boat trip to the Greek isles, our first stop was Hydra

A small island town where the only transportation is either your feet or donkeys.

As we walked the streets we found shop that made crepes

It was not difficult to decide to get,

It is a tourist town and when the tourist leave everyone is chilling out even the cats.

Our next island town was Poros, this one did have cars along with a lot of scooters.

It would be a short stop, only 45 minutes.

Getting ready to pull up to the dock.

Docked near our boat was a large sail boat

and next to that was a large yacht. They were bigger than most of the houses on the island.

The last island was Aigina. This island was crowded with people from the mainland, because of the long weekend holiday. The Temple of Aphaea is on the island and we were going to see it along with the church of Agios Nektarios

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Aphaea

As with most of the ruins most of the statues are in museums in other countries. The statues from this one are in Germany

Monday would be a quick walk around town before we fly out. The one thing they have here are religions stores with all you need to open a church. This store sold church robes