In Athens, the monuments and museums all seem to close around 2:30pm. That means you need to be up and moving at a decent hour to get all you need to accomplished. We got moving a little later than ideal, my fault of course. My Dad’s jetlag was finally gone, meaning he gets up before me. It was good while it lasted.
We stopped at a café and had sandwhiches near the base of the Acropolis. We decided to go through the museum first to get our bearings. The museum is fairly new and very nice. W spent a little less than an hour looking at all the statues and marble work they’ve removed from the Parthenon to restore or preserve. It’s amazing how huge the statues were up close compared to how they look on the building. The Carytids are massive, and the replicas they’ve put in their place on the real building look no bigger than life size.
After the museum, we made our way up the hill. Being a holiday, it was free and therefore packed. Granted, I have nothing to compare it to and I’m sure it’s always packed. We enjoyed the view and the monuments and slowly made our way around and then down. We walked a little farther down the Grand Promenade and took the Metro towards the National Archaelogical Museum. We made it with only 30 minutes to spare, but were still able to get a fairly good look through it. They had a lot of jewelry and gold work, coins and weapons. Almost all of it was in pristine condition. Hard to believe it’s as old as it is.
When the Museum kicked us out, we explore for a bit and ended up at a street café on a very busy pedestrian street. Out of nowhere, there are 20 cafes where one street over there was nothing but small shops and office buildings. My Dad got the grilled veggie plate and I got another sandwhich. He also got a mango granite which is basically a pulverized mango. Quite tasty. I got a beer. I’m so predictable. But, I didn’t remove the tomatoes from my sandwich, so at least that shows a bit of whimsy.
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| My beer and my father's fruity drink |
After lunch we made it back to our hotel for a pre dinner nap. I feel like this whole trip has been eating. All I seem to do is walk from eatery to eatery with a few monuments in between. I’m not complaining though, that’s exactly my kind of vacation. For dinner, we chose a place overlooking the Parthenon. We arrive just at sunset for our 8:30pm reservation. It wasn’t crowded, and we got a table on the roof. From the ground floor it doesn’t look like the Parthenon will be visible but you’re high enough up that it’s a straight shot and a great view. We took pictures every 5 minutes to get the different lighting and had another big meal. We got zucchini balls and yougurt dip, and greek salad, pork souvlaki, and my Dad got pork stuffed with peppers, sundried tomatoes and cheese. Again we were served free liquor. This version was basically Greek Tequila and it had a kick. Everything was good and we left with no room for dessert. We made it back to the room and crashed. The last day in Greece was pretty productive.
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| Our view from the table |
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