Athens 1&2 Jason

 We arrived in the port of Piraeus which is about a 30 minute bus ride from Athens city center. The port area and town was clean but very modern and industrial. The bus was right outside the port building and Julio Delgado (the ship's expert on the different ports of call) said the bus was by far the most convenient way to get where we were going based upon where we docked.

We arrived in Athens near to Hadrian's Arch and walked 5 minutes to our hotel to drop off our backpacks before looking around. Hadrian's Arch (we return here later):

Our hotel was just a few steps off the pedestrianized street which runs east/west just below the Acropolis. I was pleasantly surprised with the hotel in general. Not up to western standards in terms of amenities but overall very good and the location means we won't need to use any transportation except to go to the airport on Monday. I was a bit hesitant when booking after seeing a number of pretty bad reviews mixed in with the good reviews.

The Acropolis Museum was built in the 2000s sometime to house all of the artifacts from the Acropolis and tell the story of it. I enjoyed the museum more than the Acropolis itself, but of course it doesn't have the "wow factor" that the site does which we'll visit Sunday morning.

After the museum we ate some Greek street food from a shop nearby. Overall very good. We visited the nearby Temple of Olympian Zeus which unfortunately has scaffolds everywhere. I get the impression both the Greeks and Italians don't really know what they're doing when it comes to planning restoration and cleaning projects on this scale as it is clear the scaffolding has been there for quite some time. As an aside there is evidence of this kind of "non work" everywhere in both countries - I don't know if it is a lack of planning, ambition, or (more likely) funding that has these seemingly trivial projects drag on. I assume they don't work on the project during heavy tourist season, and I guess I don't know exactly what they're planning to do, but it does seem odd. We purchased our combo ticket here to save the lines at the busier Acropolis. Everyone here speaks English and so far I would say the Greek people who work at the tourist areas are all very helpful and nice. They probably put in fairly long days in the hot summer. There wasn't much worth photographing here as the main structure was covered in the aforementioned scaffolding. The place was huge and at one time had something like 100 columns that were 56 ft tall (compared to the "puny" parthenon of the Acropolis' 35 ft columns).

We checked into our Hotel and had a rest. The key to open the door to the room is an old style key that is really finnicky. Scarlett and I went upstairs to the roof and wow what a great view from their little cafe. We also have a little balcony off the back of our room, but it is so hot here I can't imagine sitting out there unless it was evening. We're pretty wimpy compared to these people who are used to this heat.

After resting we saw the  tomb of the unknown soldier, the national gardens, and the Olympic track. Me and the kids raced around the track.

The small Olympic torch and poster museum was interesting. Touching some of the torches was neat, I remember watching the Athens games in 2004 and especially the 1996 Atlanta games when Donovan Bailey beat the "fastest man" record. The propaganda inspired poster of the Berlin '36 games was hung in a lonely corner:

There are stray cats everywhere. They are friendly and usually have a water dish nearby. This one looked like the cat we had that got run over 5 years ago.

Afterwards we trekked over to the northern slopes of the Acropolis and found a Taverna to eat at that has been there for decades. The appetizers were very good as was the sausage, we really should've taken note of what the sausage was called. The grilled meat wasn't great. The ambiance and view were interesting. It was 36 degrees or something like that even in the early evening. By the middle of the night it went down to 26 degrees. On the way we saw the Odeon, they were getting ready to have a concert. We considered booking tickets but the band was a French electronic / techno style which didn't really appeal to us. We also got a view of the Acropolis as the sunset, there was an entire crowd on the hill overlooking it waiting for sunset.

We got an early start and were waiting when the Acropolis opened and were amongst the first group to get in. We had the site to ourselves for a short while. It was a long walk up the Propylae staircase but the top itself is very flat. The scaffolding wasn't as obtrusive this time, so maybe they have their act together more here and are working on it in sections. The site is huge with a few structures including the massive Parthenon. Tina and I liked the smaller structures better. We took some fun pictures and looked around at the 2400 year old site before heading back down. It was already starting to get hot and crowded so I'm glad we got an early start. 

Lots of young ladies getting their instagram shots over here we've noticed:

Pieter didn't get the memo this was supposed to be a nice shot so is making a "serious" face or something. We took another one after that looked normal but I guess I uploaded this one.

Flag flying at the Eastern wall: 

In on area there was almost no one except we met a couple from Madrid and shared cameras to take some photos - I'm usually hesitant to let anyone use my stuff but his camera was nicer than mine so I figured we'd be ok - it all worked out well and they did a good job.

We visited the Ancient Agora, Stoa of Atticos, and Temple of Hephastous (I'm sure I spelt those wrong) before heading back to the hotel. It was already hot.

Tina tried a Greek coffee which she says was different in that it seemed like the grounds were still in the liquid. We returned to our hotel for Siesta to get out of the heat of the day.