Tandc2007's travel blogs:
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Back in Athens
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24 October - Up early cos today is a big day - we're going to tackle the Acropolis and several other of the ancient sites in Athens that we only viewed from a distance when we were here 2 weeks ago.
So we set off thinking we'll get to the Acropolis before the worst of the tourist rush - but no! There's at least 5 bus loads at the gates around the same time as us and more and more turn up as we go round. Luckily it's a big site, but there's still bottle necks at various points and strangers keep wandering into other strangers photos. We have plenty of time, so its fun just watching the tours being herded through. We probably miss out on a bit of the interpretive stuff, but not too much - Tour Guide Tina has the guide book and gives detailed explanations at all the important places (those ones mentioned in the guide book anyway). Several of the major buildings on the Acropolis are in the process of being restored. They are covered with scaffolding, people are working all over them and tourist access is restricted in these areas. We see two men carving marble - just like 2000 years ago - its quite cool! Despite all the other tourists, the scaffolding and the congestion, this is still an awesome experience!
We continue round the base of the Acropolis to the Theatre of Dionysis, then on to the Temple of Zeus. We're getting a bit hungry by this stage - its early afternoon and some of us didn't have a lot for breakfast, so we head towards Syntagma Sq to find something to eat. Which means we pass by the Presidential Palace just in time to watch the Changing of the Guard. Chris nearly dies laughing - he's convinced the Monty Python "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch was taken directly from this ceremony - except that they didn't get it funny enough!!! Refreshed after a good lunch (and a sit down to rest the weary legs!), its time for more sight seeing. This time its Hadrian's Library (this was one busy Emperor - he's got stuff all over Turkey too!), then the Tower of the Winds (we take some time identifying all the different Winds carved into the 8 faces of the Tower, then figuring out how the sun-dials on the south facing sides work) then on to the rest of the Roman Forum (including a long discussion about what exactly is a Propylon and when does a Stoa become a Colonnade....) several of the more philistine of our group get bored at this point and wander off to listen to an African street band!
Our final destination was to clamber up to a bare rock promentary to the side of the Acropolis, which gives great views across the city and out to Pireaus port. We'd seen people up on this hill at dusk, watching the sunset. It was lovely up there, but the rock is solid marble and with the thousands of people each week clambering over it, its become highly polished and very slippery. Quite dangerous given its sheer drop and no safety rails! And unfortunately no real sunset tonite because of the cloud. One nice thing about the rains of last week is that new growth is every where - what was barren dry hillsides and rocks last time we were in Athens, now has fresh green grass and other vegetation poking through, and little yellow crocuses and pink cyclamen are now flowering in crevasses in the rocks - very pretty!
Its Andy Bell's birthday today and unbeknown to him, Lee has organised for us to go to dinner at a little local restaurant we've found with great mezades plates, and she's secretly managed to buy a bottle of good French champagne and a selection of yummy cakes, which we manage to sneak into our rooms in the hotel without him seeing. We arrange to go back to our rooms to shower and get ready for dinner, then to meet in Tina and Chris's room for predinner drinks - the pretext being that there's beers left over from the yacht charter that need drinking. While we are in our getting ready, the champagne is transferred to T&C's room and Tina makes a "laurel wreath" for Andy out of a map of Athens. He's so amazed and touched by our thoughtfulness! And later that night as Andy wears his extremely sophisticated laurel wreath (luckily we'd had quite a lot to drink in our room first), the restaurant owner brings out the little cakes, complete with candle and we burst in to "Happy Birthday" and all the other (very sophisticated Athenian) patrons in the restaurant clap along....
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