After leaving Mykonos (sad face), we spent a day in Athens. The city is famously named after Athena, Greek Goddess of Wisdom and War and probably some other stuff. According to myth, Athena and Poseidon originally competed to see which of them would be the patron god of the city. Poseidon made a saltwater spring for the city, which they were all, Thanks? I guess? And Athena made the olive tree! Apart from the fact that I dislike olives a lot, olive trees are pretty great. After all, that's where olive oil is from! And olive wood! And shade! So the people of Athens made the smart choice and named their city after Athena.
The city we docked at was Piraeus. Apparently it's been the port city of Athens since about 500 B.C. The two cities are basically right next to each other, and they're about as different from Mykonos or Olympia as you can get, by which I mean, they are huge. According to our tour guide, the city was designed (in modern times, I assume) to have about 500,000 inhabitants, but about 5 million people live there. It's very crowded! The strangest thing to me is that none of the buildings are tall. You'd think with so many people there would be high rises everywhere. But we sure didn't see any.
About to hike up to the Acropolis, looking super cute as per usual.
Our main trip of the day was, of course, The Acropolis. It's super impressive. It's a giant hill in the middle of the city with the remains of several temples on it. They're really big and beautiful and were probably breathtaking when they were not fally aparty. I really don't know how the ancient Greeks built them. We kind of struggled just climbing to the top of the hill. We definitely wouldn't have been able to also carry up giant blocks of marble. Today, the Acropolis has the remains of I think 2 temples and a couple of other buildings, one of which is the entrance to the Acropolis, so kind of like an ancient Greek visitors' center. I don't really know as much about this place as I might wish, because our guide had a super thick accent. She was hard to understand!
Part of the view hiking up to the Acropolis. I think this is the old-timey visitor's center.
Our tour guide! She of the hard to understand. Also, there were many steps and columns. It was most tranquil.
We're almost to the top! I wish I knew what all of the ruins are! I think they're all temples, and most of them are for Athena, but maybe one is for Zeus and one is also for Poseidon? IDK, this is why it's better to just have the one actual Heavenly Father. Also because He's way nicer than the Greek Gods ever were.
My one of my favorite things about the Acropolis was the random marble remains just lying around everywhere. There's some restoration work going on right now on the temples, but I don't think they'll be using all of that stuff. I think some of it will just be lying around looking super cool.
With cool random marble and Athens in the background! This was the brightest day. So much sunshine!
Moi in front of the Temple of Athena Nike. Note the olive tree! Probably not the original one, but who even knows! I'm not sure about this temple-Athena is the goddess of wisdom and war (and handicrafts!) and Nike is the goddess of victory, and I don't think they were ever the same person, it's very confusing. In any case, I love those lady statues a lot.
On the other side of the Temple of Athena Nike. It was really pretty. And you know, as far as Greek gods go, Athena was one of the cooler ones, so I can see why they liked her so much.
The Parthenon! This is the giant, awesome temple to Athena. They are doing a bunch of restoration/preservation work on it, as you can see from the equipment in the background. Also, up near the roof were some awesome random horse heads. Good times.
One of the views of the city from the Acropolis. Look, it's a temple to Hephaestus that is remarkably well preserved! This was the thing about going on tours-if I had been doing my own thing, I would have immediately set out and found this temple. Alas, our tour did not allow us to wander off.
On our way back down from the Acropolis. How did they build this???
After we visited the Acropolis, we basically went on a driving tour of Athens. It was pretty cool! Favorite features: the national library which I did not get a picture of, but it was super beautiful; the statue that holds the actual heart of Lord Byron, I guess because Greece held his figurative heart (literature!!!); the totally rando ruins that pop up in the middle of otherwise normal looking locales, and of course, the Olympic Stadium used in the first modern Olympics in 1896 but actually reconstructed from an ancient stadium.
Lord Byron statue! Complete with actual human heart.
Random ruins that are now in a park. I feel like this was part of a temple to Zeus. Our tour guide said they find this kind of stuff all the time, but a lot of it they just have to ignore, because they have to build new stuff somewhere!
Olympic Stadium! They also used this for the Olympics in 2004. They have a real sense of history in Greece, and who can blame them?
Greek Orthodox Cathedral in the Plaka. It was super pretty. We ate lunch right across from it. We also used the bathroom right across from it. Gross fact about Greece-the plumbing is terribad, so you cannot flush the toilet paper. You just bin it. EW!
One of the many dogs we saw in Athens. It's wearing a collar and doesn't seem super skinny, but it was not with any people and look how dirty it is! Life is so mysterious.
The end of our Greece experience was legit amazing. Because the whole time we were in Athens, our tour guide kept telling us that we could not be late back to the bus. The bus driver cannot wait! If he waits he will get in trouble with the police! Our group this day was super great and responsible (not so on other days), so we were waiting at the appointed corner before our bus got there. And sure enough, police were ticketing anyone and everyone in a car. The best part was they were ticketing this taxi driver, then they made him get out of his car, then they got out a screwdriver and took his license plates off the car! He was protesting vigorously the entire time. Actually the best part was how extremely handsome the police officers in question were. Yowza! Alas, no pictures, but it's probably for the best. We probably would have been ticketed for that.
Then we left Greece. It was legit tragic, although luckily not ancient Greek tragic, because that would have surely ended in at least one of us dying miserably after being cursed by the gods for something silly. The next day was spent sailing. Boo! It was my least favorite day of the trip because I wanted to get off the boat! But I did get lots of naps. And it does give me an excuse to post this great picture.
Sailing!!!
Stay tuned for next time, when the Black Lung goes all medieval on your...wait, this is a family blog.
