Athens Wednesday 6th September 2017

Leaving day. Ugh. No fun for us then.

After a late wake up and a leisurely breakfast, we walked the 200 m to the Acropolis Museum. What a deal: 5 euros to get in! Architecturally a wonderful building.

They do not like you using a camera inside, so if you are interested in what it looks like, this is the link to the official site:

http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en
 

The stuff inside, well one Minotaur starts to look like another. How it is presented is superb.  We enjoyed the audiovisual stuff and the odd small recreation of the pediment sculptures.

A nice cup of coffee in the cafeteria, which would have been worth five euros cover charge by itself.

One of the best parts was the top floor, which showed most of the frieze in position.

It was like having a view from a scaffold, high up.

Cannot believe the amount of work that was put into the carvings and friezes.  Very beautiful.  Takes a few days to start getting into the way of things here. A huge amount of work put into the museums to bring back some idea of the history of Greece.

Going to the airport, we were originally going on the metro, for the sum of eighteen euros.  The taxi was a fixed price of 38 euros, so for twenty euros extra we got a taxi.

Athens, Tuesday 5 September

We tried unsuccessfully to keep this low key and relaxed as we were getting a bit frazzled with the heat.

Two tasks: One, check out the National Archeological Museum. Two, take the tram to the beach for a swim.

Sometimes, it just pays to ask your hotel receptionist how to get somewhere.  By the time Bill had misread the subway map, which admittedly was a bit non specific, and you pop up out of the underground expecting the Museum to be at least close, only to find it is a 1k walk away....

National Archeological Museum

Quite an impressive museum, if you like pots.  Rose started at one end and was minutely examining every thing she could find, which was LOTS. Of pots. Busts of this and that, and so on. One of us took time to point out if we check everything, we might be here for weeks.

One amazing item was a mechanical zodiac indicator with actual bronze gears. A CAD animated exploded view, coupled with  an actual reconstruction to show what a feat this was.

Tram trip to the beach

Neat tram, good trip. The beach was nice, but the water not really clear enough for snorkelling.
Trip back not so nice as we had to stand most of the way.

 

Athens, Monday 4 September 2017

If you are ever in Piraeus, the port of Athens, do not, repeat NOT get on the x80 port bus. Just a big bunfight trying to get your bags on, then even more people get on the next stop squashing everyone in a hot bus for half an hour. Getting out at the Acropolis was another frantic rush to get out around too many people.

Guess we have had it good so far, so why expect perfection?

Cruising is great in theory, but it can feel like you are on a merry go round, each day a new port and you do not know what it will be like.

Probably good for finding a nice island, for instance Rhodes we liked very much.

A more relaxed holiday might be, go to Rhodes, find some hotel in a remote village and stay for 7 days.  Needless to say, it would have to have really clear water for snorkelling.

Sunday we did the Roman Agora, which you can see most of from the outside. So why did we buy tickets for 6 Euros? Dunno.

Nothing truly astounding.

Here it is, with the temple of the winds:

 

Forging ahead to the Ancient Agora, made it to the ticket box, but Rose pulled the plug, which made Bill quite happy, as he was near empty.

Sat in a cafe, Rose had coke, Bill had an Ouzo.

Monday, set off again for the Ancient Agora, tried to buy two iced teas, then realised I had left my wallet behind.  The waiter said no worries, and gave it to us anyway.

So a 1k walk back to the hotel and then returned to buy our tickets.  Rose thought it was nicer than the Acropolis, but I thought it appeared to be the foundations of what was once there, just like the forum in Rome. Having said that, we did find both of the buildings, one of them reconstructed, to be as impressive as the Acropolis.

Pics of the Ancient Agora:

 

Back to our usual cafe, where we balanced the budget with the waiter.

The area seems to have lots of homeless cats, and we noticed a young woman busy feeding them.  She has treated lots of them for blindness.  We tried to give her 5 euro but she flagged it away. 

Here she is with the cats:

Now zoned out under air conditioning. 

So what do we feel about the Greek people? Four days is not enough to give a really informed opinion, but the ones we have come into contact with seem to be friendly, competent and helpful.