Here it is! The Acropolis! This is the one thing in Athens that everyone knows about. Maybe you should ask yourself where you are standing when you see it like this? We will show you later ...
The Acropolis is in the throes of its fourth (or fifth or sixth) major renovation. It was blown up a couple of hundred years ago when it was being used to store gunpowder. It actually had walls just inside the columns. They are going to put most of the walls back in this time. Most people won't recognize it when they finish.
This is one of several theaters you see on the walk up to the Acropolis. Not really different from the ones on Cyprus or in Jordan. A lot of that ancient Greek/Roman stuff looks a lot alike.
Temple of Zeus seen from the Acropolis. Not much left. You can see how the columns were made by noticing the pile of "slices" where one of the columns fell.
Hadrian's Arch to honor the Emperor Hadrian. He had started a "new neighborhood" in the city! This is about as deeply as we dug into the historic aspects of the city. Since it is so close to the Acropolis, you get an idea of how small the actual city was. We tend to think important cities are large. If you go this far back in history, they were very small.
The hill with the tower is where we took the first picture from. It is the tallest spot in the city and has a wonderful view.
They are trying to do restoration all over the Acropolis. Here is what they have to work with. It is an incredible bunch of unrelated pieces of stone that they try to reassemble. There are, of course, no pictures to work from. No one, of course, really knows what it looked like.
This looking down on the old market area. The temples tended to have the same "look" to them.
This is a swing around with the camera from the top of the tallest hill. It is pretty amazing how large the city has become. We had to ride the tram about 45 minutes to get past all the wall-to-wall houses.
Christmas Day Mass at the Aga Dionissios downtown. We went because it was the closest English language service. We sort of messed up by arriving on time. The place was packed with expats! We had to stand during the entire service.
This is Syntagma Square. It is across from the Parliament and is the center of all celebrations and riots in Athens. The entire place was decorated for Christmas and New Years.
The night we went down, it was absolutely covered with people. We weren't even there for New Year's Eve.
This is an old industrial area they used to generate coal gas. The entire area has been renovated into a children's play area and exhibition hall.
This was just about the only thing open for Christmas Day. Lots of kids and families.
This was a clock in the subway in Syntagma Square. We took the Clock Tour in Seattle so we tend to notice the clocks.
We rode the trams out to the beach. It was winter and not very many people were around. A few people swimming, but not a lot.
We visited a Car Museum. The cars were wonderful and, since it was in Greece, we saw a lot of car brands and models we were not familiar with. The entire thing was actually a private collection.
Alonda with a pink Cadillac.
Alonda loved the dashboard.
She thought the little serving trays were wonderful. They are better than on the airplanes.
This is the ferry boat we took out to one of the islands. Everyone talks about the Greek Isles.
This is the island of Aegina from the ferry boat. The boat backs up and parks against the concrete. We are used to the double-ended ferries like they have in Seattle.
We didn't take the hydrofoil. It only saved about 20 minutes and cost a LOT more. The whole "visit the Greek Isles" thing was very expensive. We visit islands and ride boats all the time, so we were not that excited.
This is the harbor on Aegina. Quite picturesque. Cafes and tourist shopping with motor scooters so you can circle the island.
This is Kolona, the archeological site. It's name means "single-column". They call it this because they made an entire museum based around the single, lone column still standing after centuries of earthquakes and wind.
This is what loading and unloading is like in Athens. The cars, trucks and people all go on and off at the same time on the same bridge.
When in Greece; cook Greek. We signed up for a Greek cooking class.
This is some of the stuff we used to prep everything. Alonda learned to make Greek pastries. They are actually very good!
The cook/teacher cheats and has everything pre-cut before she starts to put it together.
We didn't learn to make this, but a chocolate crepe is actually excellent!
