Category: 2019 Europe Spring

We had a leisurely morning.  Eventually we got organized and walked around the national garden. It was very pretty but there weren’t a lot of flowers, mostly forested areas and even a few animals, birds and sheep, in cages.

Next Rick wanted to walk by a couple of neoclassical building we had driven by the day before on our city tour with Nina.  Here are some pictures.

At this point we were hungry so we walked over to a cute place we had seen the night before.  We had very nice lunch at a cafe that was on stairs up the hill to the Acropolis.

After lunch I wanted to go to the Ancient Agora and everyone else was feeling jet lagged so they went back to the apartment.  While the Acropolis was the ceremonial showpiece, the Agora was the real heart of ancient Athens.  It was the hub of all commercial, political, and social life in Athens from approximately 600BC until 267AD. Most of it is rubble with the exception of a rebuilt stoa, an ancient shopping mall. I listened to Rick Steves audio tour which really helped create an image of what it would have looked like 2,500 years ago.  Here are some pictures.

I walked back to the apartment and everyone was either napping or relaxing.  That evening we walked to the market bought a couple of pizzas for dinner.  After the pizza we played our first game of dominoes.

The guys went to get croissants so we had a great start to the day.  We decided the best way to get a good introduction to the city was to do Rick Steves’ city walk. We walked by walking through Syntagma Square, the main square of Athens and then by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where there was a changing of the guard.  I didn’t take a video but here  is one from YouTube.

Then we went on to see several famous churches and several famous streets.  We saw Hadrian’s Gate from the first century AD which was the transition from the old Greek Athens to the “new” city, Hadrianpolis, which was built by, you guessed it, Hadrian.

We continued the tour until we ended up in a nice courtyard where we decided to have a coffee.  Here are pictures from our walk.

The next stop on the Rick Steves tour was the Acropolis. We had a tour scheduled that afternoon for the Acropolis so we decided to stop the tour and go back to the apartment.  I took a nap because I’m still fighting my cold.  We went out for a late lunch and then came back to our apartment to be picked up for our tour.

Our tour guide, Nina, was waiting for us  in front of the building.  Our first stop was the Acropolis.  We learned how Athens got its name.

Cecrops, a strange creature, half-man half-snake, was the founder of a city. Cecrops had named his city after himself, Cecropia. However, the gods of Olympus saw this lovely piece of land and wanted to name it after themselves and become its patron. The most persistent rivals were Poseidon, the sea god, and Athena, the goddess of wisdom.  To solve their dispute, Zeus decided that each of them would make a gift to the city and king Cecrops would decide which gift was the best and therefore which god would be the patron of the city. One sunny day, Cecrops and the residents of the city went up to a high hill to watch the gods giving their gifts. Poseidon was the first to present his gift. He struck a rock with his trident and caused a spring of water to gush forth from the ground. This signified that he was assuring the citizens would always have water and therefore they wouldn’t face any droughts. However, the people were not enchanted with his gift because the water from the spring tasted salty, just like the waters of the sea over which Poseidon ruled. Next was the goddess Athena’s turn.  She planted a seed in the ground, which grew up to be a lovely olive tree. The citizens liked this gift better because it would give them food, oil and firewood. With one voice they loudly acclaimed Athena as their benefactress.

We went up to the Acropolis which means a fortification on a hill.  Over the years the Acropolis had many different functions but it started off as temples to the goddess Athena.  The Parthenon is one of the temples.  It was very impressive.  Here are pictures of the Acropolis and from the Acropolis.

Then we went to the Acropolis museum and Nina showed us around.  Many of the sculptures are in the British museum and Greece has been trying to get them back but haven’t yet been successful.  Our driver then picked us up and Nina gave us a driving tour of the Athens.  Many of the sites we had seen during our wandering.  After awhile we said goodbye to our driver and Nina give us a walking tour through the city.  She was very knowledgeable and gave us a lot of information but by now it was about 9:00 in the evening and we were all very tired.  We thanked her and said goodbye when we arrived at our apartment.  Everyone fell into bed after a long day.

We had kind of a lazy day.  I think I am fighting a cold and Rick has had a sore shoulder for a couple of days so we decided to take it easy.  Also we have our friends joining us and we didn’t want to do something they would want to do.

So we wandered around a bit.

We went to Mars Hill where Apostle Paul preached to the Athenians.  It had great views of the Acropolis and of Athens, but the rocks were very slippery from centuries of pedestrians.

Then we tried to see the Theater of Dionysus but you needed a ticket.  We have a guide scheduled for tomorrow and she will be taking us to the Acropolis so hopefully we will see it then.

We wandered over to the Arch of Hadrian.  We also walked by Hadrian’s library.

Here are photos from our walk.

We returned to the apartment for a little while before going out to lunch.

After lunch we walked back and sat outside at the cafe in front of our apartment to wait for our friends.  They arrived at about 4:30.  They got settled and we visited for a little while before going out to dinner.  After dinner we walked around the Acropolis before returning to the apartment where everyone fell into bed.

Today was a travel day.  We left our mountain retreat this morning and drove three hours to the marina, just outside of Athens, where we will pick up our boat on Saturday. We dropped off a suitcase and a backpack there.  They will hold them for us until Saturday.  Since we’re dropping off the car at the airport we didn’t want to drag the stuff into the city and then back out to the boat.

After the marina we went to the airport, dropped off the car, and took a taxi to our apartment.  Terri and Joanne and Mike and Kay are flying in tomorrow so we need a three bedroom apartment.  Our apartment is very spacious and well appointed. It’s in the Plaka district, which is at the foot of the Acropolis.  According to Rick Steves, it is “one of the only parts of town that has a vibrant atmosphere and an Old World feel.”

We dropped off our stuff in the apartment and went out for a late lunch/early dinner.  We found a place not too far from the apartment.  After eating we wandered a little so that we could see the Acropolis.  It was hard to really get a sense of it but it looked majestic up on the hill.

Then we came back to the apartment to do some laundry.  It took us a while to figure out using google translate which bottle, of many, was laundry detergent and how to work the washing machine.  I haven’t mentioned the Greek letters but, of course, everything is written in Greek.  Rick has memorized most of the letters and he can sound things out, but I’m not so good at it.  Only problem is sounding things out only helps if you know the Greek word.

After starting the laundry we went back out to find a supermarket.  The first one we tried to go to was not where google said it was so we found another one much closer to the apartment.

There were lots of people out and the city seems quite alive.  Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of homeless people, a fair share of poor people begging and a number of refugees that have arrived from afar.   Rick bought some apricots and a little girl came over to ask for one.  We gave her three, one for her, one for her sister, and one for her mother. We also saw the row of bedding in the picture below. A sad reflection of the economic hardship the country is suffering through and the immigrant crisis.

By now it was 8:00 so we returned to the apartment and relaxed a little.

Here is a map from today.

Today our friend Stephie wasn’t around in the morning to advise about things to do today so we trusted Rick Steves and headed north to Nafplion and Mycenae after breakfast.

Rick Steves describes Nafplion as a “charming port town,” “small, cozy, and strollable,” and places it on his must-see list. Nafplion changed hands between the Venetians and the Ottomans repeatedly from the 14th through the 19th century, so the city and its architecture have been influenced by a number of different cultures.  It became the capital of Greece for thirteen years after Greece received its independence from the Ottoman Empire after the Revolution of 1821.

It took us about two hours to get there.  It was overcast and rained a little on and off during our ride.  We parked and, of course, the first order of business was coffee.  Once Rick had his caffeine fix we set off following Rick Steves’ walk through town which took us by all the main sites.  Luckily we had our raincoats because we had some rain during our walk. The harbor was protected by three castles which we saw in the distance but didn’t visit.  We definitely could see the mix of Greek, Venetian, and Turkish architecture.

At the end of tour we found a nice restaurant to have lunch. Overall Nafplion was nice, but we wouldn’t have put it on the must-see list.

After lunch, we headed to Mycenae which is a fortress city that was the hub of a mighty civilization that dominated the Greek world between 1600 and 1200 BC. Not much is known about Mycenaeans including who they were, where they came from, or what happened to them.   Rick had had enough of ruins so I went in by myself.  Again I followed Rick Steves walking tour.  It was mostly just rock ruins but it was interesting to think about the people living there 3,500 years ago.

Then we drove back to our mountain home.   We didn’t get back to our hotel until about 7.  Here is a map of our travels today.

We spent the evening rearranging our stuff so that we could drop off a suitcase at the marina rather than drag it into Athens.