Day 75 - Athens, Greece

Seeing we couldn’t find a supermarket last night, we thought we’d treat ourselves to breakfast out.
We went off to Picky Bunch & Speciality Coffee, I know it’s summer but I’m a sucker for Porridge, so had to try their porridge. It was good, still doesn’t beat Seven Penny on the West Coast, NZ

Our plan for the day was to see some of the ancient sites of Athens. We went to the Ancient Agora of Athens to buy our passes to visit the main 5 sites. The lady attendant was informing people that Saturday & Sunday were free days due to heritage days, so all sites were free. So we changed our plan to go see the sites tomorrow. Majority of sites you can see from the outside as well & there’s not many information boards inside.

So we went past a couple from the outside as they are dotted all along the main areas, then headed to the main shopping street. We wanted to get some clothes for Egypt as some of my clothes have seen better days, also we found 50euro tax free shipping in Greece.
I also got a haircut and finally went for the shaved look… aerodynamic on top… shame about the rest!

We got some lunch from Smak Ζυμερία, which is pizza with the Greek twist to it! It was amazing!

We got back to the accommodation to cool down then headed over to the Acropolis Museum, as we had been told by other travellers this was a not to be missed museum.

Before reaching the museum, we found a local shop with an amazing dress for Katie that would keep her cool for Egypt but modestly covered encase that is needed. The shop keeper was friendly and her Labrador wasn’t moving from the cold stone floor in a hurry while we were in the small shop!

Once at the museum, we started the museum off by going under the museum, this is the ruins site of Roman & early Byzantine Athens. They built the museum to be raised and made sure smart placement of the concrete footings, to not damage the ruins that are there. This building is sitting on bedrock that can survive a 10.0 magnitude earthquake! The digging started in 1997 for the ruins, they had excavated the footprint of the museum and found all the ruins to be able to start the museum build, then they covered it in sand to protect the ruins while building the museum. The museum was opened in 2009, but the ruins were not open for the public to walk through until 2019.

After the ruins site we went into the museum, all the artefacts they found on the acropolis hill is now stored here (except for some marble statues the Pom’s won’t give back, as they think they had permission to take them!)
The statues in question are the Caryatids of Erechtheum, which are one of six female figures who supported the roof of the south porch of the Erechtheion (next to the Parthenon up top) the female figures on the Erechtheion there today, are replicas due to the originals weathering away.

We found the museum to be well laid out, we are not ones to love museums but we both agreed it was great to see. I’m just amazed at how much stays in tact especially from 600 BC!

After the museum we made our way through the heat back to our Accomadation, I got a beer to enjoy once back at the apartment. (Mamos beer for those wondering!) Katie had the enjoyment of watching some 90 day fiancé on the iPad!

We had dinner at a local tavern I found and just happened to be right behind Little Klook!
Krasopoulio tou Kokkora is a little tradition Greek tavern serving a great Mousaka made with beef mince! Katie had the local sausage, we also had the house wine! Biggest thing I’ll miss is the 4-9euro 0.5l house wine in Europe! Unfortunately we were too full to try Little Klook, but I did tell the waiter trying to lure me in to there, that I’d be back tomorrow night!

To let my new hair do down, we went to The Party Bar to have a Spritz & a Gin & Tonic to finish our night.Read more