Day 76 - Athens, Greece

Today with free admission to the main ancient sites, we had the Acropolis Hill in our sites for the morning.

On the way we grabbed breakfast at The Brunchers. We had some great pancakes but Katie’s ordered got mixed up through miss hearing her/language barrier, so Katie ended up having pancakes covered in chocolate and strawberries!

We lined up to get our tickets to the Acropolis, not realising they are timed even on free days, we got the 12pm slot. There were many tour guides with free tickets selling an hour guided tour for earlier time slots, but I had Rick Steves Podcast tour waiting for us!

While we killed the time we went over to see the Panathenaic Stadium which is the site of the first modern olympics in 1896.
Along the way back we stopped in at the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which is a former colossal temple that is built on the site of a former ancient outdoor sanctuary dedicated to Zeus. Today only 15 columns stand (hard to actually count with all the scaffolding up) with an open air museum, there is also ruins to a local bath house on the site.

We went back to the Acropolis Hill for 12pm, it was hot to say the least! We turned on the podcast and got to see a view of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, which is now returned to its former glory with out a roof, an open air theatre. We walked up through the impressive entrance gate, the Propylaea. Learnt more about the Parthenon and how Greece is trying to rebuild the Parthenon with existing pieces but also using new marble in places that there are missing pieces. The Marble comes in blocks from the same quarry that the Parthenon Marble was made from. We also got to see the replicas of the Caryatids on the Erechtheion.

After visiting the Hill and looking around at the other ruins, we walked back to town to grab an easy lunch from Smak then onto the Accomadation to relax out of the heat.

Before dinner we grabbed a spritz and wine from a bar in town to celebrate Europe trip coming to an end as we move to the Middle East tomorrow.
For dinner we went to another local tavern that is a wee bit more touristy than we usually go.

We ended the night at Little Kook for some ice cream and a milkshake… the ice cream was good, we put the milk shake tasting a little different to their milk.Read more