On to Athens

We flew to Athens today from Paros. I had to take a picture of the departure area at the Paros airport. The grey door on the left leads to the one scanning machine and another lounge on the other side about the same size...smallest airport ever, I think, but chatting with a couple there who have gone there a long time, it is bigger than it used to be.
We navigated the Athens Metro system and a short uphill walk to get to our Airbnb, within the area of the Acropolis. We are quite disappointed in the city itself. The part we are in is run down, graffiti everywhere, sidewalks broken up. Not very appealing. Of course, you can see the Acropolis and the temple of Zeus from the rooftop patio of our building, so there are some redeeming qualities.
We walked to Hadrian's Arch which sits right near the Temple of Zeus. The Temple was begun in 515 BC but was not finished until Hadrian did so in 131 BC. Some columns are still standing and they are huge!! The whole structure was as long as a football field, but not quite as wide.
We also visited the Panathenaic Stadium, home to the modern era Olympic Games. It is a magnificent stadium, built totally of stone, seats and all, reconstructed on the site of an ancient stadium for the 1896 games, the first of the modern era. It could hold 68,000 people. I won my event, as you can see from the picture. Dave won his as well, but was too tired to climb the podium.Weiterlesen