Temple of Athena Nike

Arrived in Athens last night, which instantly leaves a mark. Walking outside the train station, you are immediately face to face with ruins, Hadrian’s library. In fact, going back a step, there are ruins within the train station! While excavating the train station, they came across a large set of ruins. Incredible.

Hadrian was a Roman emperor in the first century AD, who was supposed to take over Athens, but instead fell in love with it and its people and lived out the rest of his days here. The Greeks then dedicated a monument called Hadrian’s Arch. The library was one of his many contributions to the Greeks.

Though not in the full throes of tourist season yet, you would be hard pressed to realize it. The streets, all of them, are jam packed, yet beautiful, and who doesn’t like people watching. We walked past the Ancient Agora, which was a meeting place and the birthplace of democracy.

We went to Zappeion Hall, which is the first building created for the Olympic Village back in 1896. Though the first Olympic Games were first held in the 7th century BC and continued until the 3rd century AD, the games were stopped for 1500 years! Emperor Theodosius wanted to focus on spreading Christianity and deemed the games to be pagan. Crazy!

We then swung by the Panathenaic stadium, which was originally built in the 6th century BC. Still to this day, this is the stadium where the Olympic Torch will always begin its long journey towards its host country. It also one of the reasons for the creation of the marathon.

The Greeks won a great battle versus the Ottoman Empire, in the city of Marathon, and asked one of their fastest runners to go back to Athens and tell the women about their great victory so they knew not to take their own lives as opposed to being slaves of the Ottoman Empire. Well, the distance that soldier ran from Marathon back to the stadium in Athens was about 26 miles. And we have run them ever since. The city has a great feel to it. Tomorrow, the Acropolis.Read more