Gate of Athena Archegetis

After a very (very) hot night in the dorm room, we woke up a bit earlier to explore our only full day in Athens!

We started with a visit to the Acropolis Hill (referring to what was the highest point in the city) and the Parthenon. We walked up the hill from the southern side and saw the Theatre of Dionysus on the way up. The view from the top was absolutely spectacular! There were a lot of people around so we had to pass some areas in single file and take our time! The ruins themselves were so very well preserved and was just so hard to comprehend how many there were!

We strolled around the acropolis, seeing the Erechtheion and other temples and enjoying the views over the city. We then descended down in a different direction to see more of Athens.

We walked past the ancient Athens Agora (not the Roman one) and Hadrian’s Library ruin sites on our way to Monastiraki Square, one of the main squares of Athens.

We breezed through the flea markets near the square and then headed for the National Archaeological Museum, getting some ice cream on the way of course!

We were prepared for the museum to be big and comprehensive, and it certainly delivered! There were thousands of centuries of Greek history (with some antiques from as far back as 7000BC!!) The musesum contains 11,000 exhibitions and we viewed artefacts in marble, clay, bronze and other materials mostly from Greece as well as other Mediterranean areas. We enjoyed the huge collection of sculptures, many rooms filled with vases and pots, jewellery, metalwork and even glassware (which was beautiful). Gab particularly enjoyed the Mycenaean artefacts as she also learned about this in high school Ancient History and could remember learning about the Linear A tablets (ancient tablets with writing of them), the frescoes found at ancient sites (including the ancient volcanic site at Akitriki in Santorini) and other amazing jewellery and other figurines.

We spent well over 3 hours exploring and learning about Greek history before heading for an afternoon snack to replenish our energy!

We then went to Syntagma Square and the President's Palace to watch the changing of the guard before going to dinner to have our final gyros of Greece! Gab had a haloumi gyros and Daniel had a pork gyros. We returned to the hostel for showers and had an early night as we would be getting up early tomorrow!Baca selengkapnya