Athens Day 2

We made our own breakfast - a first for weeks - then planned a counter-clockwise walk through the parks and sites around the Acropolis. Blue sky, warm, and not (too) crowded.

After the second hill we were near enough to the Acropolis and decided that even a little queueing would be easier that walking back tomorrow. Luckily, there was no queue at all, so we walked straight in and up. Everyone knows about the Parthenon, but the aspect that staggers me most is that it was designed nearly 2,500 years ago by people skilled enough to avoid straight lines so that it would look better, and built by craftsmen good enough to understand the design rules and create everything without (modern) machines. The architects must have learnt that skill through other buildings, so the Greeks were creating things of genius perhaps even 3,000 years ago.

I feel a little sorry for the original people on the site: so much has happened in a small area, and so much has been destroyed and rebuilt, that their no doubt lesser achievements have been erased. We may never know when and what they really did.

We wandered back past the original Olympic stadium and remnants of temples, looked through some shops, and were back around 7hrs after starting. Not too many hills or kms, though.

We braced the markets and streets full of restaurant spruikers for dinner, and found almost what we wanted: simple Gyros and tzatziki. Only moussaka to go! Orange cake and chocolate mousse with pistachio materialised afterwards, which was unexpected.

19,975 steps, 14.6km and 22 floors.Read more