Athens

We've made it to Greece! I asked Zoe what her first impression of Athens was an she aid, "There's lots of graffiti. That was my first impression too. In fact I read an article about a new building and the author noted that it was beautiful at least until the graffiti "artists" make their mark. The second thing I noted was everything was in Ελληνικά. street signs are in three languages, none of which recognizably corresponds to published or Google maps.  It's all Ελληνικά to me : )

Ann-Kristin got us an awesome apartment with views of the Acropolis. We have great wifi and s p a c e. The kids like it and they immediately found their own corners. We have pretty much been cooped up since Australia. They must be on overload. We try to make sure they at least get the high points of what we are seeing. They are troopers.

The Athens Metro subway is fast and easy to get around on!

We visited the ancient agora (gathering place) which was the core of old Athens on the north slope below the Acropolis. There we saw the Museum of the Stoa of Attallos, a restored stoa (long colonnaded structure that once served as shops and offices). The museum was interesting and the restoration gave us an idea of what the dozen or so other stoas we saw now lying in ruins once looked like. At the agora,  we saw the Temple of Hephaistos (Hepheastus), the world's best preserved Doric temple. 

We then made the climb to the Acropolis ("upper city"), a high (200+ feet) rock promontory made bigger by some massive stone walls. The Parthenon, temple for the goddess Athena dominates the Acropolis. Ann-Kristin says we need to visit the reconstructed Parthenon in Nashville when we get there to see what it really looked like. Structures we saw on the Acropolis were up to 3,000 years old.

We descended to the Museum of the Acropolis which is dedicated to artifacts from the Acropolis consisting mostly of pottery, bronze implements and stone sculptures and structural elements. The museum had many original, as well as reconstructed artifacts on display.

From there we wandered a few miles through the neoclassical neighborhood of Plaka with zigzagging and winding streets filled with restaurants and shops (mostly for tourists). The kids got Beats (headphones) knock offs here which I'm sure was the highlight of their day (Parthenon-Smarthenon).

The Acropolis from our apartment at day

The Acropolis from our apartment at night

The restored Stoa of Attalos

The Temple of Hephaistos (Hepheastus) - world's best preserved Doric temple

The Temple of Hephaistos from the Acropolis

The Odeion of  Herodes Atticus

Taking a rest on the south wall of the Acropolis

The Parthenon

The Parthenon - again

The Parthenon - and again

The Parthenon - and again

 

The massive south walls of the Acropolis 

The Museum of the Acropolis - no photos inside

The Plaka neighborhood

The Plaka neighborhood - Ann-Kristin eating pork and drinking beer (both something we missed in the Muslim countries we visited)

PS - Just to be clear, regardless of whose name shows on a blog post, Eric has been responsible/to blame for all of posts since we left home. Ann-Kristin contributes corrections. Blogger defaults to Ann-Kristin and I'm just too lazy to change the Google+ login. My hope is that our family, friends and the people covering our butts while we take this audacious adventure get a chance to see what we are experiencing. Hi everybody! We miss you all.

PPS - While in Evans Head, AK showed Ann Tosomeen how to make yogurt. The word is it is now being served in the Evans Head school lunch room. We've made an impact on the world (at least AK has).

PPPS - We had our first snafu. Ann-Kristin and I both booked B&Bs in Naples that we can't cancel. Care to join us tomorrow?