We arrived expecting to have to check our bags and come back later to check into our rooms. Well, thanks to Marriott and the request for early chrck in, we were able to check into our room at 9:30 in the morning! Yet another reason I love staying at Marriots.
They have a shuttle bus that runs to the city center every hour. So, we go downstairs to get on the shuttle. There was a pretty good sized line. The bus finally pulled up and people started to get on the bus. Well, the driver stopped people from getting on and asked for two more people. Naturally, the last two folks were right in front of us. I asked the driver if we could just stand and he said no, it is not permitted. Very annoying.
So, we asked the bellman if he could call us a taxi and he asked where we were going and we told him. He said we would be better off walking 800 meters (about a half mile) to the subway station. In his words "you don't want to deal with taxi drivers". I guess that means he didn't trust them.
Subways are fine with us, se we started walking. It was sprinkling a little and we thought our last day was going to be rainy. It kept spitting rain till we got to the subway.
We got on the subway and got to where we needed to go and we go outside and the sun is shining again. Go figure.
Our first stop was the Roman Agora and the tower of the winds. The tower was a way for them to tell time and wind direction-fairly advanced. From there, we were trying to find the ancient Agora, but I got turned around and ended up at the Acropolis. That actually worked out better in the long run.
- tower of the winds
The Acropolis was very cool. Very massive structures and pretty well intact. The only dissapointment is that they are doing conservation and reconstruction on most of the ruins in the Acropolis (including the Parthenon, the temple of Athena and the Polysporius). Those are the three main monuments. Even with scaffolding all around them, they are very impressive feats of craftsmanship. Hard to believe that it only took the Greeks 9 years to build the Parthenon. Ironically, they have been working on the restorations for longer than it took for the original construction!
- view of the Acropolis
- Parthenon
- porch of the Carytatids
They had a museum of the Parthenon as well that was good to walk through. They had a lookout that we could see other areas closeby, such as the temple of Zeus and the Olympic stadium.
From there, we walked though the ancient Agora and another museum. Very interesting. We also saw the only ancient temple that still has its original roof intact.
We then stopped and ate lunch at a restaurant and had some great greek food. We have had a lot of great food on this trip, but we are actually ready for some good chips and salsa when we get home!
While we were eating, a storm came up and we thought we might be in for a rainy afternoon. We could actually see the rain coming down close to us, but it blew by and we had great weather the entire day.
Our last stop was the musuem of ancient archaeology. Very worthwhile. Very impressive. Very large. We were beat by the time we were done.
We did get some bonus pix for our friends that we will post later.
- picture for Ben of ancient hockey players
We then took the subway back to the hotel and took a shower and walked down to a restaurant. More great greek food. I always find misspellings interesting. For instance, tonight Rachael had the "Mashroom" pie and I had the vegetarian kabobs with......"Mashrooms". Spelling aside, the food was fantastic.
Now we are done repacking the suitcases and are ready for the dreaded day of travel with multiple flights and tight connections. Joy.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.
1 comment:
Whew, I'm exhausted from reading about your day! How cool to see all that history. And eat all that authentic Greek food...mmm.
Safe travels! We'll say prayers.
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