We arrived in Athens and everything went well at the airport, Bruce organised a taxi pickup which is always very pleasant and stress free and we had a nice drive into the centre of Athens. We were dropped off right next to a huge restaurant area with beautiful trees and lots of people. Our hotel was right in the centre of the Plaka area, which is the major shopping and tourist area – very old Greek style. We were met at the front door by the manager and taken up to our room in this tiny little elevator, bags first then us second. The room was magnificent, overlooking the treed restaurant area, but with double glazing so you don’t hear a thing. Rosie wasn’t feeling too well so Bruce went exploring. The rooftop of our hotel had great views of the Acropolis and at night the views turned out to be even better. There as a taverna just below us and Bruce immediately went there for a beer and later dinner.
The next day we went to visit the Temple of Hephaestus which was in the Ancient Athen Agora. This was the only ruins that we thought we would pay to visit. When we first walked in we say a tortoise walking along, it was the second one we had seen. They must be native to the area, not water anywhere to be seen so must love dry rocks. You can see most ruins from the outside and to view them up close wasn’t really that much more exciting to us to encourage us to pay to see them.
In the previous photo you could see the back of Emperor Hadrian, he looked much better front on. You could also get good views of the Acropolis from here, though you could see this from nearly anywhere in the Plaka district.
Bruce got up close and personal to the Temple of Hephaestus and we were both very impressed with how well preserved it was. As we walked back to the hotel, we passed these ruins which were also impressive and we took this photo from outside the enclosure, who needs to go in?
On our third day we walked around the Plaka district and visited the Changing of the Guard at Parliament House. This ceremony happens on the hour, every hour, and is quite elaborate as the guards ‘dance’ into position and do a very interesting marching routine. Bruce thinks it was all about stretching their muscles before they have to stand still for an hour, it was very impressive.
We are loving the food and beer in this area and looking forward to coming back to a similar place in a couple of weeks. Tomorrow we are picking up our hire car and driving to the Pelopenese, which should be very interesting.
