Emilio and I met in the hotel lobby at 8 o’clock to have breakfast.
We claimed a table and went over to the food presentation, where I grabbed a plate, put on one of the cute little gloves supplied and then started putting food items on my plate. About halfway in the server gets well and fully in my face and asks “What are you doing?”.
Um, “Getting breakfast?”, I replied wondering what was going on. He pointed to the small sign behind the serving table that guests were not allowed to handle food. Geeze, really?
So I gave him my plate and he put the rest of my breakfast on the plate with me standing there. Really not certain what all that accomplished. Asking for a cup of coffee, I went and sat down with Emilio. Evidently he had had a similar discussion with one of the breakfast goons.
After that exciting adventure, we headed out in search of the Acropolis. I had been there once before, but in the summer and it was swelteringly hot and thus the crowds were quite sparse.
This was not that situation now. It was a pleasant morning in late March, and luckily we were a bit early, but there were significantly more people than last time.
Before we got there, I had to get a power adapter as I was borrowing one from Emilio and he wanted it back. Thankfully I had it with me as the clerk in the store had no idea what I was talking about when I asked for it. I pulled out Emilio’s adapter and showed it to him and voila, there it was.
After that, we headed toward the Acropolis. I’ll give Emilio credit, he knew his way around Athens very well. He told me that he and Pam had lived in Athens for about 18 months before migrating out into the countryside where they currently reside.
There was a reasonably short ticket line to get into the Acropolis. Buying tickets for both of us, we entered through the turnstiles and headed up the mountain.
Emilio points to the edifice an says, that’s where we are going. H’mm, don’t remember it being this steep before, but we had entered at the area where the tour bus drops off, so perhaps it was on the other side. After yesterday’s episode with shortness of breath, I really wasn’t looking forward to this. Ok, here we go!
There was a well defined path leading to the top, and there was a line of folks ascending, stopping and grabbing photos with their phones. That definitely made the trek a bit easier.
This guy came into viewing and leered at us as we walked by. Well, maybe not, but he sure seemed ominous.
About halfway up was this amphitheater that was/is under renovation. Renovation was the word for the day and virtually nothing in the complex was free from some sort of rehab actilities.
Continuing along the path, we ascended higher and higher up the side of the mountain.
Nearer the top was another amphitheater, this one in better shape than the lower one. Emilio told me that plays and shows are still held here. Looking closely, you can see the lighting stalls.
Circling around the amphitheater, this amazing vista looking over Athens presented itself:
I tried to grab a panorama of the theater:
And finally we were there!
Before departing, I tried another panorama of the countryside:
After our tour, we headed down the other side of the mountain down into town. Emilio wanted to find the Agora.
So we meandered around a bit, with Emilio asking people where it was. His Greek and their English left a lot to be desired and it took a bit of wandering around.
There was a tourist mall kind of place and this guy was sitting here playing his lute. He was very good, so I dropped a couple of Euro into his case.
This was our final sight before heading into the Agora, which you will see next time!
While we were walking around the Acropolis, I couldn’t help but come back to the sign I saw in the British Museum about the Greek antiquities they held. I was hard pressed to disagree with their sentiment, however unpleasant it might be. The Acropolis, and the area around it, were significantly better managed than last time I was here, but there was still bits and pieces literally everywhere. Most were marked, but a lot were not.
It just struck me as part of the Greek mentality, from what I saw in Athens and the surrounding countryside.
Anyway, next time we will visit the Agora.
