Athens

So I left mom in Selcuk, Turkey to continue on with my trip and head to Athens to meet Lianne (my girlfriend for those who don't know her). My original plan was to take the ferry from Cesme in Turkey to Chios in Greece and then continue directly onwards to Athens with an overnight ferry. However when I arrived in Chios I was informed that there was no overnight ferry and I would have to spend the night on the island and wait for the ferry that left the following morning at 9am. This was all great although I did have some problems finding a cheap room in Chios as they all seemed to be full, but in the end I found one and met some other American students there. The rest of the night was spent enjoying dinner and having a few drinks with the guys I met before retiring for the night to catch my ferry the next morning.

The next day I spent 9 hours on the ferry to Athens so not a whole lot happened during the day. Upon reaching Piraeus (the ferry port for Athens) I made my way to the metro and was easily able to navigate my way to the hotel in the centre of Athens that we had booked. The rest of the night was spent just wandering around a few streets in Athens and relaxing in the hotel.

My first full day in Athens I headed out to the airport early in the morning to meet Lianne's flight. After taking the metro and the bus I finally met up with her after a long 10 months apart. We then returned to the hotel and spent the rest of the day resting (Lianne was tired from her 11 hour flight) and then trying to plan the rest of journey through Eastern Europe. We planned on leaving the sight seeing in Athens to the following day as I had been told that all of Athens main sights only took 1 day to see.

Our second full day in Athens we started to see some of the sights that Athens has to offer. Our first stop was the Greece Parliament building where we got to see a changing of the guards in front of a war memorial. The changing of the guards was fairly interesting to see as the guards were dressed up in their traditional costume and the movements of the guards seemed to be perfectly synchronized so it was impressive. After the changing of the guards we proceeded to enter the National Gardens and took a quick walk through a nice peaceful and relaxing park before continuing on to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. We didn't actually enter this site to see the temple as all it seemed to be were several columns still standing but the main reason was that the ticket to the Acropolis that we were going to buy also covered the admission to this site. From the Temple of Olympian Zeus we continued past Hadrian's Arch, which was a fairly simple but still beautiful arch standing on the side of a road, and then onto the Theatre of Dionysos. The Theatre of Dionysos is a huge theatre capable of seating 17 000 people that has been built on the southern slope of the Acropolis. This theatre was one of the most important theatres in all of Greece as it held an annual festival that showed some of the most famous dramas of the time. From the Theatre of Dionysos we continued past the Stoa of Eumenes, which was mostly in ruins but being restored, to the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. This theatre has been completely restored and now it is used for performances of drama, music and dance during the Hellenic Festival, which unfortunately we didn't get to see although it appeared as if they were setting it up for a performance. From here we entered the proper Acropolis, what is arguably the most important ancient site in the Western World, which is built on top of a huge cliff in the centre of Athens and our first introduction to it was the Propylaia. This is the only entrance to the top of the Acropolis and it certainly made an impression on you. Initially we walked past the huge Beule Gate before climbing up past the Temple of Athena Nike and through a walkway between several huge columns and under another arch. Upon reaching the top of the Acropolis we were amazed by the impressive buildings here, namely the Parthenon, and we spent a few minutes just standing there admiring all of them. Our first views of the Parthenon were somewhat disappointing though as they were currently doing some restoration work to the structure so the entire front of the building was covered with scaffolding and cranes almost. So our first stop on top of the Acropolis was the Erechtheion and really first we saw the Caryatids which are 6 huge maiden columns that support the southern porch of the Erechtheion. After gazing at the Caryatids we continued on around the building to see the rest of it including the northern porch which consists of several beautiful columns and behind these the open area of the building. After the Erechtheion we continued around the edge of the cliff to get some great views out over the city and to see the Parthenon from the backside. The Parthenon was absolutely spectacular when it wasn't blocked as the building seemed to be almost fully restored to its original appearance and so contained columns all around its perimeter holding up the roof. After slowly wandering around the exterior of the Parthenon and gazing up at its beauty we slowly descended from the Acropolis and made our way back into the city part of Athens to find some lunch.

After lunch our tour of the city sights continued with the Ancient Agora which was the city centre in ancient Athens. Here were the administrative, commercial, political and social activity buildings of the city. Today most of the buildings are only ruins but you can still see their foundations and the general layout of the city. The only intact buildings are the Stoa of Attalos, which now houses a small museum showing some artifacts found in the area, and the Temple of Hephaestus. The Temple of Hephaestus is, in my opinion, the most impressive ancient temple left in Athens. This is because it is fully restored and isn't covered by any scaffolding or other restoration work like most of the buildings on the Acopolis were when we visited them. After the Ancient Agora we continued to the Keramikos which was the city's cemetery from the 12th century BC to Roman times. This place was quite nice and peaceful as there weren't very many tourists here but the ruins were still pretty impressive. There was even a small museum here that showed some of the statues that were found in the cemetery. After seeing the cemetery we were pretty beat and had covered everything that we really wanted in Athens so we just made our way back to our hotel to refresh before going our to dinner by wandering through the flea market (really just a tourist trap). That evening we enjoyed some good quick Greek food before heading back to our hotel to spend the night.

The next day was our last day in Athens as we planned to leave that afternoon for one of the Greek Islands. So our first thing on the agenda was to go and organize a ferry ticket. After getting that all sorted out we wandered past a few more smaller ancient ruin sites before finding a small coffee shop to relax and try to plan the rest of our trip. That afternoon we grabbed our bags from the hotel and proceeded to Pireaus (the ferry port) on the metro to catch our ferry to Paros and the start of our next adventure in the Greek Islands.







The Changing of the guards ceremony in front of the Greece Parliament building.














The Theatre of Dionysos on the southern slope of the Acropolis.















Lianne standing in front of the Erechtheion with the Caryatids columns visible on the building.


















The backside of the Parthenon which wasn't covered in scaffolding (although you can still see a crane in the background). It really was a spectacular building.
















Lianne standing in front of the Temple of Hephaestus in the Ancient Agora.