Acropolis now!

Go via the port to decant the kids (sadly) before heading to the airport.  45 minute flight and score a taxi from the Athens airport easily 👌🏻.  Such a different landscape from the last week, hilly, trees, buildings everywhere but the traffic is just as hectic once we hit the city limits.  We are staring to wonder if the speed signs are a guide rather than the legal limit.  Our driver was humming along at 140 clicks in an “80” zone and had plenty leaving him in their wake.  Terrific driver though, chatted most of the way in and was more like our own personal tour guide.  Shout out to  Nico – rockstar !  Arrive at the Athens Atrium Hotel – lovely little hotel nestled in a residential area but close enough to the city centre that we can walk into the hubbub and Athenian icons.  Very warm – 35 degrees.  There is a real blend of the old with the new-  the Acropolis, Zeus’s temple, Hadrians Arch – are all enfolded into the city.  Quite stunning.  The streets off the main highways are long and often hilly.  The residential building are never any higher than five or six stories, withbalconies brimming with plants – usually edible – and rows and rows and rows of awnings.  Lots of olive trees growing in the streets – but cars and bikes EVERYWHERE.

Parking Athens style – just about every corner looked like this sometime with cars parked askew across the corner.  Made for some interesting entertainment from the sidewalk taverns!

Walked into the city Centre after several pit stops to ensure adequate hydration – I did mention it was warm!  Crazy to be able to walk right up to these icons. 

Decide to book a guided tour for the morning – dawdle back to the hotel and invest in a snooze 😴 before heading out for some dinner at the corner tavern near our hotel. Probably the best meal we have had our whole trip – literally 20 metres from hotel. 

There is a square not far too, with several taverns around the outside and the whole neighbourhood, young old and everyone in between, seems to be out!  Great atmosphere, kids laughing, riding bikes, playing soccer while the adults are either sitting on benches or having a drink at one of the taverns.  Such a sense of real community.  We walked down to the local church which also was a hive of activity about three streets away and stealthily listened to the priest singing in his deep baratone intonations.  Really moving experience with the candles burning everywhere, multigenerational families sitting and walking together between the square and the church.  Gave me heart pains !  Missing our mob big time!  What was a tad amusing was the large number of undie’s (bras, nickers, jocks and socks ) stalls set up around the church lanes.  There were others but at least four massive markets stalls laden with knickers in every  imaginable  colour, shape and size – some big enough to provide wind power for a sea going vessel and some scant enough you wouldn’t know where to put the peg to hang them on the line 😝

Up the next morning for the tour of the Athens city, Acropolis, Olympic stadium, Parliament House, and the new archeological museum.  Loved it although it was again in the mid thirties.  Lots of hot and sweaty bodies on the Acropolis that weren’t very God like!  Drank from Athena’s Spring – no super powers or youthful gains yet – still time right?
Major work going there, UNESCO have permanent workforce including Archeologists there all year round.  At the new archeological museum the gue was the best – got so much more out if the visit.  One of the  floors is buil to the exact dimensions as the Panthenon; and it has a myriad of glass floors as the site is built over an  excavation of an ancient village which existed around the time the Acropolis was in full swing – which housed the “ordinary folk”.

Got lost in the streets of Athens  on the way back to the hotel in the older market streets which was fun, and then  back for a later dinner at one of the taverns up at the square.  Another night of locals and kids – loved it – they made us feel very welcome despite being total ring ins.

Sleep in this morning to put some in reserve for the trek home .  Bid farewell to Greece and our the end of our time in Europe with a final beer in the sunshine and wander around the local weekly produce markets.  

A bit of excitement on the way to the airport, Portugal and French prime ministers  were visiting Rome and a lot of the streets were shut off.  Traffic congestion and frayed tempers everywhere;  and our driver’s car managed to get hit by a truck!   Some colourful exchanges and not too much damage and we were soon on our way again for the  Lo n g . f l i g h t . h o m e . ✈️🇦🇺👨‍👩‍👧👪👨‍👩‍👧😍

We have had the best time – no dramas, greatest weather, and don’t want to file for divorce !  

Bring on the new adventures at home and beyond!  One more sleep til family …