Europe Spring 2019 Athens, Greece

Still in Athens!

There are so many places in Athens where you can see the ruins of over a thousand years old, right next to modern society. It’s a bit strange. And then you read a little history of what you are viewing and it becomes even stranger. So this Temple of Zeus began to be built in like 6th century BC, but was not completed until the 2nd century AD, and then only survived in that state for about a century before it was pillaged and eventually destroyed. So it took over 600 years to build, then survived that way 100 years, then someone tears it down. Weird. I guess it’s not as weird as tearing down buildings that aren’t even 50 years old, and replacing them with apartments or something. But anyway these ruins are kinda cool to look at. Right? Of course they were built with slavery and in times that were more barbaric than now.

For some reason that last picture reminds me of the Star Wars tank AT-ATs marching toward their target. Guess ’cause they’re so big!

Anyway so we saw some of the ruins here and they are worth seeing for sure.
But we found the guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier to be much more entertaining. Check out this you-tube of what we saw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Zv9yBmKEU Make sure you skip the ad.

A couple odd things we had never seen before. They take their Easter eggs pretty seriously here,

This chocolate Easter egg is almost 2 feet tall. That is some serious chocolate!

And speaking of eggs. This is an egg store. Just eggs. Only eggs. You do understand that the only thing you can buy at this store is eggs, right?

Next on to something more historical,

This is the Panathenaic Stadium. Built on top of the sight of an ancient stadium where for many centuries there were games hosted here with nude male athletes competing. This stadium is a reconstruction of what was to be found underlying it. Finished in 1869 the first modern Olympic games were held here. Even today the Olympic torch resides here and is brought from here to the nation that is holding the games (winter and summer) every two years, and is also brought back here in the interim. Also the Olympic anthem was first heard here, and continues to be the same today.

We had a good interesting meal today at a local restaurant. I show this first so you can see that it is quite easy to get vegetables in Athens. This can sometimes be a problem when traveling. And we do like to have our vegetables and fruits. The vegetables here are broccoli and cauliflower. Neither of which were overcooked. Also there is kabob, with fresh made pita.

At the end of this meal we learned from the waiter that the traditional drink here was tea.

The tea is made as a concentrate and held in this machine ’till served with additional hot water to dilute the concentrate.

Now let’s go on to some Athens art,

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As you can see, despite all the tagging in the city there is some very interesting art.

Well we are just about ready to move on to our next destination. Our boat has arrived!

Before we move on to our ending photos, there is something we would like to share with you. While waiting for this boat, we were standing at the dock while other waiting passengers were sitting int the passenger place to wait. A young lady (probably an immigrant) came through playing a squeeze box and singing, for tips, change, or I imagine anything you could give her. Some of those waiting would not look her in the eyes and say no thanks, or thank you but no. Instead they did not even acknowledge her existence. Really! I found this unacceptable, and even now in writing about it, it upsets me. Anyway I called her over to Nancy and I and gave her a 2 euro coin. This young girl from I don’t know where, gleamed! And Nancy caught this photo of the girl and I,

I don’t know, is this world of ours losing compassion for others, to not even look this young girl in the eyes. What does that say? Anyway I’ll let you decide for yourselves what something like this means to you.

Now we’ll leave you with some other photos from our Athens collection as we move on to the island of Poros!

Next we’ll see you from Poros, Greece!