Wednesday – October 8 - Athens

By the time we awoke, the ship was docked in the port of Piraeus, the city that sits between Athens proper and the water.  It is a city of one million, while Athens is three million.  We booked the tour to the Acropolis and the city.  It left promptly at 9:15 and headed up the main road to the center of Athens.   Along the way we passed the site of the 2004 Olympics.  I guess they continue to use the buildings, but on a Wednesday morning nothing was going on.  Not much of a surprise, there was a transit strike going on so traffic was horrible.  We eventually got to the base of the Acropolis and the bus dropped us off.  There were several sets of slippery steps to get to the ticket area.  The steps are marble and the simple action of people walking on them makes them very smooth.  I can’t imagine what they must be like when the get wet.   The main building at the top of the Acropolis (Acro – End, Polis – City, in this case the vertical end, at the top of a hill) is the Parthenon, dedicated to the Goddess Athena.  They are in the process of a never ending restoration.  The first part of the work was to undo the errors made in the earlier restorations and then start repairing and restoring.  They don’t intend to bring it back to the state of the original, just to the state where is was a few hundred years ago, before the industrial atmosphere  and misguided work damaged it.  The second temple at the top is the Erechtheion.  Also dedicated to Athena, it once displayed beautiful statues and friezes but those are now in the British Museum.  After walking around the whole top of the Acropolis, we went back down the hill and walked to the Plaka.  This is the original old town of Athens but is now the prime tourist area.  Narrow streets and a few green areas, but mostly shops and restaurants.  We picked up a few trinkets and stopped for lunch.  Believe it or not, they have mostly Greek restaurants here.  So we had Greek food, Greek salad,  grilled chicken and roasted lamb shank, all very good.  The trip back was a short sightseeing drive through the center of Athens, down the main shopping street, past the House of Parliament and a short stop at the Olympic stadium built for the 1896 games.  Even then they built a facility to seat 60,000, the new one is only 80,000.  The big difference is that the old one is marble seating.   It was used in 2004 for the archery venue and as a token of its origin, it was also the location for the finish of the Marathon.  After that, back to the ship for an early departure.