The Adventure Continues in Athens

So we enjoyed our time at sea and liked being able to rest and relax before we hit the ground running at our many port stops, but I could hardly wait to wake up knowing I'd be in Athens, Greece! 

I had booked a tour with a private company, and pretty much just crossed my fingers it would all be ok.  Well, let's just say the finger crossing didn't exactly work.  We were supposed to be picked up at 8am by the tour company representative, that's when things went south.  We got outside at about 7:40 am to make sure we were there and accounted for in plenty of time.  We frantically searched the port area for the next 20 minutes thinking we'd find him somewhere.  When no one was showing up, we decided we needed to get back on the boat, grab the cell phone and Rick Steve's book.  We tried to call the contact number, but the call would have cost us $30! We tried to buy a calling card at the port there, but then had trouble getting connected, it was so frustrating!   So there we were running all over this huge port (it holds up to 12 cruise ships) at about 8:30am we just decided we needed to go to plan B.  Luckily in Athens there is a Hop On Hop Off bus station right there.  Since I hadn't researched how to do the train system for Athens and the port is 30 minutes by car away from the city,  we paid the 20 euro each to get on this tourist bus to make the most of our day. 

Even though it was a rough start to the day, we did our best to make the most of it.  Of course our fist stop was the Acropolis.  It really is quite something to see.  We spent a good amount of time just walking among these ruins and taking it all in, amazing to think this area was all built up in the 4th century BC. 

The Parthenon

We spent some time on Mars Hill, where the apostle Paul  was and gave his speech found in Acts 17:24. Kind of a cool experience to be in the places where these ancient apostles were so many years ago. 

View of the Acropolis from Mars Hill

We hopped back on the bus and took it down to the Temple of Zeus and over to the Parliament building to catch the changing of the guard at Syntagma Square. 

Temple of Zeus

Changing of the Guard in front of the tomb of the unknown solider

Apparently the changing of the guard is kind of a bid deal in Athens, we weren't overly impressed, but glad to catch a little more insight into the Greek culture.

From there we walked over to the Plaka area to walk through the flea market and then over to the Ancient Agora part of the city.  Ancient Agora had a lot of great ruins and it was nice to spend some time there.

Ancient Agora

Temple of Hephaestus - the best preserved ancient Greek temple

We were hot and tired of walking at this point, so we decided to get back on the bus and just take it around to see the sites.  The nice thing about these tourist buses is that they have audio information playing as you pass significant sites on the route, so you get to learn more than you would if you were on your own. 

The original Olympic Stadium (refurbished)

Driving through the Plaka area, nice view of the Acropolis in the background.

I was disappointed I wasn't able to find falafel, but I did enjoy an authentic Greek gyro! 

Even though we had a rough start to our day in Athens it turned out just fine.  And I got my money back for that tour and already gave them  a piece of my mind about the whole situation.

Up next Turkey! Stay tuned!