To the Acropolis of Ancient ΕΛΛΑΣ

(ΕΛΛΑΣ, pronounced Ellas, is the Greek name for Greece)
We didn’t wake up until about 10am which was nice. And our 4 bed room now had 2 girls in it that weren’t there when we went to bed. After we all woke up I started chatting to one of the girls… and surprise surprise… she was French :-P Lefourgue was very happy because he could speak French to his hearts content… in fact, English was not very fluent with the girls… so most of the conversations were in French with Lefourgue as a translator.
After chatting for a while we headed out for the day with our new found friends, Bérengère and Marion. We were heading to the Acropolis + other Greek monuments for the day.

I was playing guide for everyone, which I am getting used to doing now. The first stop was… a bakery to get some breakfast. Got some cheesy, olivey, mushroomy, tomatoey pastry thingy which was really nice. Then straight to the Acropolis. This place is pretty cool. Heaps of photo opportunities and lots to learn about the history. Athens was the panicle of Greek culture and the centre of their empire. I saw the areas where the philosophers used to sit and discuss.. stuff.


The Parthenon was very impressive, as was the Nike of Athina. Also, the view of the city from the top of the Acropolis was simply spectacular. Athens is HUGE! I did not realise the scale until up here. We were in the blistering heat, it was the hottest day while we were in Greece, so was probably not the best idea to be in the baking sun. Luckily there were water fountains everywhere I could wet my hat and continually fill up my waterbottle.


We headed from the Acropolis down to the Ancient Agora with anther amazing Temple. We looked through the museum located in this area which had lots of old statues… most of them were headless which I didn’t quite understand. After this it was just to hot to walk, and we were a little hungry. Not as much as we should be, the temperature just killed your appetite.

A little Greek restaurant we found in the backstreets of Psiri was where we ended up. It was just outside the hustle and bustle of the main area, and the prices were pretty good. The girls and I got a Greek salad each, Lefourgue got a pork dish. The food took a while to come out, but it was worth it. It was fantastic! We ended up spending just over 2 hours sitting, chatting, eating and drinking LOTS of iced water.


We finally got up and I was again chief guide. We checked out the Keramikos, the ancient Greek cemetery. It was relatively boring compared to what we had already seen. Oh… but there was a tortoise just wandering around in the sun.


After that we took the rather long walk to the Temple of Zeus… we arrived just in time before they cut off entry for the day. I really liked the Temple of Zeus, and found it on par with the Parthenon in the grand scale of coolness.


The only negative point I can say about the whole “Ancient Architecture” is it was very touristy, and 75% of it was fake. They have started major reconstructions to get it looking like it is “supposed” to rather than leaving it in ruins like it should be.
But Athens is built around the Ancient Monuments, so you can be walking down any street and see something really old. The Acropolis is basically located in the city centre!

After all this walked, we headed back to the hostel for a little rest… and to shower because we were all lovely and sweaty :-) Also, Marion was extremely burnt so was putting burn cream on repeatedly. I was a little burnt, but not too bad.
We chilled out for a bit, then headed to a local part of the city to have some dinner at 11pm. We ended up being boring and having KFC, I felt a bit guilty being in a country of such fine cuisine and eating western fast food. It was good though and we were the last customers allowed to order as they were closing.

We headed back and it was just too hot to sleep. We stayed up until about 1 or 2am chatting and listening to music.