October 9 - Saturday - Athens

We were up and off to breakfast this morning (quite a nice American Buffet) and then out to hop the Marriott shuttle to the Hop-on Hop-off City Tour bus by 9:00. Problem was that everyone else wanted to catch the Marriott shuttle, too, and so it filled up and left 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. We weren't going to wait for another hour to hopefully catch it for its next trip, so we had the front-door person call us a cab (from just around the corner, hiding out of sight behind some bushes) to take us to town. The cost was 8 Euros, an amount we found was more than twice what we should have paid when we caught a cab back home in the evening for 3.80 Euros. Hmmmm ... nice little thing these guys at the front door have going. Oh well, you have to earn a living somehow!

All's well that ends well or works well, though, and the day seemed to work well for us. We first rode the Hop-on Hop-off a complete round trip, about 60 to 70 minutes, then we rode a little past our starting point and got off at the Acropolis.

The walk to the entrance area was quite steep, but definitely doable. I wasn't sure I could go the further steps into the main area, but Lauren checked it out and came back to retrieve me. Arm in arm, we made it, and it was definitely worth the effort. (See the flickr photos to see the rest of the view.)

The rumor is, as they tell it here, the gods met in these elaborate buildings (or at least where these buildings are located) and discussed whether or not the creation of human kind was a good thing. Apparently the vote was close, but in favor of the creation, and the deed was done. Here's a Wikipedia article about the Parthenon - interesting.

Looking at Athens from this great height shows us a sea of white houses and buildings in all directions.

The Greeks also claim to be the first to see the divine within human kind, and with that insight came the idea of individual freedoms. With the idea of individual freedoms came the idea (and ideal) of democracy. Western thought has been built ever since on that idea -- either democracy in action or the strife for democracy. The early Greeks changed the world! Even the Romans, who conquored the world after Greece, retained their awe of the Greek way of thinking. Another rumor we heard was that the Roman Emperor Hadrian (around 132 CE) came to Athens to be educated because he felt Roman education was inferior. For more about Hadrian and Hadrian's Arch in Athens, see the Wikipedia article.

We hopped on and off the bus several times throughout the day, enjoying the National Gardens (where we took no pictures) while we admired the beautiful way in which they maintain them. A lot of work must go into these gardens.

Yesterday, we passed a building with a couple guard buildings out front, and we guessed it was the Parliament building. Sure enough, it was. Today, we got a few pictures.



Sue and one of the dogs in front of the guard shack




Lauren and one of the guards

We took the picture of Lauren and one of the guards, first, and then it just seemed a shame not to recognize the ever-present dog in a picture, too. I volunteered to be the dog's admirer. We see dogs like this all over Athens, sleeping in almost the same position. There's an identical dog in front of the other guard here at the Parliament building.

The uniforms are modeled after those worn by warriors when the Greeks fought against the Ottoman occupation in the late 1800s, early 1900s. See Evzones in Wikipedia for some fascinating information. The uniforms are quite beautiful, and their history makes them somewhat romantic.

Tomorrow, we must have our luggage out for pickup at 8:00 a.m., then we must be ready to board the HAL bus for the ship at noon. That will give us time for a leisurely breakfast and showers before our real journey begins, 14 days on the Black Sea!  Choosing to come a couple days early and adjust to the time changes was a good idea. We'll probably never come to Athens again; and although we surely didn't spend a lot of time here, we got to see a little bit of what it has to offer. On our way back from our Black Sea voyage, we'll be stopping at a few Greek Islands, so we're not officially through with Greece yet.

We're expecting to have internet access on the Prisendam, but I'm pretty sure it won't happen until after we leave port. We're scheduled to leave around 5:00 Sunday evening, so I hope we'll be online again sometime Monday.

Here's a link, again, to our Athens pictures on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sroesner/sets/72157625074928594/with/5062628816/

October 8 - Friday - Athens - One more picture

From my tiny little Canon SD780 IS, here's a picture of the Acropolis after dark from the rooftop patio of our hotel. I used about a 3.7 optical zoom, automatically exposed 1/8 second, F 5.8, 800 ISO, no flash, no tripod (didn't bring one with us) and nothing good to balance against. Not bad for an inexpensive little camera! And the sight in person is really awesome. Just think about long, long ago ...

October 8 - Friday - Athens

It's always a good feeling when you get off the plane, go to the baggage carousel, and you spot your luggage coming down the line. Whoopie!!! Made it again! It's especially nice when you're beginning a trip, as we are now, and you know that for the next three weeks you will have all the things you planned on having with you - not only clothes, maps, and the necessary things, but also the knitting, reading, and a few art supplies to help make the non-busy times smooth.

We were prepared for rain in Athens, but we found, instead, a lovely day much as it would be in San Diego.

As you can see from the glare in the upper part of the photo, I was looking through the bus window when I took this picture. My mind was somewhere between the airport and Poway, my camera was pointed toward what I could see from the bus window, and the bus was heading to a Marriott in this place called Athens, about half way around the globe from Poway.

Holland America Lines' service getting us from the airport to the Marriott, Marriott's service getting us checked in and physically present in our rooms (at about 10:00 in the morning after an approximately 9:00 a.m. arrival at the airport), and then the hotel's efficiency getting us to their shuttle to take us downtown so we could explore on our own was excellent. Then came the moment we were dropped off by the shuttle driver, and the realization came to us: We're in Athens. We've never been here before. We haven't a clue where to go or what to do. We took a picture of a landmark where the driver dropped us and hoped our brains would catch up later and we'd be able to find our way back. Which we did!

You can see the Acropolis from nearly everywhere in metropolitan Athens. It sits so high above the city, every hotel within miles can advertise a view of the Acropolis, and it wouldn't be false advertising. Although we've seen many, many pictures of it, who would have thought! I wouldn't have.

Today we walked around the part of town known as the Plaka, a mostly pedestrian-only shopping and restaurant area (huge, just huge) and got our bearings. We visited a few churches (you stumble into one around every other corner, just as though someone placed a church there and then promptly forgot it) and one major area of ruins (there are ruins everywhere, too - in fact, every time someone digs in Athens, a new ruin crops up) called the Ancient Agora. The Ancient Agora was once the center of commercial life in ancient Athens - everything was there. As we went, we generally got our bearings. We learned to read the map by finding our current location in our guidebook, moving to another location and then finding that one (backwards from what one might expect, but we find this method effective for us). We even found out that the Marriott shuttle drops us just two short blocks from where the Hop-On-Hop-Off City Tour Bus starts. Finding that location was one of our goals today. Tomorrow we'll hop the shuttle to the Hop-On Bus and hop on up the road to the Acropolis and a few other places of interest to us.

Today, we found an ice cream shop and stopped for a break - that's always a goal for us when we're traveling. We don't eat ice cream at home anymore, so it's really special when we we stumble on a good ice cream shop when we're traveling. We have had more fun accidentally sight-seeing over the years. Guided touring is great, and we've come to prefer it in our older years, but accidental touring adds giggles.

Since our last travels when I was blogging, maybe three years ago, Google's Blogger and Flickr's photos have changed the way they interface, and it seems impossible for me to make them work the way they used to. I haven't figured it out yet. In the meantime, to see all the photos from Athens (those I've posted for today and those I'll post for tomorrow), follow this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sroesner/sets/72157625074928594/with/5062628816/

Here's hoping the link works! I'll putz around with this for a few days, and hopefully, I'll have it running smoothly soon.