Athens from a top the Acropolis
The Erechtheion built where Poseidon struck the ground with his trident
me sleeping in the airport
me studying biology on the plane
A theater at the Acropolis.
The Parthenon
the Parthenon
City view
city view
Best preserved temple in Athens
Musem at Ancient Agora
me and the Guard at the Palace
city view with a rainbow
a cafe
our hostel
Zeus' Temple
Olympic stadiumAthens has two parts, the old city, the Plaka district, and the ‘newer’ part of the city. The ‘newer’ part of the city reminded me of the new part of Cuzco city in Peru. A lot of the buildings were run down and almost all of them had graffiti on them of some kind. I remember on one of the buildings was written ‘kill Barbie’. Plaka however, is almost completely different. The streets are coble stoned and can fit only one car down them at a time and many of the streets were blocked off to cars all together. This is the part of the city we stayed in. I didn’t get to see much of the ‘newer’ part of the city besides from the bus windows on the way to and from the hostel. Plaka is where you find cute little Greek cafés with tables outside. A lot of them had space heaters in between the tables so you wouldn’t get cold eating outside at night. On the street our hostel was on there was probably at least 6 or 7 different cafés. Every night when we walked passed the cafés there would be someone out by the tables trying to get you to come in and eat there. The shopping in the Plaka district is also good. There are a lot of little touristy shops that sell hand painted Greek vases and plates, paintings of Athens, statutes, postcards and Athens t-shirts.
Like I said our hostel was situated in the Plaka district. Flying to Athens was fine it was getting to our hostel that took us 3 hours. At the airport we didn’t know where to go to get on the metro because a lot of the signs were in Greek. We finally figured out to take a bus to Syntegma Square and walk the few blocks to our hostel. The bus ride alone was an hour and the 5 minute walk to our hostel turned into an hour long scavenger hunt for our hostel. After walking around in circles for about a ½ hour we ran in to John. John we later found out is from Egypt and owns a travel agency in Athens. Anyway John got us back on the right path. But, we got lost again! John had told us to look for number 16, what he didn’t tell us was that there are many number 16s on different streets. Then we asked this guy at a store and he said “around the corner 12, 14, 16”. That was not much help because we still didn’t know what 16 was the right one. At this point it had started to rain!! Finally after an hour we found the street our hostel was on, which was spelled differently on the street sign then what was on the map! It turns out that the store we asked the guy for directions was on the same street as our hostel, just one block down!
On Saturday we went on a tour with the hostel we stayed at that took us to the Acropolis, Ancient Agora, the Temple of Zeus, and the Olympic stadium from the 1894 Olympics in Athens. Jeremy and I were able to prove that we were students so we got into all the places for free. However, Jenalea could not prove she was a student, even thought she had international student ID card, go figure. We did a lot of shopping, actually I did a lot of shopping! The weather was ok. Beside the rain we got on Friday when we were trying to find our hostel, it sprinkled a little on Saturday morning, but other wise it was sunny. It felt good to feel the sun after being in England for a month. From the top of the Acropolis looking out over the city is beautiful. The city’s buildings for the most part are all white. So you look out over a vast city of all white buildings with mountains in the background and clear blue skies.
Like I said our hostel was situated in the Plaka district. Flying to Athens was fine it was getting to our hostel that took us 3 hours. At the airport we didn’t know where to go to get on the metro because a lot of the signs were in Greek. We finally figured out to take a bus to Syntegma Square and walk the few blocks to our hostel. The bus ride alone was an hour and the 5 minute walk to our hostel turned into an hour long scavenger hunt for our hostel. After walking around in circles for about a ½ hour we ran in to John. John we later found out is from Egypt and owns a travel agency in Athens. Anyway John got us back on the right path. But, we got lost again! John had told us to look for number 16, what he didn’t tell us was that there are many number 16s on different streets. Then we asked this guy at a store and he said “around the corner 12, 14, 16”. That was not much help because we still didn’t know what 16 was the right one. At this point it had started to rain!! Finally after an hour we found the street our hostel was on, which was spelled differently on the street sign then what was on the map! It turns out that the store we asked the guy for directions was on the same street as our hostel, just one block down!
On Saturday we went on a tour with the hostel we stayed at that took us to the Acropolis, Ancient Agora, the Temple of Zeus, and the Olympic stadium from the 1894 Olympics in Athens. Jeremy and I were able to prove that we were students so we got into all the places for free. However, Jenalea could not prove she was a student, even thought she had international student ID card, go figure. We did a lot of shopping, actually I did a lot of shopping! The weather was ok. Beside the rain we got on Friday when we were trying to find our hostel, it sprinkled a little on Saturday morning, but other wise it was sunny. It felt good to feel the sun after being in England for a month. From the top of the Acropolis looking out over the city is beautiful. The city’s buildings for the most part are all white. So you look out over a vast city of all white buildings with mountains in the background and clear blue skies.
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