For those of you who don't know, the first half of 2010 will be filled with travel for me. This trip to Greece was the start of what I hope to be many fun adventures around Europe!
And, as many of you also know, I'm a die-hard Rick Steves fan. His books are the greatest way to visit any European country. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a book on Greece. So after some searching I found that Matt Barrett is a travel writer purely, it seems, for Athens. It started as a hobby, since he spends a lot of time in Greece, and his site has grown a lot. It's all free, and it's from the perspective of a local since he lived there for quite a while and much of his family is there. So I used his Athens Survival Guide and his Greek Travel Guide as my surrogate Rick Steves book.
To be fair, it wasn't as good as a Steves' book, but it was the next best thing. So, when I refer to "Matt" or "Matt's Guide", I'm referring to the various printouts I made of his website.
The flight out of Zurich was delayed due to snow, but on the bright side I had a whole row to myself. I got to Vienna not too late, but since Vienna airport has security at each gate I didn't have much time to scarf down some food and drink before having to go through security where there were no options for food or drinks. I do not like this airport.
I arrived in Athens only a few minutes late, in around 2pm. I was quite hungry, but nothing in the airport looked like a small lunch.
One thing that absolutely amazed me was the "Smoking Section", which was just a corner of the hallway which was simply corded off by those little things they use to setup lines in airports. No walls, no screens, nothing. Just a slightly different part of the hallway. I think someone there doesn't understand how air and smoke work.
After a quick stop at information to get some subway information and directions it was off to my hotel. I found my metro stop and was pleasantly surprised to find a McDonald's where I knew I could get something small to hold me over until dinner (when I would have local food)... but the kebab place next to it looked too good. Despite the fact it was past 3pm, I had a huge plate of kebab gyro, onion, pita and fries. Yummy!
I headed to my hotel, but it was completely unclear how to get there. The street names on the map didn't match the street signs, and I got quite confused. I ducked into a random hotel and asked for directions - several blocks down the main street, take a left, go all the way down. OK. Turns out it's a good 10-15 minute walk from the metro stop, which, with luggage, isn't very pleasant. Got the hotel around 4, checked in, and it seemed very nice. I decided to head to the Greek Acropolis, it being reasonably close, and in the center of many sites.
I got there around 4:30 and it took a while to find the front. However, in wondering around a bit, I got my bearings for the next morning when I'd come back (the Acropolis closed, surprisingly, at 3pm).
In the first two pictures below, note how high up the Acropolis (where the Parthenon is) is. In the 3rd picture, note the cool road around the Acropolis as well as the many stray dogs that were always around.
The Acropolis museum was a pretty cool building and had a glass floor on your way in showing some old ruins. Right next to it was a street where you could could look all the way down the hill - and while there's a cool effect of me about to get hit by a car, that's actually a parking spot at the end of a street that doesn't connect to the main pedestrian street I'm on.
From here I wondered around the side and onto the hill near the Acropolis and got some great views.
Next I walked over to Hadrian's Arch and the Temple of Olympeien Zeus (behind the Arch, can't really see it, closed at this time of night), and then over to the ancient Olympic Stadium, and finally the Zappeion on my way back.
At that point I decided to head towards La Plaka where I might find some night-life. At La Plaka, the Poet-Sandal-Maker's place was nearby, so I stopped by there first, but being almost 7pm he was closed.
I wondered around a bit enjoying the scenery. Found a cool store named "FNAC" which had DVDs, Apple stuff, CDs, video games, etc. - organized by floor. I was particularly happy they had a whole section dedicated to Metal.
Around 7:30 I decided to head to "John Joyce" - a local pub - for a drink. I enjoyed a rum and coke while I did some reading at the bar. The place was about half-full and I just took some time to relax.
After leaving John Joyce's I noticed a flea market near the metro, and started to wander through it, but wasn't very impressed by it - especially compared to the rest of the "market" area in La Plaka. So I headed home and crashed at a surprisingly early 9:30pm.
I woke up at 7am feeling much better after a decent night's sleep. The shower was definitely the smallest shower I'd ever been in - even tinier than the one in France. It wasn't much wider than my shoulders.
Hoping for something to start the day, I headed down to the hotel breakfast. They had bread with ham and cheese, coffee, and cereal. Not the breakfast I was looking for, so I had a piece of bread with ham and cheese in order to hold me over until I got some real breakfast - I'd hope that McDonald's here served breakfast and get some on my way out (for those that don't read my reports regularly, as much as I try to eat local food on my trip, McDs doesn't do breakfast in many parts of Europe, including Switzerland, so when I find it, I often take it).
The McDs at the entrance to the metro did not have breakfast, disappointingly. However, the McCafe next door was selling coffee and croissants, so I had that instead.
I made my way to the Acropolis. No one was around - I was there 2 minutes before they were open. Like an idiot, I waited there until a few seconds before they were to open, and then realized this was only an entrance and the ticket office was across the path. Interestingly the ticket had something like 6 sections that could be ripped off, and you could use them at a variety of sites around the city all run by the same organization (the pieces weren't specific to places, so you could go in the same place 6 times, or 6 places once or whatever). Once my tickets were purchased, I headed up the steep climb - no longer the first in line.
The path leading up to the Acropolis offers some stunning views. The path itself is also pretty cool. As you get to the top of the stairs you pass through Propyleae, the grand entrance (and the one after which all other similar grand gateways were named). On the side of Propylaea is the Temple of Athena Nike. The part that's under construction on here is the Temple of Athena, and the rest of that structure is the Propylaea.
Notice the close-ups of the columns - they're multiple pieces, an in fact, they're no longer correctly aligned. The years have pushed pieces further and further out!
There was less to the Acropolis than I expected. In general it's a bit like the Roman Forum, except much smaller. The Parthenon - the centerpiece of the Acropolis - is, indeed very, very big. However, I was very disappointed that you couldn't go into it. Unlike the Roman Coliseum, you can't even get within about 20 feet of it. This is only slightly better than seeing a good photograph. Nonetheless, it is quite stunning.
In addition to the Parthenon and the Temple of Athena, there was another smaller building called the Erechtheum as well as a lookout area with a flagpole. The lookout area had unimaginable views of Athens.
We'll start with the Erechtheum. It sits on the most sacred side of the Acropolis where Poseidon and Athena - according to the mythology - had their contest over who would be the patron of the city. Notice the porch of maidens on the back. All of these are copies with 4 in the Acropolis museum and one taken by Lord Elgin and put in the British museum more than a century ago.
Here's a few shots from the flagpole viewing point.
From the side of the Parthenon, if you look over the edge of the Acropolis, you can see the Theater of Herod, aka Odeon of Herodes Atticus.
As well as some other tiny theater and some temple with some amazingly white marble being reconstructed.
On the way down, I took an alternative path that people were coming up from. It went down by the Herod's theater and had little bits of ruins around the base of the Acropolis.
Then I saw a place where the path veered off and got a little... less well defined. It didn't seem like it was really meant to be followed, but it wasn't corded off like everything else, so I went exploring. I climbed most of the way up the hill and got a good look at another ancient entrance to the Acropolis and some renovation before someone saw me and started yelling at me to get down. Here you can see where I started, and how far up the side I got.
As I went down, I caught a nice major path, and headed down that, thinking that was "allowed," but as I passed her, she said I couldn't be there either. At this point I stopped caring, and continued on my way. I finished my way down, and left.
She was standing in that smaller amphitheater you had seen above, which is what I passed through next.
I stopped briefly at the Acropolis museum, but after some deliberation decided I didn't want to waste time in a museum. I headed to the Temple of Zeus instead. There's not much left of this site, unfortunately. It's quite large - or at least, you can imagine it was quite large. There are only about 6 columns left from it at all.
Hadrian's Arch marks the entrance to Zeus' temple, and you can see them both here.
From there I headed over to Zappeion. Matt's guide had said sometimes there are interesting things going on here. I went inside, most things were corded off and no coming events were posted. The inside was unique, and I snapped a few photos.
Matt had said you could enter ancient Olympic Stadium - and since it hadn't been open the previous night and I was currently right next to it - I decided that was my next destination. However, it was disappointingly closed. What seemed like it may once have been a portable ticket office was abandoned. Given I could not go in, these were the best pictures I could get.
Walking back pass the Zappeion I looked for the National Garden, and after a few wrong turns found them, more-or-less by accident. I wondered around in the huge garden grounds for a while. Pretty, but not terribly exciting.
I started walking towards Monastiraki (the metro stop by La Plaka) and found myself at Syntagma (a big interchange metro stop I'd been in, but never outside of). There was an unimpressive building with very, very significant protection around it. I took a picture because, well, they were guarding something!
Syntagma is a pretty normal business looking square - but, as I mentioned, a major subway hub.
I jumped on the subway to Monastiraki to find food in La Plaka. I wandered aimlessly around La Plaka and was entertained to find this little Hard Rock store buried in the allies.
Eventually I found a cool street with lively cafes and had a gyro plate. Yum!
My next stop was the Poet Sandal-maker. For the uninitiated, this man is a famous poet - his poetry has been translated into many languages and his poetry is studied in literature classes of universities the world over. At this same time, he got his start by making hand-made sandals that are apparently incredibly comfortable and well made, which he sells incredibly cheap. Half the movie stars you know own sandals by this guy, but he still sells them for 13-27 Euros. Apparently, he chooses to continue to make sandals largely because a good poet must have some other real life job in order to be a good poet.
At this point, he no longer makes sandals as he's very old, but his son has taken up the sandal making, and instead of writing poetry he's a stellar artist. His paintings were all over the shop and were very good. The family is incredible.
I went in and found a guy who was clearly not the poet - or his son. I asked about the poet and he said the son was there. I was asking about a book of poems (the sandals didn't interest me) when the son came out. We chatted for a few minutes and I got my picture with him:
The assistant had given me a free booklet of poetry, but I asked about a real book and was able to buy a nicer book. I felt that given my lack of interest in the sandals, and I wanted to support them someway other than taking free stuff.
I never wrote in my log about this next place, but I know I went this day, and based on the order of my pictures, clearly I went here after the Poet Sandal-maker. Hadrian's Library is on the edge of La Plaka, near the Monastiraki station. In addition to what's left of the library there very little left of a structure which originally was a temple, later rebuilt as a church, and an empty lot where another building had stood. There's not much to say though, and since it's not particularly well known or famous site, I've only a few pictures here. Two of particular interest, I think, are the tiles that are preserved (4th picture), and the collection of stones they have on shelves (13th). I don't know why the later entertains me so much, but I thought it was funny.
Looking at what to do next, I noticed that there appeared to be a metro stop near Ancient Agora which I'd missed earlier after the Acropolis, and thus I headed off there. After departing the metro station, I spent almost an hour walking around the Acropolis border trying to find the entrance to the Ancient Agora. Finally, around 2:30pm I found it. I used one of the tickets I had from the Acropolis ticket. I walked around the grounds a bit, and about half way to Theseion - the temple that's the main site in the Ancient Agora - they told everyone they were closing and we had to leave immediately. It was 2:45, and they close at 3pm. What the fuck? Why they let me in for 15 minutes without saying anything is beyond me. While I did take some pictures, I've not included them here, and instead put them with the rest of the Agora photos from my visit there tomorrow. I exited on the opposite end where I'd entered and found myself on a street right near Monastiraki - which is where the Poet and La Plaka are!
I decided my next stop on this action-packed day should be the Kerameikos Cemetery and headed off to it. The map showed a metro stop for the cemetery, which I went to but it was no where near the cemetery, at all. I walked around for an hour and finally got back on the subway to Monastiraki and walked from there. It's a long walk, but it's the way Matt recommended in the first place, and seemingly my only option left.
The cemetery, too, was only open until 3pm, and by this point it was 4:30. At this point I headed over to Psiri, which is an area across from La Plaka with apparently great nightlife - though you wouldn't know it to look at it during the day. Matt had mentioned this in his notes - everything's closed during the day. On my way out of the Psiri area I stopped in "Clipart," a comic book shop with a cool Buffy statue.
Exarchia being the "bad" part of town seemed like a good place to hit next. Two years ago, the police shot unarmed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos setting off a string of riots in the area as well as several nearby cities. As such, it was a very dangerous area for a while. Today, it's still patrolled carefully by police, and there are occasional gang problems, but it's also an area where tons of cafes, bars, clubs, music shops and more are. It's a popular hang out place, and is kept relatively safe by riot police.
It was close to the hotel so I headed there to drop off some stuff and relax for a few minutes before heading back out. I walked the 10 or so blocks to Exarchia and wondered around there for a bit. I didn't feel it was very dangerous. There was tons of amazing things there though: cool vinyl shops, tons of music stores - including plenty of "metal shops," lots of cafes, small shops, and bars. It was a really cool, lively part of town - I loved it. After I felt I'd covered at least several blocks in each direction, I checked Matt's list; he'd mentioned a new age book shop that I hadn't seen. Of course it was quite far from the center, so that made sense. Since it had an English section on the 2nd floor, I went to check it out.
Sadly, I found the bookstore mostly unimpressive. It was time for dinner at this point I so I headed to the nearest metro station and then to Psiri to see what I mind find for dinner.
From the Monastiraki metro stop I walked to Psiri and wondered around trying to figure out where I wanted to eat. Ironically, Psiri was far more seedy, in my opinion, then Exarchia: I was even offered drugs quite blatantly on one of the back streets.
I settled for a place right on the square which was one of the few places that was open when I was there earlier (Psiri's restaurants and bars are generally only open at night). I was pretty excited about this amazing-sounding bolognese and carbonara pasta dish, but they were amazingly out of both bolognese and carbonara; not only could I not have both, I couldn't have either. I opted for a more boring penne and pesto. It was peaceful sitting outside on the square and watching the people and reading my magazine as I ate slowly. It was a bit chilly, but not so cold as to be uncomfortable (although I was the only one eating outside).
On my way home I was entertained when I was propositioned by a prostitute on 3rd September street.
Today's plan was to spend the morning at Ancient Agora - and the cemetery if I had time - and spend the afternoon on Aegina, a nearby island.
The alarm went off at 7:45 and I was on my way by 8:40. With my breakfast options still dismal, I settled for another chocolate croissant from the McCafe. The outer quarters were both stale and hard, leaving only about half of a decent croissant.
This time I arrived at the Ancient Agora at a prompt 9:10 just after they opened; perhaps I had to waste another ticket on this place (they accepted the pieces of the Acropolis ticket), but dammit, I was going to have plenty of time. I finished wandering around the city and I must admit, the fact that it was a real city was very cool. You can see where people lived, where homes were, where people gathered, where the temple was, etc. It's mostly in ruins, obviously, but it's the remnants of a full city you can actually walk around the way the people who once lived there did. A truly unique experience.
In particular, there were so many things in Athens - unlike in Rome - that you cannot touch or go inside, However, in Agora, most of the ruins are just here in front of you for you to walk around/in/through. This gave it a much more "real" aspect that many other things.
Here's one of the smaller churches in the city...
The Stoa of Attalos is remarkably well preserved and currently used as a museum on the grounds.
This tunnel is part of the draining system they had - I love ancient engineering.
Here's something I particularly enjoyed... this is the remains of a clock. A water clock. It was built in the 4th century BC and was quite accurate. It was improved over the years to work on filling rather than draining working around problems with changing water pressure. The Greeks were pretty smart! =)
This was a kinda cool place where people made offers to the dead.
Things like this are always amazing to me. Someone wrote this. More than 3 thousand years ago, some Greek dude carved this into a stone. This stone! And I can just go and touch the same one he did, thousands of years later!
A handful of things I found interesting as you walk around the city...
Of course, the main attraction in Agora is the Temple of Theseion.
Interesting fact: It was thought this temple was named after Theseus, but later discovered it was probably a temple to Hephaestos and Athena... but the name Theseion had stuck.
Sadly, like most things in Athens, you could not go into the temple, or even get closer than about 8 feet from it. This was very disappointing, especially since it's apparently one of the best preserved structures from the time.
The temple was at the top of a mesa which had beautiful views...
Random pieces from in/around/on/near the temple had been collected near it as well, for closer inspection.
Finally, I went wondering around into the forest-y part behind the temple, and there's some interesting things, including some irrigation and drainage systems.
I left Ancient Agora about 10:30 and headed towards the Kerameikos Cemetery. I picked up one of these interesting sugar donuts that are sold on the streets here (knowing I'd have a late lunch on Aegina) - I must admit, it was a hell of a good donut.
The cemetery was pretty cool. The ruins themselves were not particularly stunning, but it was the polar opposite of the Acropolis in the sense that there were virtually no bounds. You could walk anywhere, climb any hill or path, touch - or even walk on - most of the ruins. There were no off-limits places. In addition to paths, there were various vague foot patterns leading off into the grass in the middle of nowhere. Just when you thought "maybe I shouldn't be here" you'd stumble into a plaque explaining something. It was really nice.
Ultimately, despite the fact that the grounds were huge, they weren't that diverse and I didn't stay that long. There were no particularly noteworthy things there - it was just pretty. I've included a handful of photos.
I headed out around 11:20 and made my way down to the port. Yesterday I had noticed that on the metro line going down to the port, that 3 of the stops were closed according to signs and announcements (at least as far as I could make out), but none of them were Piraeous, the stop at the port. They made it clear these stops were non-operational, but what they didn't make clear is that the metro completely stops before those 3 stops, you have to take a bus, and then pick the metro back up for one more stop. So the metro just stops and everyone gets out, and there's no signs telling you what to do next. I asked one of the uniformed folks who explained I just go out and catch the blue bus. But of course there's a million bus stops outside and it's entirely unclear which one I want. So I go for the closest, since presumably, if it was more complicated than that, the metro person would have explained so. However, I noticed that there were only a few people there, which didn't make sense - presumably most people on the metro should have been there. So I asked someone waiting for the bus and they pointed me to a particular bus, about 50 meters down the sidewalk. OK, now we're talking.
He dropped us off, without explanation, at another metro stop - not at Piraeous where I'd expected. After I asked, he explained, clearly exasperated, that I needed to go catch the same metro number I was on. OK.
I got to Piraeous nice and early, at 12:06pm. After crossing the pedestrian bridge to the port, however, I found myself in the middle of a bunch of random docs with almost no people. The ticket booths were closed and there were no signs. I was at a loss.
Well - it was either left... or right. I picked right, at random, and walked down the dock for about 15 minutes before giving up and heading back the way I'd come. 30 minutes after arriving at the doc, I was back where I started and headed in the other direction. About 10 minutes later I finally passed someone to ask - but their English was quite poor. They were able to point me in the right direction... further down in the direction I was heading ("left").
I followed the dock around some twists and turns and finally found a ticket place where I could ask some questions. They seemed more like travel agents than a given ferry company though, so I opted to not buy from them now knowing what I wanted. I found out that the ferries to Aegina come at 40-past the hour and it was now 12:42. All that earliness gone to waste. I finally got to the area with the ferries and other boats and found the right person to buy tickets from, and did so, finally at 12:55 for the 1:40 ferry. Then I got some water and sat. And waited.
The ship pulled in a bit early at 1:22 and I was on board by 1:25. I walked around a bit a found a good seat. they loaded up people and cars and motorcycles and luggage and all sorts of crap, but eventually we were off.
I was annoyed that the cafe stand was closed, but I kept seeing people leaving and showing up with coffee, so I went exploring, and the lower deck had an inside area with a cafeteria. I got some coffee and found a seat. I even managed to catch a 20 minute nap.
We arrived at Aegina at about 3 and I checked the last ride out, which I had expected to be around midnight. Nope. 6pm. So much for Matt's guide.
I was starving and so I found a place to have lunch in just a few minutes. It was across the street from the marina overlooking the boats. They had some club sandwiches, wraps, a few random bits, breakfast stuff... and "mini-burgers." Normally I wouldn't come to Greece to order burgers, but with nothing else attracting my attention, I figured what the hell.
The waitress explained to me, seemingly worried, that it was no longer 2 mini-burgers, but was now 1 normal burger. OK, fine. Food. Now. Please.
To my great surprise an amazing burger showed up. Medium rare, with mozzarella and bacon on it and fries on the side. Some brilliant BBQ sauce came with it. It was great beef cooked medium rare, and absolutely wonderful. It was probably the first time in my life I've had a burger without ketchup, but hey - when in Greece right? :)
I enjoyed a leisurely lunch while reading and watching the boats and the people. I was sitting outside, but I found it quite funny that I they were playing Frank Sinatra inside.
At this point I went a bit down further down the coast but a map in front of a pretty church showed a beach back on the other side of the port, so I headed that way.
The beach turned out to be a small spot of sand with dirt and some sort of tree bark shavings.
Next to this was a "museum."
Somewhat disappointed, I headed back down the road. I decided not to let this get my down, so I thought of just wondering off to explore the island. Or perhaps walking past where the map was at and try to find a beach. I decided to just keep going and figure it out as I went along.
On the way I saw the little fruit markets people set up in their boats, as well as the horse-and-carriage rides they have here.
Just a few blocks past the aforementioned map, there was a restaurant with a few tables on the "beach" side of the street with the tables literally up against the edge of the sidewalk, next to which was about 2 feet of "sand" (for about 5 feet wide of the coast). I decided this was a perfect place to relax and sat down and ordered a coke. The family next to me had 2 kids playing in the sand. As far as I could tell it was mom, dad, grandma and friends of the family. The family seemed Latin of some sort, while the friends were either British or Australian; I didn't hear them talk enough to determine which.
The kids were really cute and I wanted to take a picture of them playing, but that seemed really creepy. Then I thought of asking if I could take a picture, but that seemed even worse! So I didn't. But later, the kids were running up and down the sidewalk in front of me and the little girl tried to pull the boy in the opposite direction he wanted to go, and well... it was too cute, and right in front of me, so I just took a picture anyway. The dad looked at me and laughed. Phew!
I took quite a lot of pictures of the water, the sunset - and in fact I had been sneaking pictures of the kids the whole time (sshh!).
In between pictures I read and enjoyed the sunset. I watched as the family changed the kids out of their sandy clothes, and as they left I said goodbye and they had the kids waive to me.
At this point it was about 5:15, so I paid the bill and left. Funnily enough, I then passed them buying fruits on my way back to the dock. I got to the doc at 5:25, bought my ticket, and went to wait for the boat. Unnervingly there were only 3 people. 5:30 came and went. 5:40. 5:45. At 5:50, with almost no people gathered, I asked someone if I was in the right place. The man laughed and pointed out that it was clearly the only doc for a ferry in the area. Fair enough.
6pm came and went, and finally the crowd was starting to grow. At 6:10 the ferry finally pulled up. We got back to Piraeus about 7:30. There were some great sunset moments around which I tried to capture.
I didn't really want to deal with the metro-bus-metro situation in the dark, and I was tired, so I just grabbed a cab back to the hotel. I found out later he had ripped me off for roughly double, but oh well.
I washed up and got ready for dinner and then headed back to Monastiraki. I bought a shot glass for my collection and then headed to Psiri for dinner. When nothing caught my attention I checked notes from Matt and decided to find the Naxos place he had mentioned. It was the only place he had mentioned that I could locate on the map and that also sounded good. When I found it there was only 1 person eating there, despite it being 8:30. I decided to give it a shot anyway.
My fried meatballs came with a sorta tsatziki coleslaw concoction which was very sweet with yogurt and carrots. It was a bit too sweat, but pretty good. I read and ate and the left around 9:30.
I stopped by the gelato place Matt had mentioned - though it wasn't named like he claimed, but was exactly where he described. It was good, but of course nothing like the Italian gelaterias. Satiated, I headed home.
On the way to my hotel from my metro stop I passed by about 15 cops mounting scooters which I regarded with great interest as I walked by. Only about half of them actually said "police" on them, and in fact, one poor schmuck didn't even have his own and had to ride on the back. I block or so later, as I neared where I had to turn left for my hotel, I crossed to the left side of the street, continued down it another black and passed another 15 or so cops. This time they were on foot and in full tactical riot gear! After passing them - being a street passed them - I realized I wanted a picture of 15 riot-gear police standing waiting for a street light to turn green. So I stood across the street from them and snapped a few pictures. It was dark and my first shot had the flash on. Several of them looked at me quite strangely. Of course, flash in the dark doesn't work that far away, so I switched to night mode without flash, which means things got a bit blury, and I snapped several more while they stared at me. Then their light turned green and then went on their way. They seemed to be headed towards Exarchia, which would make sense.
I continued towards my hotel, getting lost in my thoughts and forgetting all about them - making a left a block later - when I got quite a surprise. Suddenly, out of no where, a cop scooter was on the sidewalk next to me, and another cop was standing in front of me! They asked for my bag and started going through it. They pulled out the stack of papers asking what they were, and I explained it was information about Athens. Meanwhile the other cop was sorting through the smaller pockets. The first cop got to the section on Exarchia which included a picture of some graffiti that said, "Fuck the police", which he commented on, "Oh, fuck the police, huh?" I said it was just information on Exarchia, sure that he knew what it was. I wasn't going to be intimidated by these guys.
Then he asks why I changed directions when I saw them, to which I was confused and told him that I had not. I was simply heading towards my hotel. He inquired what the name of it was, clearly not expecting me to have a name, much less one in the right direction, but of course, I did.
The other guy saw my back meds and asked what they were with an "aha! I found something" attitude, but seemed disappointed when he realized they were just some prescribed pain relievers.
With nothing left to hassle me about, they handed me my stuff back and drove off without a word.
By the time I was done writing up the day and got to sleep it was around 11:30.
When deciding what to do with my morning there were a few important considerations: I wanted to - have a kebab pita, not have to carry my luggage around all morning, and have it be worthwhile. In that order. The National Archeology Museum of Athens is just a few blocks from my hotel, so I could leave my luggage at the hotel - and in fact, I would be back before checkout, so I didn't even have to do that! So that was the plan.
I rolled out of bed at 8 and out the door at a prompt 8:30 arriving at the museum at 8:45. I picked up a croissant (not a crappy McDonald's one) at some place on the corner and some coffee to help me stay awake and prep me to enjoy the museum. It turned out to be free today (and every Sunday from September - April, and then every first Sunday for the rest of the year plus a long list of other special dates). I checked my bag and headed into the art. There was some exquisite sculpture which I quite enjoyed, some good bronze work, and also some fairly boring pottery and utensils.
I noticed today that I seemed to have a preference for naked female sculptures, as well as clothed male sculptures, followed by clothed women and naked men - but not because my heterosexuality. In ancient times, it seems it was very common to sculpt nude men and clothed women. Clothed men and nude women certainly existed but were much less common. And as a result, as I've been through many places in Europe and many museums, I've seen an overwhelming majority of naked men and clothed women. I think that's why I have these preference, because it's more rare, and thus more interesting to me in terms of artistic expression. Otherwise I often just see "another naked guy, another naked guy..." and to be honest, after seeing David in Florence, no other nude male sculpture is really going to blow me away. Similarly I find it interesting how the image of and appreciate of the female body has changed - or not - in the last 2-4 millenia.
Anyway, I took pictures of some of the highlights from the National Archaeological Museum, since photos were allowed. Comments included, inline.
Maybe this is my immature side coming out, but it's really hard to take this one seriously. There's a picture of the explanation following it.
I want to take a moment to call attention to this next one. Such a wood carving is, I believe, quite unusual for the time (around 2400 BC), and is quite cool.
And come on, is this not awesome?
What movie does the piece in the next two pictures remind you of?
If you didn't say Terminator 2, then go watch that movie again.
Upstairs only one of the 3 rooms was open, and downstairs was just a shop, so it didn't take long to see the whole museum. I was out of there by 10:30 and back at the hotel around 10:45.
I had left the laptop on, and unfortunately the power goes out when you leave, so I charged it for a bit before leaving, packed and watched a few minutes of TV. I left about 11:15, checked out, and headed towards Omonia (the stop near my hotel), stopping at the Kebab place from Thursday to get my pita.
The metro stopped 5 stops before the airport and made everyone get off and I was very confused and a bit worried. It turns out only every 2nd or 3rd one actually goes all the way to the airport and those of us going there just had to wait for one of those to come along.
When I checked in the lady was incredibly sweet and changed my seat reservation, though I wasn't sure why. I found out later she gave me the whole row to myself - and I was the only one on the plane with that privilege.
There was wifi in the airport so I caught up on email while I waited. We got in Vienna early, and I had an almost 4 hours layover there. Again, because it's Vienna airport I had to go through security a second fucking time... but in the meantime I looked for food: sandwich shop, Starbucks, and other sandwich shop. Meh. The weather report pointed out it was snowing in Zurich - great.
Athens is amazing. Greek history is history for us all. As most of you know, I'm not a big history person, but seeing parts of the birth of modern civilization is a profound experience.
That said, I have to admit, not being able to get very close to the Parthenon, Theseion, etc. is very disappointing. Compared to being able to go into to the Roman Coliseum, it makes Athens a bit of a frustrating place in which to sightsee. And for this reason, I prefer Rome. (There are other reasons Rome might win anyway, but this is a hands-down reason at the top of my list).
But if you're in Europe, it's definitely a place to visit. Next time I hope to spend some more time in the Greek Isles. With a hot companion. :)
Finally, my always-reliable guide, Rick Steves, does not have a book on Greece. And while no one can match Rick Steves' awesome ability to guide a perfect European vacation, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Matt Barrett and his Athens Survival Guide and his Greek Travel Guide. These were indispensable tools in getting the most from my trip. They're free and they're awesome.