Athens, city of the Gods!

After a loonng day of traveling yesterday and decent nights sleep, Pat and I were ready to see Athens,  first thing in the morning we headed up to the roof top restaurant of the Athens Gate Hotel and had our complimentary breakfast, it was an awesome buffet consisting of everyone one would want for breakfast, I ended up having Greek Yogurt with fruit, and a few pastries, but they also had eggs, bacon and some heavier foods. Seeing the Acropolis  outside out door it was going to be our first stop, we headed out and walked the 10 min it took to get to the entrance. Its at the top of hill in the center of Athens, its quit a walk up to the top, the whole way up there are ruins the largest being the theater which is still used for entertainment today.

 The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is a stone theatre structure located on the southwest slope of the Acropolis

After more and even more climbing we get to the entrance to the Acropolis and its absolutely amazing! Pat and I walk around the grounds, it still wasn't to crowded but as we make our way around we notice more and more people are showing up. To see something that you have only seen in pictures and read about is overwhelming, history right in front of you! The temple build to Athena right there!

The grounds of the Acropolis

The Parthenon, Temple to the Goddess Athena

After walking around about 45 min we now notice its just packed with people and getting worse we start to head down now and notice the line from top to bottom. On the way down we check out a few more smaller ruins and head back to the room. After a break we decide to get some lunch and to an area of shopping and restaurants called the Plaka, there we want to eat a place called Bairaktaris it was featured in Bizarre Foods, the whole way there we walk thru an area of narrow side walks lined with small shops selling anything and what seem like everything. Seems like every eatery we pass were accosted by someone trying to talk us into eating there,  I personally really hate this.  We find Bairaktaris and grab an outside table, we order the meat platter a mix of kabob, gyro meat and a few others, it was excellent and I was happy!

Lunch makes me happy!

After lunch we headed across the street to the Temple of Zeus and checked it out, again an amazing part of history stands before us. We stop at a street vendor that sells nuts and pick out almonds that are rolled in cinnamon and then dipped in sesame seeds, Wow what a great snack that we enjoyed while walking the grounds of Zeus.

Toppled column at the Temple of Zeus

Massive columns at the Temple of Zeus

After take another break and relax on our balcony we can see both the Acropolis and the Temple of Zeus from our balcony, we had an amazing room with a balcony that wrapped around the entire side of the hotel. We had only planned one more attraction today and that was the brand new Acropolis museum which was built right on top of an area of ruins, much of the floor is see thru so you can see the excavating being done below. It was beautiful  museum and really explains everything we had already seen today. It is full of  statues and parts of the Acropolis, we even watched a movie that explains its history. After walking around for a couple hours we leave and stop to get a greek salad at small street restaurant near our hotel. We sit down, to my left are 2 young girls and to the right an older couple all speaking English, we start a conversation with the couple and they are from San Diego, retired and traveling thru Greece, they are headed for Santorini a few days after us.  Before calling it a day, we did sit on our balcony and enjoy for just a bit more, but we will getting up early in the morning to fly to the Island of Santorini.

Excavating Work at the Acropolis Museum

More ruins under the museum