Athens

Our first stop on Thursday was the Acropolis. What you see as you start to climb the Acropolis is the Theater of Herodes Atticus built in 161 AD & which is still used today for outdoor concerts. Much of the steps leading up the mountain are marble. It had rained earlier so the stairs were slippery! At the top, you can't miss the Parthenon....and the scaffolding & cranes surrounding for doing restoration work. The Parthenon was completed in 438 BC.  The temple was built to house a 39' statute of Athena, the patron goddess of the city. An interesting fact is that there are no straight lines but slight curves in the middle of the columns & they lean inward. There is also the a Temple of Athena Nike with some remaining statues. The views from the top are magnificent but we could see a big storm coming. We decided the prudent thing was to leave the Acropolis while it was still safe. I can't imagine what the crowds must be like in the summer!

We then had a city tour seeing the major sights including the Plaka, which is one of the oldest area.  Athens has been inhabited for 7,000 years! We also saw the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the National a Gardens & Panathinaiko Stadium (first Olympic Games held in 1896).

On Friday we had planned on going back to Athens to visit the Acropolis Museum & deliver fabric to Facebook quilting friend. A strike got in our way. A taxi on Thursday would have been 20€ but on Friday was 35€ & no guarantee of how we would get back before the ship departure time. Supposedly the Metro workers were on strike as well as other government workers so national properties were closed. Happy we got to the Acropolis on Thursday! We ended up shipping the fabric by TNT. We then visited two beautiful Greek Orthodox churches & walked around Piraeus. The first church, St. Nikolaos, had shafts of light streaming in through windows in the rotunda shining on the different frescoes & icons.