Athens

I didn't have huge expectations for Athens, and I was slightly nervous because of the series of political protests taking place at the time, but wow, I really underestimated the beauty of this city. We arrived via the airport (we had flown from Rome to Athens) and immediately hopped on the metro to head into town. That was a LONG ride. We thought we had figured out which station to get off at, but we quickly realized how wrong we were. The directions to our hotel, which I had printed off from the internet, were incredibly wrong! We wondered around Athens for a while enjoying being lost in such a beautiful city! We walked up all kinds of amazing and beautiful backroads and neighborhoods! At one point, we ran into some Americans who also pointed us in the wrong direction! Finally, Nathan busted out the map on his phone and we made our way over to the hotel!

The hotel was really incredible! It was in a great location and had an abundance of ammenities, including fresh squeezed orange juice each morning! YUM!

That first day was wonderful! We spent lots of time relaxing and checking out the nearby outdoor shopping center just down the street from us! I think it was called Plaka, or something like that.

Of course the next morning was scheduled for a tour! We were going to take a small trip around Athens and then go visit the Acropolis, followed by a visit to the Acropolis museum! We lucked out with this tour. It was pretty fun and we met also met a few neat people in our group!

Picture Below: View from our hotel!

This was our first stop on our tour. We only stopped at this stadium for a few minutes. If I can remember correctly, this was the stadium where the first modern Olympic games were held.

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Below: This was on our climb up to the Acropolis; it's the Odeum of Herodes Atticus theatre.It was absolutely amazing!

Up at the Acropolis looking at the Pantheon!

We finished at the Acropolis and then headed down to check out the museum! The museum was almost as awesome as the Pantheon itself! While under construction, it was discovered that a bunch of ruins were buried at the site. The contractors decided to continue with the building of the museum and resolved the problem by constructing the museum on massive cement pillars. The floor of the museum, then, was made of glass so visitors could view the excavated site as they walked through the building. It was pretty awesome!

Some of the local kids playing soccer!

 After our tour ended, which was relatively early in the afternoon, we decided to take a nice stroll around Athens! This was one of my favorite things we did on the entire vacation! We walked through the shopping market once again and found that there was an opera showing in that amazing old theatre I photographed from atop the Acropolis! We were out of time that evening, but decided to go see it after our tour the next day.

We continued on our little journey through the city and ended up over at Monstriraki (sp?) and found a fantastic little outdoor restaurant! I remember never wanting that moment to end. It was so romantic and beautiful!

We probably ate our weight's worth of various fried cheeses while in Athens; it was heavenly!

Below Picture: Some of the random ruins throughout Athens! Amazing!!!

So funny little story. On one of the nights, which of course I can't remember, Nathan and I decided to dine at the hotel's restuarant terrace. We got up there, ordered water and started looking at the menu. When I saw the "Veal stomach with the mik of its mother still inside," I knew that this wasn't going to workout so well. After browsing the menu, Nathan also realized that this was not going to happen. We made up some lame excuse on how I wasn't feeling good, so we were just going to go back to our hotel room, and quickly blew that popsicle stand!