(written by Brian)
We again started early in the morning to make it to our Athens excursion. After waking up Gabe again (3 for 3 for wanting to sleep in when he couldn’t, and 0/1 for sleeping in when he could). This time Lara and Greg couldn’t book the same tour as us since they booked later, so they booked another one where they had a slightly different itinerary.
After a short bus ride into Athens, we went to the archeological museum first for about 90 minutes. It turns out that we were the only family crazy enough to bring kids to a tour that includes 90 minutes at an archeological museum for a reason. Just kidding, the kids were great despite being the only kids there. But as a sample for how they felt about it, Michael’s earpiece to hear the tour guide died within the first 3 minutes (or even sooner) of the the tour, and he just went “I don’t care” and walked around with us quietly. We got quite a few compliments from people that had been with us on the Olympia tour and the Athens tour that they were great, and it was true. To be honest, Devri and I were done with this tour before it was over as well, but only in the last 15 minutes or so. It was interesting, but a little dry.
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| Fake Julie or Real Julie? Our new tour game! |
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| The Artemision Bronze, 450 B.C. |
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| Either Zeus or Poseidon, Ancient Greek Bronze statue |
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| Bronze statues are rare because they would get melted down when religions changed |
This one was spared because it went down in a shipwreck
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| Scholars can't decide if it is Zeus or Poseidon because its weapon is missing. |
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| Funerary sculptures |
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| Aphrodite of Syracuse, also known as the Venus Pudica |
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| Which one is the real Nana? |
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| Jockey of Artemision, ~150 B.C. also found in shipwreck in 1926 |
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| Theater Mask, 2nd Century B.C. |
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| 1st century B.C. statue of child with dog |
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| Funerary Sculpture |
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| Where's Michael? |
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| How to Liven Up a Dry Tour 101 |
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| Bronze Statue of Emperor Augustus (the stress of ruling made him lose his eyes) |
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| A lead talent (the flat stone at the bottom)--the Biblical kind |
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| Frescos from Ancient Thera, Santorini's Pompeii, AKA Akrotiri: "The Boxing Children" and "The Antelope" |
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| National Archeological Museum in Athens, Greece |
After that we went to the Acropolis, something that Devri have both dreamed of for years. In fact, I would say that coming on a Mediterranean cruise was heavily inspired by our desire to go to Athens for the Acropolis and also the rest of Greece for the islands. It did not disappoint us. From the first moment I saw the Parthenon driving towards the Acropolis, I thought “well I guess I thought it would be a bit bigger”. And then we kept getting closer, and closer, and closer, which made the Parthenon bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Finally, when we were standing in front of it, it was clear how massive the Parthenon really was. We couldn’t even believe that we finally made it. While they had some scaffolding up for preservation efforts, it was still overwhelming and unbelievable in person.
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| First glimpse of the Acropolis |
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| First glimpse of the Acropolis |
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| The Roman Amphitheater near the Acropolis |
Devri was also very excited for the entire Acropolis as she studied major pieces of it in her art and architecture classes, such as The Temple of Athena Nike the Erechtheum, with its Caryatid Porch, or Porch of the Maidens. We even had our local “maidens” impersonate the ladies in the columns. Lara later reminded us that the original maidens are elsewhere, most in the Acropolis Museum, with one in the British Museum.
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| Temple of Athena Nike |
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| Walking through the Propylaea |
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| The Parthenon |
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| Propylaea |
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| Pieces of columns |
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| Parthenon restoration close up: white marble is new |
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| Parthenon Entrance |
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| Athens from the Acropolis |
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| Porch of the Maidens in the Erechtheion (Temple of Athena) |
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| Erechtheion |
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| Porch of the Maidens or caryatids |
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| Caryatids |
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| Erechtheion |
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| Parthenon |
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| Temple of Athena Nike |
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| Temple of Athena Nike |
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| Temple of Athena Nike |
After spending awhile on top of the Acropolis, they finally forced us to come down and then we walked to the little suburb of Plaka which had food and shopping. We again opted out of shopping (to Gabe’s great disappointment) and instead spent the entire time getting food at a seated restaurant. I forgot to mention, by this point Rachel had had a serious meltdown on the Acropolis mostly due to needing food, and I was getting close to that point. Though we had an hour at Plaka, we finally got our food when we had about 3 minutes to get to the meeting point for the group to go back to the ship. Michael cleaned up his food very quickly and headed over to tell them we were coming, and then we had the quickest scarfing session of our lives. What I tasted of lunch was amazing, I really love Greek food (though the kids don’t love it quite as much).
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| Walking back down from the Acropolis |
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| Parthenon from the bottom of the hill |
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| Lunch in the Plaka, Acropolis in the background (behind Gabe) |
We made it back only a few minutes late and headed back to the ship for the day.
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| Goodbye, Acropolis |
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| How Dominos delivers in Athens, Greece |
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| Olympic Stadium in Athens |
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| Can you spot the Acropolis? |
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| View from Mom, Rachel, and Michael's balcony |
We met up for dinner, and then played cards (Five Crowns) with Lara, Greg, Leta, Kirt, Julie, and Rachel before calling it a night and heading to bed.
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| Five Crowns after dinner |
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| Where we were and where we were going next |
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