God damned Athens

Specifically Poseidon. That god has had a grudge against Athens for a long time. More on this later.

Athens is a very clean city. Apart from the graffiti everywhere, which is apparently mainly about politics, inspired by the 35% unemployment rate in Greece.

The Greeks have dug themselves into a very deep hole. Today we were visiting some of the other stuff they've dug up, most notably around the Acropolis. The weather forecast was a for a slight chance of rain, which didn't happen. Our luck holds.We pile on the bus in Piraeus, the port that services modern Athens, and meet Penny. She turned out to be one of the best tour guides I've ever had. She not only knows her stuff, she has a fabulous sense of humour, which kept the tour informative and engaging.

The first point of interest was a brief stop in central Athens, at the stadium in Athens where every two years the flame from Olympus is brought by the Greeks and handed over to whoever is about to host the games.

From there the bus drove towards the Acropolis, which stands out over Athens even today. We drive past Hadrian's Arch, a few other ancient bits I can't recall at the moment, and get dumped in the parking lot at the base of the Acropolis. 

Everything I've read talks about how hard the walk to the top is, which worried me because of Emma's knee problems. Turns out it's dead easy, with a very forgiving slope most of the way. The only bit that was challenging was a short section of stairs towards the top of the Acropolis through the temple arch.

As soon as we exit the arch we see the Parthenon, which is a genuinely impressive building, and the Erectheon, which has a genuinely unfortunate name. 

Once again I realise how fortunate we are to be here in the off-season, as the crowds are a fraction of the size they'd be in the peak of summer. Better still we're one of the first tours for the day, so we get there before the bulk of the off-season press as well.

Unfortunately visitors can't actually enter the buildings. We can walk around them, and get reasonably close, but the impact of millions of clomping feet won't help the preservation efforts.

After the Acropolis we were taken to the Plaka, a core market area of Athens. Emma and Anna did an exemplary job of boosting the economy by dumping massive amounts of cash into the Greek jewellery industry.

From there we had lunch in a hotel that was in the middle of a construction site. To be fair it wasn't in the middle, it was just outside, and the area was part of Athens undergoing major redevelopment. I though the food was better than the meal we had on Corfu, although the view at Corfu wins hands down.

Over lunch we met a young couple from Florida on their honeymoon. They were having a good time, although I figure the two of them cutt the average age of the cruise ship down by half. I was especially delighted to hear they were as worn out by all the touring as we were. 

After lunch, including a couple glasses of wine, the bus took us to the Temple of Poseidon. I'm not sure how long this took as I was in a deeply meditative state during much of this time, but I believe it took about an hour and a half.Poseidon's Temple is - OK. It was built a long distance out of Athens, and according to legend was built because Poseidon was unhappy about the Athenians choosing a gift from Athena over the one he prepared. She offered them wisdom, he offered them a goat and an olive tree, or something stupid like that. Anyhow he got sulky and sent storms for years until the Athenians appealed to Zeus, who said "build Poseidon a temple; that'll shut the little bitch up".

So they walked up the coast, and found some sign or another - a dog with a fish in its mouth or something - at a site on the coast which also had the good fortune to be low-value real estate because it was close to Bucharest than it was to Athens.*

The temple's in pretty good nick, but once again we couldn't actually enter the temple. Which arguably is part of the genuine Greek experience, as even when the temple was in operation ordinary people generally couldn't enter it. Apart from a couple of special temple days it was closed to everybody but the priests, because the place was so far in the boonies they couldn't keep a proper watch on it, and they were afraid someone would nick all the valuables from the temple. Probably one of the 35% from the ranks of the unemployed.

Anyhow, I figure Poseidon never really got over it, and that's why the Greek economy is still sinking today. It fits.

Our temple-izing for the day we complete, After a loooong drive back we visit the gelato bar, where I sensibly ordered a beer. You can overdo gelato.

Since I was doing such a smashing job of drinking Emma and I opened a bottle of Greek red wine we picked up in the duty free shop the previous day, and watched a bunch of Russian naval personnel give speeches interspersed with little musical stings, perform a few dances, and look very important, aboard a Russian ship flying a Greek flag. I think it may have been some sort of hand-over ceremony,  although why the Greeks would buy a couple of Russian rustbuckets is a small mystery. Something to research when I get home.

We stayed on the balcony as the ship sailed out at dusk, with excellent views of the Parthenon lit up for the night. 

Back to the Greek Isles tomorrow, this time in the Aegean Sea. 

* I may have garbled this tale a bit. It was a very good lunch.