Athens, Greece

Well we landed in Greece pretty late and the AirBnb access code didn’t work for our door so we found refuge in a local roof top restaurant while we waited for the our host to help us. The food was great, but the view was amazing. You can check it out at this link: Artist Roof Top Bar & Restaurant.

After dinner, we finally got access to our accommodations and the balcony over looked the Holy Church of Saint Demetrio’s.

We had a lot of time the next day before we had to be on our cruise, so we woke up early to make the most of our time. Getting around Athens’s main attractions is very easy, you can buy a Hop On/Hop Off tickets well in advance for a very cheap price, similiar to most European cities. Our First stop was the Archaeological Site of Agora. .

This used to be a bustling residential and commercial gathering place. It is also stated by some to be the birth place of Democracy during the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.

I found a very interesting wild (parot?) HA HA. He was snacking on nuts.

I grabbed one of the nuts because I was intrigued by is spikey acorn appearance. A google image search stated it is knows as a, “Cyprus Nut”. Neat!

I believe this is the picture we took from the restaurant the night before. Its call the Areopagus Hill and I cover this area in depth further down below.

This is the Temple dedicated to Hephaestus and also used as a Greek Orthodox Church until 1834.

This was a shot of a new building just on the outskirts of the Agora, it housed a museum on the inside and several recreated marble statues on the outside.

This is the Holy Church of the Holy Apostils and is the only other building besides the Temple of Hephaestus to still be standing from when it was originally built.

Next we rode to the Temple of Zues, which sounds really cool… but literally this one picture is the entire thing. You can sneak round the back side of the park and you can view it through a giant opening without having to pay to get in.

Around this time, we were ready for lunch. If you are in this area, take a small walk away from the tourist trap resuraunts and visit this place: Thomas 1971 Tavern (link). The greek salad was amazing, the the lamb fillets may have been the best lamb I have ever eaten.

The staff here was amazing and very kind. They suggest this bottle (Techni Alipia) and it did not disappoint. Matter of fact, we were allowed to bring two bottles of wine onto the cruise ship and we immediately found a wine shop after lunch to buy two of these for our collection.

After a full belly it was time to high tail to our final destination, The Acropolis of Athens. This place is the crown jewel of the city, sitting on top the high point, it can be seen from anywhere in the city.

Here is the amphitheaters at the Acropolis, not sure what was going on with my camera. The lighting is very reflective in some of these photos.

After swimming through all the tourist, found a great secluded corner to get a view of the entire city.

There are a lot of ruins up here, similar to Agora. Wasn’t going to post every single one on here, however it is definitely worth the visit up there. This one was special however. It is dedicate to Athena and was built 2,430 years ago in 406 BC! My European friends always laugh at how I’m always amazed by very old things. My country alone only has just over 200 years of history itself, but I guess it’s a different mindset here.

Found this very chill/cool cat guarding the foundation of Athena’s temple. Thought I’d grab a selfie with her to close out this amazing trip.