Athens Day 8

Today was spent sightseeing and do our feet feel it!! We walked somewhere between 9 miles and 15+ miles, not sure which. Rich had his pedometer on (registered @ 9 miles) and his bicycle GPS (registered 15+ miles). Normally, I would trust the GPS but I think it got a little confused when we were inside the archeological museum. Either way, it was a lot of walking.

We headed out early this morning for the Acropolis in hopes of beating both the heat and the crowds. I believe we accomplished both. I have to say the Parthenon was more impressive than its pictures; in fact, the entire Acropolis hilltop was pretty impressive. We spent @ 2 hours exploring this area and by the time we left at 10:00 AM, it was getting pretty warm and the tour groups were starting to arrive in earnest.

From the Acropolis we climbed Mars Hill (not very high, but the rocks were VERY slippery) and from there we walked down to Athens' ancient Agora (Athens' equivalent of the Roman Forum). This was the commercial hub of ancient Athens and, although a lot of it was in ruins, it was fascinating. We spent almost 2 hours wandering through the Agora as the temperature got hotter and hotter. By this time, it was almost 12:30 and we decided we needed to rest our weary feet and have something to eat. We found a nice sidewalk cafe off Monastiraki Square where I had an authentic version of a Greek salad (delicious!).

Since the temperature was now in the mid-nineties we decided an indoor activity (such as the Archeological Museum) would work best this afternoon. The problem was that it was in the northern part of the city and, rather than taking the metro (not sure why we made this decision - I think the heat addled our brains) we decided to walk. Anyway, it was an interesting walk and I'm sure we saw parts of Athens the typical tourist doesn't see (a HUGE meat and fish market, for one). The museum was well worth the walk, though. When we were done, we decided to walk back to the hotel with a little shopping thrown in to divert us (well, to divert me at least). Our reward to ourselves when all was said and done was a late afternoon gelato.