Day 4 - Athens

Day 4 - The first stop once at sea was Athens. Looking through my photos, I honestly did not take that many which coincides with disappointment about the city. (I hate to start of with a bit of a negative tone...) Of course the ruins and the Acropolis are amazing but the city itself was a letdown. I don't mean to sound harsh but it was unclean and rundown with alot of graffiti. Now I realize those characteristics likely describe many other major cosmopolitan cities but it was still disappointing. The other disappointing quality was the lack of use of facilities built and used during the Olympics. (This was emphasized when compared to the final city of the trip, Barcelona, that has capitalized on all Olympic sites and facilities).

In contrast to the city of Athens is the Acropolis. This site was everything I expected. Located up on a quite elevated hilltop, the Acropolis and most notably, the Parthenon, are impressive to look at today and even more impressive when you think about how they were built. No modern tools or machinery, just human strength and determination carrying tons and tons of stone up the hill and constructing buildings and monuments that are still standing today. You may notice signs of construction equipment and materials in the photos - restoration was underway particularly on the Parthenon.

An interesting note about the tour in Athens was our tour guide. She was this very nice and motivated lady, very proud of her city and its history. She kindly led us up the hill to the Acropolis on the less intense path - a gradual walkway compared to the straight stairclimb option. Just like on many tours, each person has a their own MP3-like player with headphones and the tour guide talks into a microphone that feeds the information into your own headphones. This is nice particularly in busy places as you are not constantly straining to hear someone over the noise of a crowd. Anyway, this tour guide - she became the standard by which we measured all other guides and I don't mean that in an all that positive way. TMI or too much information was what she provided. Yes, she knew her history but wow, even I who absolutely loves history had to turn my headphones off because I simply could not listen to anymore information on Greece. Too many details to the point where I think my brain stopped retaining information! 90 degrees with the bright sun and hundreds of people at the site - what happened in year X (insert any year you like and she would no doubt have had information on it!) was no longer interesting! I joke a bit but it was true the TMI - ask anyone in my family...