We really hit the ground running for our second day in Athens. As our only full day in the city, and after seeing several big sights the day before, we knew what we wanted to see and had concocted a plan of attack.
First on the plan, wake up call at 6:30 AM. Not a popular choice after a day of travel and sightseeing. But totally necessary if we were going to get a single picture of the Acropolis without a thousand of our closest tourist friends. Knowing this did not make it any easier when what felt like 10 minutes of sleep, the alarm jolted me awake from a dead sleep. At least the coffee was strong and quite tasty at the continental breakfast. We were also treated to some Greek specialties to accompany the usual eggs, toast and bacon for breakfast.
Fed and caffeinated, we were charged for the day. To start the day we hiked up the street to the entrance of the Agora. With tickets already in hand (the Athens pass is the way to go!), we got right through and beat the tour bus ready to unload behind us.
At the Acropolis we saw:
Herod Atticus Odeon- a massive amphitheater that can seat thousands (I’d hate to be in the nosebleed section) 
Dionysus Theater- a smaller amphitheater that lay crumbled and dwarfed compared to its larger neighbor to the right
Nike Temple- impressive smaller temple that could also be seen from our hotel
Athena Temple- small in comparison to the Parthenon, but really quite impressive. The six statues of ladies outside the temple are all replicas. The originals had to be moved to museums indoors due to damage from pollution
Parthenon- a massive structure that sits atop the Acropolis. There are cranes and scaffolding around it as they work to restore and preserve what is left of this great historical building
After taking in all the Acropolis had to offer, and spotting hoards of tourists dutifully filling up the stairs to enter, we knew it was time to head out.
Our afternoon consisted of much more sightseeing, shopping and eating, but I’ll talk more about that in another post.
There is something magical being surrounded by so much history. It is amazing to see a modern city built among ruins of our past.
Katy
2 Comments
Looks like a lot of fun! I definitely want to visit Santorini some day. Are there a lot of English speaking people in Greece?
Hope you have an amazing trip!
You HAVE to come and stay in Oia! It is amazing. There are so many English speaking people. We rented quads and have been tooling around the island for the last few days. We will have to getting together and talk about it when I get back.