Athens Day 2

Monday Oct 29th

There comes our bus for the day :)

Today when we left the apartment it was a lot more busier then yesterday! Taxis all over the place - lots of honking! But its another beautiful sunny warm day - yesterday we actually got a bit of a sunburn on our faces. Suppose to get to 25C today. We are on our way to Syntagma Sq to get onto the hop on hop off bus and take it to the Acropolis to transfer over to the bus heading to the port city of Piraeus.

As we get on the bus the schedule has changed for "winter" and the times are longer between buses. Also found out that tomorrow is CRUISE DAY! YIKES!! Everything will be busy, so glad we are heading to the port today. But we have to wait an 1.5hrs at Acropolis for the bus to arrive. Good time to walk around the lower area known as Phillopapou Hill.

Tomorrow we are going to the top of Lycabettus Hill 

coffee and chess time :)

Once the bus came and we all got on it took a long time for the bus to get through the small neighbourhoods and onto the highway to the port due to all the traffic.  Once we got to the port we could get off and onto a "Train line" that went around the city of Piraeus, one of those hokey little trains that pull a few very uncomfortable wooden cars! Luckily it filled up and there was no room for us. Nothing that we had seen so far really called out to us to come see closer so stayed on the bus since the next one doesnt come around for another 1.5 hrs.  Plus I think since this is where the cruise ships come into the port, the restaurants would be on the expensive side! We were glad we stayed on as the bus did do a loop around the marina.

Streets are narrow, cars parked on both sides, one lane  for traffic = grid lock!! 

On our way out of Athens

Piraeus Marina 

Hard to see thru the bus window but there are people laying on the beach and in the water!

Then when the bus got back to Athens it had to make a detour down a side street due to a couple of thousand people marching towards us on the main road protesting something!  So far I have been unable to find out what it was about online.  We creep along the side road, lots of traffic from a 3 lane road to 1 lane :(  The bus tried to turn at a corner that would have taken us up to the Acropolis but the police wouldn't let the bus though. Very strange since the demonstrators had already passed! We all had to get down from the top of the bus because the street we had to go on had lots of low hanging branches.  After awhile the driver said that he was not going to get to the Acropolis so said we should get out. We agreed, thinking that walking was much faster then sitting on the bus going nowhere LOL!!  So back up to the main street we go.  Walk aways and find a small restaurant that was serving gyros :)  It was lunchtime so we go in and check it out. We watch him make one and said "2 please" they looked so good! We sat done and within a couple of minutes our huge gyros were ready and boy were they yummy!! Couldnt believe that when we went to pay they only cost 2E EACH!! What a deal!

Photo doesnt do the gyro justice! Plus its half eaten! LOL!!

From there we continued to walk thru the streets of Plaka on our way back to our place. 

Think we need a table like this under our chompa in Honduras :)

Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens built in 1842

The interior is beautiful 

Next to the Metropolitan Church is the tiny Church of Theotokos Gorgoepikoos - built in the 13th century

The interior-could probably seat 30 people

The exterior side wall

Asked the owner of this apartment where we have to take our garbage and he said out to the street in one of the bins. No specific bin just find one - very strange. We did find one about half a block away. Seems everyone just has to take their garbage to these bins located on each block. Even with this system the street here are very clean!

Our place is located between many embassies. Right next door is the French Embassy. There is a police command bus across the street that hasn't moved since we got here. So guessing it must be there 24/7.




After we had supper we went out again to see if I could get a picture of the Acropolis all lit up at night.  We walked to the Parliament and watched the changing of the guards. I took a video but will post separately since they don't seem to work on my blog :(  After that there was The Athens Happy Train parked on the main street. Its a 40 minutes ride for only 5E each. Thought maybe it would go thru the side streets of Plaka, which it did.  I tried to get a picture of the Acropolis but my iPhone just didnt show it clearly. I have to use it since our camera crapped out this summer - I cant review the picture after taking it, so not good :(  Took it to London drugs but they couldnt figure out why it was doing that.

Had a nice evening walking around the centre :)  Tomorrow we are doing the big hike up Lycabettus Hill.

Police command centre across the street

Stopped for a  Cappuccino Freddo and baklava

oooo it was good :) 

waterfalls in Syntagma Square