After a quick breakfast, we made our way off of the ship and
into the port to meet the guide for our tour: Essential Panoramic Athens. Our morning was so rushed in fact that we
didn’t have time to return to our room after breakfast for Hildy to ‘clean her
teeth’. Nevertheless, we met our guide in the port terminal and were
directed to a large Pepto-Bismol pink bus. We were surprised by the number of
people on the tour but it turned out that since the day before had been a
holiday, half of the passengers on board were scheduled to do the tour the day
before, but as everything was closed, their tour was pushed to May 6th
instead.
Initially, I was not overly impressed with our tour guide
Chris. She seemed overly frazzled with
the number of guests on the tour, but I later learned that this was not her
fault. Once we got moving and began the
tour, one of our first stops was the Constitution Square. Originally, we were just going to take
photos out of the windows of the bus, but the Changing of the Guard ceremony
was set to begin in 10 minutes, so Chris decided it was best for us to stay and
watch.
When I got out of the bus, I was approached by a man who
offered me bird food to put into my hands.
A little shocked, I simply put
out my hands and soon I had pigeons flocking all around me and resting on my
arms. The man snapped a Polaroid, and
Jessie was quick to also capture the event on film. Before I knew it, the man was demanding 5
Euros for the picture… I should have known this tourist trap and been more
assertive. While I didn’t think the tiny
picture was worthy of almost 8 dollars, I gave the man 2 Euros and told him
that was all I was giving him, and he could keep the picture if he wanted
to. He ended up giving me the photo, but
called me a ‘Crazy American’ as I was walking away; clearly unimpressed by his
earnings from me.
The Changing of the Guard ceremony was interesting to
observe, but did little to impress me of Greece’s power and authority. The men wore puffy white linen ‘dresses’
which were gathered just under the thigh.
They also wore white tights (which Hildy referred to as panty hose) and
shoes with a large “Bummel” on top. When
they walked, they would raise their right leg higher and then stomp it on the
ground. It was interesting to see the
process of switching the guards (and all of the obscure steps taken to do so)
but the whole ordeal struck me as fairly bizarre.
As we were leaving the Constitution Square, Jessie held out
an empty open palm and a pigeon landed on her forearm looking for food. Clearly they’re well trained here to observe
dining opportunities. We took advantage
of the chance for a photo shoot for Jessie and then climbed back onto the bus.
A little while later we were visited the Pan-Athenian Stadium,
which was the site of the first modern Olympics, held in 1896. This was basically a large stadium, but ropes
prevented people from entering. Crowds
of tourists lined up around the ropes and took photos of the sight.
We then drove past the Neoclassical Trilogy: the Academy,
University and National Library. These
were built in Neoclassical times, which means it looks like ancient Greek
styles with relief sculpture of Greek mythology (about the goddess Athena, Athens’ namesake), but was built in recently
modern times (mid 1800s).
We were soon approaching the Acropolis. The tour group exited the bus and made our
way up quite a few steps where we waited for Chris to get our tickets. Since everything was closed the day before,
it seemed as though everyone in Athens was at the Acropolis. There were hundreds of people everywhere you
looked.
It took about an hour of waiting, but once we were finally
in the Acropolis, we began our guided tour.
Chris gave us some excellent information and explained the stories and
myths of Greek history. We were able to
see the Temple of Athena Nike from a distance and also saw the Erechitheion
with its Porches of Maidens.
Navigating through the Acropolis was no easy task. The terrain was very uneven and the marble surfaces
made everything fairly slippery. Jessie
and I were now extremely cautious with Hildy so we each had her arms when
walking with her. People on the ship
have stopped us and asked us who we’re travelling with. When we tell them it’s our grandmother, they
mention what good care we take of her… clearly she’s quite the envy of many of
the older passengers.
Our tour lasted for about an hour and a half and then we
made our way down and had free time to tour around the surrounding areas. We walked along a beautiful promenade filled
with little tourist shops and restaurants.
We found a lovely little Greek Yogurt shop that made homemade yogurt and
topped it with various ingredients. We
had a pine honey and walnut yogurt… it was fantastic! It also had Wi-fi, so we used the opportunity
to call mom and dad with another early wake-up call.
Returning to the ship was also a pleasure. We stopped off at the duty-free store on the
way and did some shopping and then came back to our room and showered. Hildy had a bit of a sun-rash on her face and
neck so Jessie and I had been covering her with towels soaked in ice
water. The first time I did this, I felt
horrible because she screamed like I was torturing her, but now we’ve gotten
used to it and we think it’s helping.
We also took Hildy to the medical centre to get some Benedryl
which seems to be working somewhat. We
had a nice dinner in the dining room and then watched Finding Nemo with Hildy,
who proceeded to fall asleep (probably from the drugs). Jessie and I decided to take advantage of our
sea day the following day, and stayed up relatively late. We played some ping pong (terribly), went to
a fantastic magic show on board and then saw the Philippino Show, put on by the
crew. It was a lovely show which Hildy
was sad she missed.
No comments:
Post a Comment