Day 16 - Athens, Greece

Today I conquered the Acropolis. Martha and Linda conquered it years ago, and wished me well. If that’s a bad turn of phrase sorry, but it was 95 degrees and seriously uphill. It was worth the climb the views are amazing. At the top I met Jerry and Dave T.

Wiki: The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens, Greece, and contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historical significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. The word Acropolis is from the Greek words ἄκρον (akron, "highest point, extremity") and πόλις (polis, "city") The term acropolis is generic and there are many other acropolis in  Greece.

We think 250 years is old in America, but it’s not Jack sh$& people. Greece originated in 3000 BC. THREE THOUSAND! And somehow they’ve preserved so much. And also, they see, to know the stories from 3000 years ago. How does that work???

Then we went to the museum, because you have to, and there’s air conditioning, lol. I’m really not a museum person, ahhh too much stuff. But I am in awe of the preservation here. Wow. And how they built buildings on top of ruins, which are the pics looking down, It’s hard to comprehend. Just amazing. And still, stinking hot, lol.

After a cafe respite, we ran into Heidi and Laura who signed up for this cruise two years ago, and are the impetus of the entire trip!!!! It was so random to meet them at the Parthenon today. We weren’t expecting to see them until we board the ship tomorrow.

We were on the hunt for the Nike store. New arrival Dave T realized after 20 minutes that the tennis shoes he brought were not going to work. We meandered through a lot of shopping districts to get to the Nike store. Dave found shoes and Linda and I found tanks. Have I said it’s ridiculously hot here?

Here is Martha’s version of the walk: We went on a hike to find a Nike store so Dave could replace his tennis shoes. My “friends” billed it as a pub crawl with the opportunity to buy shoes at the end. I’m all in! They lied!!!!! Stopping at a convenience store to buy one small beer for the two mile hike is not the tour I signed up for (although it was very nice of them). There was one additional stop at the pharmacia where we all bought the new Rennie Ice. That was the closest I got to air conditioning in over an hour in 97 degree heat. I’ll stick with my Fit Flops and I plan the routes from now on.

After Nike, we’re in search of food and drink and found Te Kila - a Mexican restaurant in Greece and the waiter spoke French and Italian. It was very entertaining. Good food and service. It was a good spot on a hot afternoon.

When we finished that we figured out we were 1/2 a mile from our hotel so we made everyone walk there to see the view from the top! Thanks to Alex, Jenny, and Dasu. The rooftop bar crew.

What a great day in Athens. I’m sure there’s so many sites to see, but it was crazy hot, and we didn’t have it in us.