Buzzing Around The World With Fellette & Doug

Athens...

A change in pace today, we took the Metro from our port of Pireaus to Athens. The slick transit system was built for the Olympics in 2004. The cost was 70c each way. The ride took about 20 minutes and drops you off at the base of the Acropolis, in the picture you can barely make out the Acropolis at the top of the hill.

We were all a little weary from the previous three days of high levels of activity. Basically we wasted the day, plain and simple. We strolled the streets, visiting the odd church or two, watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the parliament buildings.

Athens does not seem to be the grungy smelly city that we remember from previous visits. We were told that it had been tidied up for the Olympics but I never would have thought it could be made as clean as it is now. Miracles never cease.

A very few modest purchases and it was lunch time. We located a sidewalk cafe with a nice outlook and took a little over an hour for lunch. We found our Cretan cab drivers brother is a waiter here. His amourous attempts only went as far as kissing and hugging though.

This was a Saturday and apparently every Athenian has a civic duty to come downtown and stroll through the streets. The throngs of people, young, old, and families with kids seem to be endlessly parading up and down the streets. Street entertainers, musicians and mimes are everywhere.


The organ grinders music was only able to be heard faintly over the fiddlers and musical groups that seemed to be everywhere.


Diners and drinkers seem to be tucked in every nook and cranny where they can possibly put up a table and a chair. When we arrived around 9.30 it was crowded. At 4 pm it was a zoo. More like a circus really, a carnival atmosphere pervades the area.

These are not tourists, the season has not yet really started, these are locals.

European cities seem to have an atmosphere that we cannot duplicate in North America. Seaside locations like White Rock and Ambleside etc., have a touch of it, but it seems to be much more natural here. This could be my reaction to a dose of sophistication that we have not seen since Rio and Buenos Aires. Perhaps they are more City People than North Americans who prefer a little wide open space as opposed to eating in what appears to be a human feedlot.

Regrettably we did not make it to any of the other regular attractions that Athens has to offer. All of us have seen them before, and although worthwhile revisiting, we just did not have it in our hearts. In the last three days we have been to so many ancient sites and ruins that, I for one, am beginning to get a little weary of them.

Tomorrow is a sea day, read that rest day!

posted by Doug and Fellette @ 9:49 AM