Med Trip - June 11

Another early morning. We had breakfast in our room to save time, as we had to start an excursion at 8AM. We disembarked just before 8, and immediately found our tour guide, a taxi driver. He was very happy that we were one of the first off the ship, as it allowed us to beat the crowds and save a lot of time. Our tour of Athens of up to 8 hours was ff to a good start. We learned that Alex was an official taxi driver, not a tour guide, so he could not accompany us in the sites. Instead, he began with a complete history of Greece from about 500 BC until the present, including the religious transitions and how this and the different empires that ruled Greece effected the historical sites and particularly the acropolis, the rocky area used as the religious centre of Athens, and the Parthenon, the temple on the acropolis built to the God Athena. He was particularly critical of the Ottoman empire of the Turks, who destroyed many of the ancient buildings and even old single houses in the city, using the materials for mosques and other buildings, and replacing houses with what he called boxes with little balconies. He was clearly a proud Greek and felt that the Romans who ruled Athens really wanted to be Greeks, but were unable to. After our history lesson, he dropped us off at the acropolis to explore it on our own. Then he drove us to the temple of Zeus, explaining its history, and letting us see it on our own. Not much to see, since the only thing left standing were a number of columns. The same with the olympic stadium built in the 1800's in order to resurrect the games, which were originally held to honour the Greek gods, but disappeared once Christianity took hold and the old gods and their temples were rejected. We spent a few hours seeing many buildings around Athens, taking in the changing of the guards at the presidential residence, (Greece now has an elected Prime Minister but also an appointed President of democracy, whose main function is to be a figure head and protect democracy should some leader try to take control away from the people.). We were dropped off for 2 hours at the agora, the market place near downtown, that had streets lined with shops and many restaurants, as well as a site of the old angora, where there were many ruins and one building from the old angora. We checked this out and had some lunch, and before you knew it, the 2 hours were up. In addition to seeing the ancient Greek sites, I must confess I was extremely excited to find hoopoes, as anyone could appreciate. Hoopoes are an interesting bird with a tufted head, long, curved bill and tan, black and white stripes. In 2014 I hoped to see these on my southern Africa trip, but never did. At the acropolis, I saw several fly by. I saw them again at the changing of the guard and the angora ruins, but they flew too fast to get a decent picture. Shortly after sitting down for lunch at an outdoor terrace beside the old angora building, I looked at a nearby tree and sat a hoopoe. I managed to get several great shots of it. What an unexpected pleasure. Okay, maybe not everyone shares that sentiment but I was excited. Alex was prepared to complete our tour by going to an archeological museum but we were getting tired, and were quite done with old ruins. Instead he took us to a few nice viewpoints and got us back by 3:30, which was perfect. Alex was a proud Greek and we had interesting discussions. He saw no need for different ethnic restaurants since Greek food was so good and diverse, that Greeks have no desire for other foods. He said he was very happy with the time he spent showing us around because we showed an interest and made it that much more pleasant for him, unlike some tours where he got very little feedback or even a sense that people were interested. When we left, he gave me a guidebook to Athens as a gift. Very unusual and neat. We had a great day but were bagged. It was also about 30 degrees so that added to the tiredness. After dinner I think most of us rested our eyes and looked forward to not having to wake up to an alarm tomorrow.

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