Greece Trip Report, Part I.

My sister and her family are traveling to Greece this summer. At her request I am posting my report and pictures from our visit to that beautiful country next. This was a trip organized by my husband's company so some of our arrangements were made for us, but we also had a few days on our own. While planning that time, I gleaned a lot of good information from Matt Barrett's Greek Travel web site: http://www.greecetravel.com/ I hired a man he recommends as a guide, 'George the Famous Taxi Driver,' and ended up deferring to George's suggestions on how to spend our time in and around Athens. George is not an official guide, so he cannot walk around the sights giving commentary, but he prepared us for what we would see while en route to the various places. We enjoyed wandering around the areas by ourselves as it enabled us to linger, or not, as we desired.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

We arrived in Athens via Frankfurt around 1 in the afternoon. We slept about 4 hours on the plane, and that coupled with our excitement about being here enabled us to get in a lot of sightseeing that first day.

George "the famous taxi driver" met us at the airport. He was quite friendly and spoke good English, albeit with a heavy Greek accent.



He drove us past the new Olympic stadium under construction, which, in accordance with popular rumor, had quite a bit of work remaining to be ready by August. The parking lots were huge dirt piles.



We stopped at the original Olympic stadium, which is beautiful and has the Olympic flame burning in front. This was used for the first modern Olympics in 1896 and will be the finish line for this year's Marathon.



From here we caught our first view of the Acropolis - quite spectacular.



We journeyed next to the Acropolis and walked around there for quite some time - taking in all of the beautiful ruins and the museum there. The Parthenon and Nike Temple are covered in scaffolding while being restored, but you can still get a feeling of their former grandeur. It's all very impressive and unbelievable that it was constructed 2500 years ago.


The Parthenon


The Odeion of Herodes Atticus


Many cats call the Parthenon their home


Construction at the Parthenon


Nike Temple

George drove us to the old market area of Athens called the Plaka. We walked through the Ancient Agora which has a temple to Ares that is amazingly intact. We also explored the Roman Agora with its water clock and sundials.


Temple of Ares in the Ancient Agora - one of my favorite sites


Ancient Agora - this building was reconstructed in the 1990's as a copy of the original


Many dogs make their home in the Ancient Agora - some have tags which indicate they belong to someone


Roman Agora (market)


Water Clock

Before taking us to our hotel, George drove us to the highest point in Athens (whose name escapes me) and we enjoyed a lovely overlook of the city.



We checked into the Athens Hilton where my husband Robert's company will be gathering, though we arrived two days early.



Our room was beautiful, in the modern style of a W hotel, having just undergone a complete renovation. We had a perfect view of the Acropolis and the Aegean Sea beyond from our balcony.



On George's recommendation we had a great meal at a Greek taverna called Psaurus in the Plaka. We let the waiter make suggestions for us and were very pleased with his selections.







We crashed about 10:00 only to be awakened by our 12-year-old son calling on Robert's cell phone at 2:30 a.m. I'm not sure he realized there was a time difference involved - he was just excited to report hitting a double in his baseball game!