Acropolis Hill and Parthenon

Sunday May 28th - the Acropolis and The Acropolis museum 

We started early at  745 to beat the cruise ships (you will see that we didn’t).  We learned the history on the way up the hill and also at the top on the plateau of the Acropolis from our guide.  Our guide was Mama Faye, she was quite a character and is 72 years old. She has been guiding for 51 years - and everyone in Athens seemed to know her.  We then had 75 minutes to look around.  I liked the Parthenon (500BC) and the Temple of Athena Nike (426-421BC) the best!

Then we went to the museum at the base of the Acropolis hill for 2 hours.  This was open 12 years ago and has a beautiful view of the Parthenon.  We continued to hear the history of how many of the artifacts are in the British museums (our guide was not happy about that!).

We continued a great day with dinner in a Greek neighborhood away from the tourist areas.  It had a lot of fun eateries and fabulous bakeries. Last but not least, we sat on the rooftop of our hotel and watched the sun go down and the Parthenon at the top of the Acropolis light up.  It was as magical as it sounds.  

Tomorrow Monday, May 29, we get on our tour bus and head towards Delphi - sort of Northwest of Athens.  

Mary 

Even though this was taken at the end of the day, I wanted to start with the picture and show how beautiful the Parthenon was at night from our hotel.

We met our tour group last night, but here we are listening to our tour guide for the Acropolis - Mama Faye. 

We are ready to make the climb up to the to of Acropolis hill. 

In front of the Parthenon. 

We were told that this wasn’t crowded! Just like the top of any hill, it was windy!  The building in the background is the Temple of Athena. 

The Greek flag in the background could be seen all around the city of Athens.

Horse head on top of the Parthenon.

I loved the Temple of Athena, it is in the pictures above and below.   Then the next several pictures are from other angles on the Acropolis. 

In front of Athens first Olympic stadium.

Fun neighborhood restaurant that we ate dinner at. 

I wanted to show how hard it is to get to the bathrooms sometimes.  This spiral staircase was the way to get to our water closet (bathroom) at our restaurant today.