On day one I rolled out of bed for the free hotel breakfast, then rolled right back in until 2pm. Thirteen hours of travel (including some
hilarious delays in Frankfurt) plus
jetlag just wiped me out. But I forced myself up out to go see the main sights and sights of Athens which it is famous for - The Acropolis and its surrounding ruins. My guidebook map was not so hot but luckily the hotel was helpful and had a guide which a) labelled every road and b) wasn't so large I'd have to lay it out on a conference table to get the best use. Though I went with a
Rough Guide to Athens, I'd almost recommend not to bother with guide books. None of them offer very satisfactory maps and a little bit of web research could have told me most of what my book had to offer.
The bus system isn't too shabby, though they have this system where you don't drop the ticket in a box - you stick it in a stamping machine that puts the time on it (tickets are valid for about three hours I think). If you're
a cheap bastard you can usually get away with not stamping your ticket, though I wouldn't suggest it on the tram system as those aren't so crowded as to leave the inspectors flabbergasted into inactivity. Thus a total of two bus tickets got me through my entire time in the city... Point is, I took the bus up
Syngrou and, getting off one stop later than I meant to, started trotting around
The National Gardens. Inside which you can find
the Zappeion, which I thought was their
Parliament BUT NOPE. It's just used for special functions. Oddly, I didn't take any pictures of it. Odder still, the Greeks use
their parliment for a
parliment.
The paths in the National Gardens are very
sprially so I got hell of lost for a while before popping out near where I wanted to be, conveniently. Specifically, I was outside of
Hadrians Arch. Thanks to my bee-
yoo-ti-full angle, you can see the Acropolis through the arch.
From there it was onto the first of the big six and I expected to part with a chunk of my cash here. Luckily you can get a very good deal on seeing the six main sites of central Athens, any of them will have a ticket vendor that can sell you an all-inclusive ticket for €12 (about $17 CAN or
£8). In the end I only saw four of the six sites but even that felt like a pretty good deal for what I paid. First off, right beside the Arch but behind large fences, is the Temple of Zeus.
It's huge, as you might guess - but first here is a picture with
a LADY standing near it to give proper scale.
It was around this point that a similar feeling of being steeped in history to that which I've felt in certain parts of London hit me. Not too surprising since Athens has a history which dwarf's that of London just as London dwarf's that of the New World.
The fact that several areas around the temple were
archeological sites in progress only augmented the sensation!
From here I then crossed over to
Dionysus Promenade, which leads up to tomorrow's pictures at The Acropolis!
The bus system isn't too shabby, though they have this system where you don't drop the ticket in a box - you stick it in a stamping machine that puts the time on it (tickets are valid for about three hours I think). If you're a cheap bastard you can usually get away with not stamping your ticket, though I wouldn't suggest it on the tram system as those aren't so crowded as to leave the inspectors flabbergasted into inactivity. Thus a total of two bus tickets got me through my entire time in the city... Point is, I took the bus up Syngrou and, getting off one stop later than I meant to, started trotting around The National Gardens. Inside which you can find the Zappeion, which I thought was their Parliament BUT NOPE. It's just used for special functions. Oddly, I didn't take any pictures of it. Odder still, the Greeks use their parliment for a parliment.
The paths in the National Gardens are very sprially so I got hell of lost for a while before popping out near where I wanted to be, conveniently. Specifically, I was outside of Hadrians Arch. Thanks to my bee-yoo-ti-full angle, you can see the Acropolis through the arch.
From there it was onto the first of the big six and I expected to part with a chunk of my cash here. Luckily you can get a very good deal on seeing the six main sites of central Athens, any of them will have a ticket vendor that can sell you an all-inclusive ticket for €12 (about $17 CAN or £8). In the end I only saw four of the six sites but even that felt like a pretty good deal for what I paid. First off, right beside the Arch but behind large fences, is the Temple of Zeus.
It's huge, as you might guess - but first here is a picture with a LADY standing near it to give proper scale.
It was around this point that a similar feeling of being steeped in history to that which I've felt in certain parts of London hit me. Not too surprising since Athens has a history which dwarf's that of London just as London dwarf's that of the New World.
The fact that several areas around the temple were archeological sites in progress only augmented the sensation!
From here I then crossed over to Dionysus Promenade, which leads up to tomorrow's pictures at The Acropolis!
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2 comments:
Athens looks very hot.
Nice pictures as always, M. Brackenbury.
It was pretty neat and also high in temperature. You start to get a real sense for where the nearest spot of shade is...
I'll should be getting the Acropolis pictures up tonight and perhaps a tiny video I filmed with my camera to help connect the pictures (I basicall spun around on the spot while at the top of the Acropolis).
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