Visiting Athens wouldn't be complete without visiting the Athens Museums. We knew it was going to be hot, so we started early!
Arriving at the Acropolis at 8.30am before it was scorching hot and the crowds not so big was a great plan. The site is extensive and was the main sacred and religious site in Ancient Athens. It was occupied since the Neolithic period, but had the height of its power in the 5th century. We spent several hours wondering around the various buildings, northern and southern slopes of the Acropolis and the Oden of Herodes.
By mid morning we were ready to tackle Hadrians Library and Ancient Agora. We literally took 100's of photos of the different statues, buildings and columns. Everywhere we looked there was something else to explore.
After a stop for lunch we headed to the Temple of Zeus, followed by a visit to the ancient pottery and cemetery city of Kerameikos.
It was heading towards the late afternoon, everyone was exhausted but we didn't want to come back into the city again. So after refueling with an ice cream we began to make our way to the parliament building for the changing of the guards. Our walk was very eye opening, we followed the gps through some not so tourist areas and saw shops filled to the roof with junk. These shop keepers sold their items on the sidewalks. There were also many homeless people.
Changing of the guards in Athens is pretty funny. The soldiers uniform has funny pom poms on their feet and they actually do this hilarious little march, step, point their toes routine. We decided it was to stop the enemy from attacking because they looked so silly.
We finished our day at 5.30pm. If you can imagine that at 8.30am it was already 36 degrees and quickly rose to 42 degrees. So after 9 hours of heat and walking we were all ready to go home, have a cold shower, eat dinner and go to bed!
Athens is a truly amazing place!
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