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Day 3: last day in Athens

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While a top tier destination in Europe, with monuments and museums that rival anywhere in the world, Athens is also a great place for a shorter trip.  By the end of day 3, my final day, I felt like I seen all the major things the Athens offered, and experienced everything I was hoping for.   One of the best ways to see the major sites really is to get there as early as possible.  Just like with the Acropolis, I arrived just after opening to the temple of Zeus, followed up by visiting the Roman forum and then the Ancient Agora.  Outside of the Acropolis these were some of the major hotspots of Athenian life.  From politics to mercantile endeavors, taxes, laws and religion.   The ancient agora is a can't miss location, there has been a phenomenal job of restorating the area, and the temple of Hespestius is one of the best conditioned temples of it's kind.  The Agora is a huge town center, full of the needs of everyday life like the official wei...
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Day 2: Delphi the bellybutton of the world

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According to myth, Zeus wanted to know where the center of the earth was and so he released two eagles at opposite sides of the earth to fly towards each other, where they met at Delphi.  Known as the bellybutton of the world, Delphi was also the epicenter of the Greek religious world.  The temple of Apollo and the Pythia oracle that resided there was the ultimate neutral, a mouthpiece of the god Apollo, of prophecy.   Even with such a short trip, I knew that spending a day on Delphi would be worth the effort.  Its a long drive about 2 and a half hours from Athens, and I used a tour guide service to make the trip.  Including 2 rest stops, and both the temple of Apollo visit and the museum as well as lunch the tour was well worth it, even though I'm very much not a fan of the structure of nature of going with a guide.   A long beautiful drive through the fields of Boeotia past the ancient city state of Thebes and then up into the mountains of Paran...
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Day 1: Acropolis

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Arrived Friday afternoon to a meal of chicken kebab and washed it down with some cocktails at the hotel bar after a long exhausting flight and a connection in Serbia.  Thankfully my only plan was to sleep like the dead, for Athens awaited! With a forecast of a rainy afternoon, I decided to head out early to try and beat any crowds.  After a yogurt breakfast, and some Greek coffee I'm reasonably positive is the same as Turkish coffee, I began my day walking the windey streets and alleys that make up Athens.   The view of the sacred rock, with the Acropolis on top draws you in like a magnet.  I can't even imagine how it might have looked in its glory days.  Its history is long and well celebrated, its one of the most instantly recognizable monuments in the world and has been for more than 2 thousand years.  The Acropolis is why you travel to Athens and it's every bit worth that status.   Its a nice exhilarating climb, as you make the procession...
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Day 0

I walked the Camino de Santiago in October of 2019, my mind full of elaborate future travel plans, that ultimately were derailed by Covid.  Finally, in early March 2023 I'm headed to one of my dream cities: Athens. The birthplace of the western world, of western Philosophy, art, sports, mythology, democracy.  Its impossible to overstate the influence of ancient Athens on our modern world.  While Rome and Paris still loom large in my mind, and plans to walk Hadrian's wall in Scotland remain firmly on my to-do list, it had to be Athens next.   This will be a short trip, and therefore a short blog.  I found an absurdly cheap package deal to Athens, but the rub is that it's not the best times.  I land March 3rd at around 3pm after a connection in Belgrade Serbia.  I'm leaving March 7th at 5am, where I'll stop in NYC for a few more days before returning home to Austin.   Il try to blog every day, with pictures and a recap and my thoughts....
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