EDIT: Mods, if you feel this is more appropriate for the Skybar, by all means please feel free to move it.
On more than one occasion, I was asked by locals if I was Greek. In fact, I am not. One could take that, though,
to mean I'd be welcome there, and I'd certainly consider a move to Greece if circumstances would merit so dramatic
a life-change. It's an amazing country full of amazing people - direct and quite frank, but friendly and warm even to
strangers and foreigners.
We left Saint Louis for Atlanta at 10:00 am, where we waited for seven hours for our overnight flight to Athens.
It was an unpleasant flight - ten-plus hours with an unhappy newborn and a 2-y/o who liked to kick seats immediately
behind me - there was little sleep to be had. Nonetheless, we decided to power through without napping after our
arrival at 11:30 am the next day. We made our way to our hotel (the Art Hotel in north Athens - nice enough place,
but our room was tiny), we were picked up for our first excursion - a bus trip to Cape Sounioun to see the temple of
Poseidon.
Downtown Athens, just north of Omonia Square, and just south of our hotel:
Our hotel:
The road to Cape Sounion:
The temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion. The temple's location was important because every boat coming to Athens
passed by this point. It overlooks the Aegean sea, so named because King Aegeus threw himself into the sea from
this point when he thought his son Theseus, sent to kill the Minotaur in the palace of Knossos in Crete, was dead:
On our way back, we passed some of the fire-damaged hills from the recent brush fires near Athens:
Day two, we made our way up to Delphi (pronounced DELL-fee by the locals), home of the famous Oracle and of temples
devoted to Athena and Opollo. The site is on the side of mountain and is much larger than I expected - if you go, wear
comfortable shoes and arrive in shape...
The gymnasium where athletes trained for competition at the stadium
Delphi contains a temple to Athena and Apollo, as well as the Oracle at Delphi
The treasury building:
Coming up to the temple of Apollo:
The temple from above:
The theater:
And all the way at the top, the stadium:
There's also a museum containing many of the artifacts recovered on-site:
And a model showing how Delphi must have appeared at its peak:
More in a bit...
-RBB