It’s All Greek to Me – Part 2

DAY 2 – Checkin’ Out the Sites

On Thursday, N & M went on a guided tour which we decided to skip out on and check out the sites at our leisure instead. We slept in a bit, had a delicious breakfast buffet at the hotel, and then headed for the Acropolis. Our hotel was a bit out of the city center and key tourist sites, but close to a metro stop—so we just took the metro pretty much everywhere which was nice.

We wandered around the Acropolis slowly making our way up the hill towards the Pantheon. I loved the field and little church/chapel that we found—so picturesque!

There were actually a lot of different “sites” to see at the Acropolis which I didn’t really realize until we were there. There were a couple of theaters, the chapel/church, the Pantheon, and a few other temples.

The two theaters

I love this photo....

Just hanging out at the pantheon with 200 of our best friends....

Pantheon

Yours truly

Throughout the 7 years we've been together, we must have over 500 self-taken photos

From the top of the hill we walked down towards another temple.

When I was editing these photos I kept wanting to make them warmer, but I had to keep reminding myself that it was really overcast that day...it was kinda nice

And then eventually all the way down to closest road along which we found very inviting couches. We decided that we deserved a break and rested. We ordered a cappuccino and a monster of a “Belgian Waffle” which was so delicious and so rich. We played some cards and then took off for our next stop.

Yummmmmmmmmmm!

We walked around a park and I stopped to ask some police officers how to get to the Roman Agora from there. I don’t know what it is, but some of the best memories I have from trips is asking locals how to get somewhere. I am always amazed at how they can know an area so well but struggle with giving directions. It was definitely worth taking the time to ask :)
Side Note: (the concierge at our hotel in Muscat gave us directions to a restaurant that he kept telling us was right near where he lived, but it took him like 15 minutes to figure out where it was on the map…and then he drew us a map that I still have today…he started on one side of the sheet and then realized he ran out of room and flipped the page over to continue, telling us to make the turn on the roundabout “just like this” as he was drawing it—Paul and I still quote this!).

Statue next to where we talked to the Police

Then we got to the Roman agora at 2:30. It closed at 3:00. No big deal. We don’t need to spend hours analyzing everything. But it was a big deal to the gate keeper guy. The convo:

Greek Gatekeeper Man (GGM): “You cannot enter. We are closed.”
Me: “What do you mean? Why are all those other people in there then?”
GGM: “We close at 2:45pm”
Me: “Ok, well it’s only 2:30—we’d like to go ahead and come in even if it’s only for 15 minutes.”
GGM: “No. That is not enough time. You must come back tomorrow.”
Me: I started slowly walking away not worried too much since we had time to come back the next day. Then I saw on the sign on the same gate that they don’t close until 3:00. “Your sign right here says that you don’t close until 3:00”
GGM: “No. We close at 2:45.”
No wonder Greece is in major financial crisis. This guy works like what 6hrs/day and can’t stay open until it is actually time to close? He has to stop letting people in 30minutes beforehand and make everyone get out 15 minutes before it closes? If this is the pervasive attitude, I can’t say that I feel all that sorry for the mess they’re in.

We decided to start walking back towards the hotel and on the way ended up going through a flea market which my hubby so graciously let me browse through.

I think you can tell who was more excited for the flea market by our expressions :)

Hmmm...that shirt looks familiar :)

We also stopped in the square and bough some fresh fruit—the strawberries were huge and smelled heavenly. And we hadn’t had bing cherries since being over here so we decided to take the guy up on his offer. It was a pretty fun experience.

Then we went back to the hotel ate our fruit and napped.

Yummmy

For dinner, we met back up with N & M and a couple they met on their tour. While walking to a place that the other couple had already made reservations we walked by some graffiti that was clearly very fresh—it was all very witty (unfortunately it wasn’t quite appropriate to post).


We ducked into the restaurant. We were the first ones there. Eventually it started filling up and the greek singers and dancers came out for entertainment.

The feta cheese on that salad could've been the best part of the whole dinner...so good!