On my second morning in Athens, it was yet another beautiful day. I had breakfast in the hotel – nothing special, some luncheon meat and cheese, cereal and a hard-boiled egg – and went back into town. I stopped by Starbucks, a new Athenian feature since my last visit, and headed back to Syntagma Square. By the way, did you know you can get Greek coffee at the Starbucks in Athens? It’s priced like Starbucks in the United States, though. I don’t like Greek coffee and if I’m going to drink it, I want it to be a lot cheaper than that.
Next to the Parliament building in Syntagma Square, I discovered a park. Quite a good-sized park, at that. I don’t remember visiting it during my first trip here in 1999, but it is very possible that we did. It has five or six entrances, some ancient ruins, a sundial, a cafeteria, a pond and was a lot like parks all over the world. There also were some palm trees and orange trees, which I guess makes it a little different from most. Since it was a beautiful Sunday morning, I strolled around for a while and then sat and did some people watching.
You never know what’s going to be open on a Sunday when you’re travelling. Lo and behold, lots of the stores were closed, but most were open. After the park, I went over to the Temple of Zeus, which was free of charge on this particular day. It’s located behind Hadrian’s Arch and if you go down the main streets between the Acropolis and the Arch, you can see pretty much everything there. The most intriguing piece probably is a column that has fallen down and exposes all of the various pieces that had been put together to make the column. There wasn’t a whole lot to the area and I wasn’t there long.
I headed over to the Plaka section of town for lunch. This is a very touristy area and I wanted to stop by a café that I had read about online. I’d share the name with you, but it was only so-so, so I’m not sure I’d actually send anybody there even though some random person on the internet sent me there. I had pork souvlaki that came on pita bread with onions and tomatoes, with a side of french fries. I wasn’t really thinking about drinking, but the cheapest beverage on the menu was a ½ liter Amstel, so I figured what the heck. It wasn’t the best souvlaki that I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t bad either.
After lunch, I walked around the Athens flea market to get some cheap souvenirs for folks back home. The Athens flea market is similar to other markets all over the world. It’s like a Cairo bazaar or a Sunday trip to San Telmo in Buenos Aires. There are hundreds of little shops, all selling the same cheap clothing and souvenirs and you can walk around without getting harassed (at least in Athens) and look around until something catches your eye. I find that things in these markets tend to be overpriced and of mediocre quality, but still they are cheaper than if you were to purchase the same items in one of the little stores around town because of all of the competition on the same street. Anyway, I bought myself an AEK cap and some little trinkets for people back home and then headed off.
The highlight of the next day was the Athens Archaeological Museum. The big money items of this museum are the Mycenaean artifacts, thousands of sculptures and artifacts from Akrotiri on Santorini. My favorite items were the frescos that had been taken from Santorini. Akrotiri is sort of like Pompeii in that after a massive volcano blast on Santorini, the town was buried in ash and very well preserved. The frescos, which are in very good shape, include the famous Boxing Boys, which I’m sure you have seen before.
That was mostly it for the touristy stuff, with the exception of some small things with which I won’t continue to bore you. I think there will be an Athens passing thoughts entry and that likely will be it.
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