Friday, July 13, 2012

Acropolis Here I Come!

Ever since I read history of Greece, I have always been intrigued by Greek mythology and way people lived back when. And since Greece is 2 hrs 45 minutes by flight from Hamburg,Germany - I thought I should make this happen.

After plenty of rest the night before, I was ready. I booked a taxi from Melia to the Metro at Syntagma Square for 8 euros. I've booked with Athens Walking Tours via online before I came to Greece. I compared the tours with some others and this was the best one because total price was the lowest, 36 euros (excluded the 12 euros entry fee into 4 major archeological sites)for a walking tour with plenty of stops at sites. I prefer this compared to the hop-in-and-out tour which offered no tour guide (only headphones) or a fully guided tour in a bus which only allowed 3 stops.

We were told to meet below the hanging clock at the Metro station inside.

Meet our tour guide, Aristotle (yes, his real name).

We started walking from the Metro towards the Parliament, braving 40 degrees heat. At the Parliament, we saw the changing of guards.

Next Stop: Greece's National Gardens. Aristotle told us Queen Amalia, who married King Otto (who was the King of Greece at that time ..) wanted to have the gardens near the palace & this was her legacy long after she was gone.

Moving on, we came to 2 other structures the Zappion building and Hadrian's Arch which was a signigicant landmark between old Greece and new Greece.

At this point, I was getting abit restless since it was hard to get pictures taken WITH the landmarks as I was a lone traveller. Wished hubby made the trip with me, but as it is we already planned our trips for the rest of the year elsewhere. There were one or two more lone travellers but the rest were mostly families & couples. To make matters worse, the other lone travellers weren't interested in taking any pictures. So as they say, when the going gets tough, you just ram your way through. Wahaha .. joke.

Anyways, I decided to really take some pictures when we stopped by the Temple of Zeus. It was magnificient, even though most of it demolished throughout the centuries of wars. Aristotle told us the enemies tore down the temple, stole the marble on its floors and gold from the statues. Inside the temple, originally sat the Greek god, Zeus (as pictured).

How I got my pictures taken, I asked 2 girls hanging around the site to take my pictures. How nice. They did .. but then THEY decided they wanted to camwhore as well. Then I had to take multiples under the searing heat because they had so many Facebook poses they wanted to make. But hey, I was probably the same way ... so fair is fair I suppose. Because of this picture session, I was not allowed to take my toilet break because Aristotle only allocated 10 minutes for this site, and this included the toilet breaks. Serves me right.

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