Athens

For my last trip out of Italy, one of my roommates and I decided to go to Athens for the weekend.  It was a really great trip and I am glad I made it there, even though I still didn't get to go to most of the places I really wanted to go, because I don't know when I'll ever make it back to Greece.  Our hostel was literally a 5 minute walk from the Acropolis, as well as a metro stop, so it was really convenient and we didn't have to do too much rushing around.  Also, we found out that in Greece if you use a student ID, almost every museum and famous site is free! I also totally forgot that Greece uses a different alphabet so we were so confused when we got off the airplane.  They do use an English translation but even that is so confusing!
The first day we went to the Acropolis Museum, which is apparently really new.  It was huge and part of the floor was uncovered so we could see the excavations underneath.  Around the museum was thousands of artifacts that were found on the acropolis.  I got to see the Kritios Boy, the West and East pediment of the Parthenon, and a ton of other pieces of work that I had learned about in my art history class freshman year.  It was so amazing to see all of the artifacts.  Some were so old - from the 8th century B.C.!  After the Acropolis Museum we walked over to the Theater of Dionysus, which is on the southern part of the acropolis.  It is the remains of an ancient Greek theater and we were allowed to sit on the old seating areas!

Since we had been traveling all day, we were pretty hungry and we stopped at a restaurant to get a gyro - I found out that it is actually pronounced "euro".  I got a chicken gyro that came with onions, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber/tartar sauce spread, and a soft pita.  It was amazing.  After that we explored more and walked through two neighborhoods called Monastiraki and Plaka.  Both of the neighborhoods were really cute with a lot of colorful houses and little churches.  We also came across some more ruins but we weren't sure what they were since we couldn't find a sign and our map was terrible.  I am pretty sure they were part of the Roman Agora though which is similar to the Roman Forum in Rome.  At night we went over to the old Olympic Stadium.  It's not the one from the 2000 Olympics - I wanted to go to that one but we couldn't figure out where it was.  The one we saw was from the 1800s I think.

The second day we got a lot more accomplished, probably because it was really nice and sunny out.
First we went to the acropolis and went all the way to the top.  On the hike up we got a really good view of the Theater of Dionysus and then a Roman Stadium as well.  There are several temples at the top of the Acropolis but the most famous one is the Parthenon.  I was really excited to see the Parthenon up close.  They were doing renovations on one side so there was scaffolding but the other side was clear so we got to go really close to it.  It was really amazing to think that it is over 2,000 years old.  The other big temple on the Acropolis is called The Erechteion and it is famous because some of the columns were carved into statues of women.  The Temple of Athena Nike is on the Acropolis as well.  From the Acropolis we got some really good views of Athens and the mountains and ocean surrounding it.  It was so beautiful.

Roman Stadium

The Erechteion

The Parthenon

After the Acropolis we went to the Temple of Zeus which was supposed to be the largest ancient temple ever built, except it was never completed.  What was left though was really massive.  It definitely looked like it would have been the biggest temple.  Then we went to the Ancient Agora which was the old marketplace area.  It reminded me a lot of the Roman Forum.  The most famous thing in the Agora is the Temple of Hephaistos which is really well preserved.

Temple of Zeus

Temple of Hephaistos

From there we walked back to Monistiraki to a huge flea market that they have every Sunday.  People we selling the most random items I have ever seen - candle holders, cards, different tools, utensils - anything you could think of was there.  The flea market continued for several blocks but we got overwhelmed by all the people and we stopped to get a frappe which is a Greek coffee.  It is basically really strong iced coffee with a frothy top.  They drink them everywhere in Athens so we had to get one.
Lastly we went over to Syntagma Square which is where Parliament is to see the changing of the guards.  Apparently the changing of the guards happens every hour.  The guards are standing near the tomb of an unknown soldier and they were really funny uniforms.  When I saw them they were wearing their warm weather uniforms which was basically a white flowy shirt and skirt with white tights.  Then they wore a black embroidered vest and what looked like duck shoes with pom poms on the toes.  The changing of the guards was really serious though and there was a military guy there making sure people didn't get too close.  Three guards approached in formation swinging their one arm really high and doing weird kicks with their feet.  Then the all switched places by doing really small and choreographed movements with their feet.  I think they had metal on the bottom of their shoes because every time they kicked there was a really loud noise.  The whole process took about 15 minutes.  After it was done, the military guy said we could take pictures with the guards but only 2 people could go up at once.  It was really cool.

Athens ended up being really different than I thought it would be, but I still loved it.  I expected the city to be really old like Rome, but it was actually pretty modern and only the ancient sites served as a reminder of what had been there before.  This post is really long but I wanted to include everything!