Day 2 is coming to a close and today I had another day of hiking around the city.
I started this morning wanting to get to the Acropolis and my plan couldn't have been better. Wake up early, get there as early as possible to avoid some of the major crowds, then move on to all the other stuff around it that I wanted to get to. This was a great plan. . .
That was put aside due to the fact that when the guy told me that they were closed on Saint Nicholas Day because they were on strike. I thought this meant that they were not open on the holiday, it turns out that it meant that he was telling me what day it was and that they were, in fact, on strike. I don't know how they could be on strike. I don't know what they want to be paid more for doing. All of these places have watchers, but they just sit in their seats and watch you walk in and out of certain areas. I assume they are there to make sure that you don't touch anything, but I can't really say.
I got a few pictures from the ground, and hiked up another hill to try to get some pictures that weren't as obstructed by trees and such. I got some advice before I left to bring a lens with an good zoom potential because I might have to take pictures of things that were up high that I couldn't get to, but based on the reading I had done, I was going to be right on top of most of this stuff. So I ditched the 300mm lens and just brought a good portrait lens and a macro lens. The point is that my pictures of the Acropolis are not great.
I did get around quite a bit more and explored Ancient Agora. There was a Greek temple that had been converted to a Christian church, and has now been restored to a Greek type temple. From up on the hill I climbed I got some great pictures of where all of these things are in comparison to the city. I think it is incredible that all of this stuff is right in the middle of the city and has been kept so well. I will say though, and you will see in some of my pictures next week, that there are people here that just don't care about it. Statues that are a thousand years old have graffiti on them. Some of the building have been spray painted with crazy Greek words (I assume they are words, some of them look like all vowels).
One of the last things I did today was go by the Olympic Stadium that was used for the first international Olympic games in 1896 and was used for a few things in the 2004 Olympics.
I put another map below to show the approximate locations of the places I saw today. Tomorrow I am going to be a bum. I have seen just about all I can within walking distance. I could get a cab around to other places, but I think I will just stick around this area and see if maybe there is something close I can check out.
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