Athens, Greece

I had just planned for us to see the Acropolis this afternoon, in case we were jet lagged and just wanting to relax. We had timed entry tickets to the Acropolis for 3pm, which according to the internet was the best time to beat the crowds.

We had breakfast and felt energized, so decided to head out in the morning to see Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the amphitheater on the south slope of the Acropolis.

The Acropolis sits about 70m above the city, a bit of an uphill walk. It was pleasant as the weather was perfect again, 17C and sunny.

It wasn’t clear where the entrance was to the amphitheater. We first walked to back of the stage, peering through the gates at the theatre seating inside. Walked back up to the ticket booth. Turns out the amphitheater is only open for performances in the offseason :(

So instead we walked along Apostolou Pavlou, the pedestrian street south of the Acropolis, to the Ancient Agora of Athens. We had seen the Agora yesterday from the outside on our random walks; today we bought tickets (20 EUR each) and entered the ruins.

First we checked out the Temple of Hephaestus, one of the better preserved temples in Athens. It’s not that big, about 14m x 32m, so that took us about five minutes.

We then went wandered through the agora, strewn with unrestored marble blocks. The ruins are impressive from their vastness. Probably they are super interesting if you’re into archaeology.

The ticket also includes entry into the Stoa of Attalos museum. It contains artefacts from every day life, arranged in chronological order from the Neolithic to the Post-byzantine and Ottoman periods. Probably super interesting if you’re into archaeology.

It was time for lunch, so we looked up a place on google maps. It was okay, they did have excellent espressos.

Walked back uphill to the Acropolis. The internet said we could enter up to 30 minutes before our timed entry, but the ticket folks were having none of me doing my own research. So we sat in the shade and people watched for a few minutes.

It wasn’t busy at all today at the Acropolis; if we hadn’t pre-booked, we could have just walked right up to the ticket booth, bought our tickets, and entered. Oh well.

Finally we were allowed to enter using our timed-entry tickets. We walked up through the Propylaea (monumental gateway). The limestone floor and steps are really slippery from the thousands of visitors. The main attraction, the Parthenon, is under scaffolding so my pics are all just partial views.

We spent about 30 minutes atop the Acropolis. It wasn’t crowded at all - it was even possible to get tourist-less pics!

We took care walking back down the steps towards the South Slope. There’s some stuff to see on the slopes, nothing to write home about.

Overall we were underwhelmed by the Acropolis and Parthenon. If you’re in Athens, you have to visit here, but I wouldn’t suggest planning a trip around it.

We walked back to our hotel, had a shower, and headed out for dinner. It was still early but we thought our jet lag would catch up to us if we didn’t keep going.

We tried Tavern Klimataria for dinner, another recommendation from the hotel. It was really busy. We had a Greek salad, a roasted red pepper dish, slow cooked leg of lamb, and baked halloumi. It was quite good.

We were both pretty tired so just got back to the hotel and crashed.