Ruins and Food

Not much time to write, as we have a 5:00 am wake-up call tomorrow morning. We are heading down to the port city of Piraeus to catch the ferry to the islands. But if I don't document all these archaeological ruins now, I'll probably forget half of them.

Shirley and I are thinking of entering the Athens Marathon. While neither of us has a strong desire to run the 42.2 km, we certainly wouldn't mind crossing the finish line in.....

.....the Panathenaic Stadium. That would be cool. Anyone want to join us?

Annie and Owen have been pretty patient going from one ruin to another. It's not like each one has a great story attached to it, but I hate to skip out on any of them, as we may not be back for some time. At least this one had some superlative feature - it's the Temple of the Olympian Zeus - the largest temple in Greece. Sadly only 15 of the original 104 columns remain standing.

I came to Athens prepared for a grimy and chaotic city blanketed in a thick layer of smog, choked in traffic, and many people told us we would probably want to get out of Athens as soon as we had seen the Parthenon.

But we must have caught it on a good week. The city is great - a little rough around the edges in some places, but it's full of sights and friendly people, and the weather and air quality have been fantastic. Here's a view of the beautiful Temple of Hephaestus.

It's the best preserved Doric temple in all of Greece, and it was one of our favourites.

We even caught Owen going back for a second look!

And with Annie's affinity for the God of the Sea, we dedicated our only day-trip from Athens to visiting the Temple of Poseidon in Sounion, about a two-hour drive southeast of the city.

Although not a particularly large temple, it is spectacularly sited on a rocky cliff looking over the Mediterranean.

And we're not the only ones impressed - we found Lord Byron name (he would have been here in 1810) inscribed on one of columns - naughty boy!

"place me on Sounion's marbled steep,

where nothing, save the waves and I, 

may hear our mutual murmurs sweep."

And back at the Theatre of Dionysus - our last ruin. We are unanimously tired of ancient temples and archaeological sites. No regrets, and we're looking forward to some time on the islands.

And we leave with full bellies, as all this traipsing around Athens (walking as been our exclusive mode of transportation) has given us some healthy appetites.

Here we went to a favourite hang out for Athenians (again, not much English spoken around here) called To Steki Tou Ilia. They are known for their amazing lamb chops....

....which you order by the kilo!!

They were unbelievable.

And what's Greece without the ouzo? It's not exactly a thirst quencher after a day of exploring ruins, but we had to give it a try.

And eating three times in four days at our favourite souvlaki restaurant definitely deserved a photo. We still have no idea what this place is called, but we just know it as Nicholas's place. He definitely looked after us well, and we'll miss this little hole-in-the-wall.