Athens Greece

Our next port on our trip last fall was Athens. I was so totally excited to be here in this great city where the Olympics began. The morning started out a little rainy but suddenly cleared off and was beautiful. The bus ride into the Acropolis was so incredible the city was all painted white with bright blues and reds painted on the doors and eaves of the buildings. The Acropolis hill (acro - edge, polis - city), so called the "Sacred Rock" of Athens, is the most important site of the city and constitutes one of the most recognizable monuments of the world.

The Propylaea are the monumental entrances to the sacred area dedicated to Athena, the patron goddess of the city. The greek goddess Athena was believed to be the protector of the city of Athens.
The Parthenon. It is the most important and characteristic monument of the ancient Greek civilization and still remains its international symbol.

We were able to see theJewish Museum, the Zeus Temple, the Lysicrates Monument and Hadrian’s Arch.

After walking through the Plaka (the oldest section of Athens open to only foot traffic) and doing some shopping we walked over to the House of the Greek parliament, the Monument to the unknown soldier and watched the changing of the guards. This was actually quite entertaining to watch the march they do in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier and it was really hard not to laugh. I will try later to put on a small video clip for you to enjoy! (I have attached a short clip in the following post for you to see).

Then it was back to the port and sailing off into the beautful Greek sunset...............