Weekend in Athens

We arrived in Athens on Saturday late afternoon, just in time to see the sun go down (quickly!) and runners still out on a 10k run that was part of the weekend-long marathon events. Our hotel is right on the race course, so it was really exciting to see them and hear the music – we even had to walk the last block to our hotel because of street closures, and do one of those dashes across the road between runners!

We met up with Miles for dinner last night. I’m sure this will become a recurring theme, but the food in Athens is so far really excellent. We had a smoked eggplant/aubergine salad, grilled halloumi cheese, a mushroom appetizer, pumpkin soup, ribs on a purée (turnip?) and a traditional pork dish with fries. He then walked us back to our hotel, which is about a 15 min walk from where he lives, and we went up to the rooftop garden to enjoy the view of, oh, just the acropolis and Parthenon!

This morning, after an extremely sound sleep, we got up and hit the city. First, we went to the parliament building to see the changing of the guard. There are two of these guys in position, and before they are changed out in the ceremony with two others, they do a very high stepping, slow motion kick kind of movement, also scraping their shoes along the ground and stamping. Little kids can’t help but imitate it, I think everyone else is holding themselves back from doing that too! Miles said that the tassels on their shoes are actually a traditional thing in northern Greece, where they are used to keep snow off the leather of one’s boots. Hello, Chicago, I think we should take this up! My boots get very stained from snow in winter.

We then walked through the National Gardens which were very picturesque. There are a lot more evergreen trees here than I expected. Here’s a Muscovy Duck, and a Graylag Goose. They are hanging around because the man on the bench there was feeding them cucumber. That Mediterranean diet!

Here’s the parliament building from a distance. See all the tall evergreens?

There’s a lot of excitement about this being a marathon in Greece, on the site of the original run that our modern marathons are named after and reflect the distance. The Athens marathon This one also started in Marathon and went right to the site of the original finish. Some differences, hopefully no runners had the same fate as the first runner, Philippines, who died at his destination, and also I haven’t heard of any runners meeting Pan along the way.

These stairs / crossings for pedestrians at the end of the course were great for getting a view. Not so great for the marathoners post-race who were seen hobbling up and down them!

The race finished in this stadium, the Panathletic Stadium. It is a modern rebuild of the traditional stadium in Athens for sporting events. What a cool finish line!

We met Miles for coffee, to see his place, and a visit of this museum of modern and contemporary art. Covid regulations are very per Chicago with masks required indoors, but here showing a vaccine card is required for entry pretty much everywhere. The guard we showed our cards to at this museum, said “Oh I lived in America, in Overland Park, Kansas! (Suburb of KC on the Kansas side if that’s helpful to some readers!) He said he misses the steaks (opened hands wide to show large size) the beers (again large gesture) and the gyms, which we all agreed was necessary after the steak and beer.

Miles and me at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. Attica is the landmass / region Athens is in as opposed to other regions like the Peloponnese. So Atticus is like “from Athens.” Turns out, Odeon means theater. So many English words are from Greek! (Maybe odeon isn’t used everywhere, but there was a cinema in Dublin called Odeon.) This area described next is all generally by the acropolis. We also learned that acropolis refers to the big rock formation that has several buildings/ruins on it, including the most well known Parthenon.

I somehow missed taking a picture of it, but we turned down a little side street and saw a place that Miles really likes – the ekklesia was the place where citizens would gather to make decisions, and the hill it was on was the Pynx. We visited the Pynx, then, near the gates leading to the “decision hill,” we stopped to enjoy another Athenian tradition – cats. There are cats everywhere, but not too many (not like pigeons or rats, or even squirrels for sure) just a nice amount of very happy cats that are independent characters, not anyone’s pet. Note also in the background the runner in a gold post-run warming blanket.

Arch of Hadrian, aka Hadrian’s Gate. You might be thinking it resembles a Roman arch – it does!

Here’s something that’s come up twice and I think will continue to be a theme. There’s a lot of history around water. See where I’m going? We were looking at this historical site labeled Roman Cistern, and could have really used a water systems expert like Liam to explain more about what a cistern is (as opposed to a well or reservoir).

This is a display in the train station near our hotel – showing items that were found when they dug for the station. As you can imagine, pretty much any shovel hits earth in Athens, and it will find relics of the past. This station had a few very nice exhibits, we thought, this one about an ancient aqueduct. For you, Liam, lots more to show you next week!

Near our hotel there are two nice landmarks, this running guy (seems appropriate with the marathon this weekend but I think he’s permanent

And this olive tree that the plaque explains is 1500 years old! Wow.

We’re off to dinner with Miles and friends tonight, then an early morning start for us to visit Delphi!