Second Day in Athens

This morning we got a bit of a late start. I set my phone alarm but the clock on my phone went haywire. I should have remembered that this happened last time I was in Europe because it cost us a few hours but what can you do. I woke up around 10am and then got Kristine up shortly thereafter, so it could have been worse. We're staying at Hotel Soho, which is in the Psyrri district of Athens. The area looks a bit seedy/dirty (which we were warned about in the hostelbookers reviews), but it really seems to be harmless. The hotel itself doesn't look like much, but the lobby is pretty and they have free coffee and tea 24 hrs! Last night, I planned out our day as it will be the last in Athens and I wanted to make sure that we fit everything in that we wanted to do. First stop was to pass through Central Market on our way to a neat little restaurant recommended by Frommers. The meat market was cool, but the smell was a bit overwhelming.

Athens Central Market!

A butcher at Central Market

The butchers just stood around swinging their knives/cleavers around and I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that the wonderful legal system in America would never let this happen.

No thank you!

(Not sure what was going on here...what kind of heads are those?)
As is frequently the case, finding the recommended restaurant was easier said than done and so we ended up searching for breakfast elsewhere. Once we were far enough from the smell of Central Market, we were starving but couldn't find a thing to eat besides bread and tea. I'm all for acclimating to the culture, but a little pastry isn't going to fill me up for more than 5 minutes. A few restaurants also had salad bars (strangely one of the meat options at virtually every one was hot dogs) which I would have been happy to opt for, but Kristine was in the mood for a real breakfast. After a long, long while spent zig-zaging streets and searching menus, we finally found Cafe Olympic, whose sign said "full breakfast!" It didn't take too long after we sat down to figure out what a full breakfast means in greece. Their menu had literally 1 breakfast choice on the menu and it was labeled "full breakfast." It included toast (which I had read about being a grilled cheese sandwich in greece) with juice and tea. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, so I just ordered a greek salad (how original!) and Kristine had a sandwich.

After a somewhat unsatisfying breakfast, we finally continued on to our first itinerary stop of the day at the Athens Archeological Museum

where were able to get a taste of Egypt since we won't be able to visit there on this trip. It was pretty interesting to learn about how Egypt was taken over by Greece and eventually Rome and how their culture blended and evolved accordingly. At one point, I got yelled at when Kristine tried to take a picture of me posing like a statue. Apparently that is not ok around here. The one thing we didn't like was the overload of vases. I enjoyed learning about how the vases were made and how the process became more sophisticated over time, but after seeing 1,001 vases, all of similar shapes and all in red and black, we had had enough. We then took a scenic walk past the National Library, the University of Athens and the Academy of Athens. All were beautiful buildings, but it was sad to see that they had been covered in graffiti. I'm not usually one for shopping during our adventures, but there was one shop mentioned in Frommers that piqued my interest, "Old Prints and Maps," where for as little as 10 euros, you could buy original 19th century prints of Athens and other destinations in Greece. It took a bit to find it, and as our luck would have it, it closed at 3pm, about a half-hour before we got there. We continued on to Shopping Center Plaka, which Frommers said was the one-stop shopping street for all of your souvenirs. Finally, our walk took us to the tomb of the unknown soldier, where we were able to watch the changing of the guard.

Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

It is a pretty interesting sight, and the marching and theatrics are unlike anything I have seen before (not to mention the uniforms!).

Next was the Panathenaic Stadium, which was an ancient stadium that was restored to host the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. I had been excited to visit here all day and I was not disappointed. The entrance fee was next to nothing and we were able to listen to a free audio tour about the only stadium in the world made entirely out of marble. We were able to run around the track and go through the ancient tunnel into the stadium. There was even a mini museum with dozens of torches from past Olympic Games.

Torch from the London 2012 Olympics

Climbing to the top of the stadium also provided some pretty amazing views of the city.

View of the Acropolis

After leaving the stadium, the last thing I had planned for the day before dinner was to climb to the top of Lycabettus Hill to watch the sunset. We walked in the general direction of the hill for about half an hour through some pretty neat neighborhoods and the National Gardens. We even passed by Parliament and the President's house (complete with more guards outside wearing their goofy uniforms) I wasn't sure I would make it until dinner so I bought some roasted nuts from a street vendor that were unbelievably good. When we began to ascend the hill (more like a mountain), we looked out at the sky and decided that it was far too cloudy for a decent sunset, not to mention that we were far too hungry, so we started our search for the Athinaikon, which I had picked out in Frommer's for its proximity to Lycabettus Hill and because it was a "Meze" restaurant-basically the greek equivalent of tapas-and we wanted to give it a try. On the way, we stopped at a grocery store for some snacks for lunch tomorrow and it started to sprinkle. Eventually we found the restaurant and it looked like it was out of a movie!

Last Dinner in Athens!

They brought out a pinkish sauce with our bread that we were a bit hesitant about, but I ended up loving. When we tried asking what it was, the waiter said something about eggs and fish so we're guessing it may have been some preparation of caviar (a first for me!). One of the meze plates we had was "Pleurotus Mushrooms on the Grill with Dressing Balsamic" which was absolutely unbelievable. We're hoping that we can find those mushrooms and somehow try to recreate the flavors. The mushrooms somehow tasted like a tender steak. Kristine also ordered "Garlic and Potato Mix Sauce" which was essentially mashed potatoes with a completely overwhelming amount of garlic. We also ordered "Patsaga, a traditional 'tidbit' - salted meat, tomatoes and various sorts of cheese" that we were hoping/expecting would be one of the plates of mixed meats, cheeses and vegetables that we had seen at many restaurants over the past few days. The pastry-looking plate we got instead actually prompted us to ask if we had been given the wrong order, but once we had been assured that it was Patsaga, we dug in and it actually ended up being quite good. I'm not a huge fan of flaky, pastry-type bread, but the insides were surprisingly delicious! We had also ordered 2 glasses of the house red wine and were told that for the same price (4 euros!!!) we could have 500mL, which is 2/3 of a bottle. It was hard to say no to that! After dinner, the light rain had subsided and we walked to Montastiraki square to people watch, then eventually to Adrianou street, to sit with a view of the beautifully flood-lit acropolis. We even had live entertainment on the piano...life is good!

Piano Bar in Athens

Once we got home, we rented a car for our travels for the next few days and booked a night at the Hotel Hercules. We'll be picking up our car at Avis tomorrow morning and heading to Delphi to see some ancient ruins then crashing in Olympia before exploring there the following day. We're making it up as we go!