Hi Again,
First of all, I have a few pictures from the night before — can’t miss any of those! We love the production shows — always great!
Only two stops left; the first was the town of Chania on Crete. We had been signed up for an excursion, but the tour operator thought it would be hard for me to do……so we just took the shuttle bus to the old town and walked around. It was a shopping town!! So we did have some fun.
The waterfront is so pretty and colorful:
And dinner:
And a second show by Phillip Browne — he was quite a showman with a beautiful and very deep voice. He’s been in 11 Broadway shows including Lion King. We loved seeing him!
And then we arrived in Athens; we had one day there while still on the ship. John took an excursion that I had planned on, but realized later that there was a lot of walking at the end of the trip; John said later that I could never have managed the stairs. So here are his pics:
Hadrian’s Arch
Olympic Stadium built in 1896 entirely in marble-the site of the first modern Olympics.
The Acropolis-side view.
Entry to the massive and highly popular Lapata Market-full of restaurants, shops, a flea market and several ancient religious monuments
To go lunch-lamb gyros with tomatoes, taziki and fries.
Hourly changing of the Royal Guard in front of the Parliament Building adjacent to the main Athens city square.
The Royal Guards have spikes on their shoes and a knife that can be extended from the toes.
And sunset and dinner…..one more time!
Notice the shirt John bought (20 Euros) in the market when left unsupervised.
The next morning we disembarked and arrived early at the Marriott Athens. We were fortunately able to get into our room so we could unload luggage and then take off for the Acropolis Museum. This was a truly fabulous museum that was built in 2010 and the Excavations under the museum which first opened to the public on June 26, 2024. We took a whole bunch of pictures; enjoy as much as you would like..then skip forward!
A map of our route and ports of call.
Another view of the Acropolis from the second floor of the Acropolis Museum.
Then we arrived at the Caryatids — a showpiece of the Parthenon. When we first visited Athens in 1995, we climbed a massive number of steps to reach the top. At that time the 6 original Caryatids were still outside exposed to the elements; however, later and before our 2013 trip to Athens they were moved to the Acropolis Museum for safekeeping and replaced with replicas. So now we and you are able to see them up close inside the museum. Below is a rendering in the museum of the original location of the Caryatids on the Parthenon.
We wandered down the path outside and under the museum to visit the just opened Excavation Area. Just thinking about the time it took to find all of this and in such great shape is pretty mind boggling. BTW, we are on a walkway above it, so notice how many people have thrown coins down into the round hole.
I find the next set of pictures truly amazing! Read the blurb then imagine how incredibly complicated it must have been to puzzle out what pieces went with what pot or vase.
A one full afternoon visit to a museum should not wear you out, but we all returned to the hotel for a rest, and then an easy dinner at the hotel. Our group was staying for another day, but we were up and out before seven. and on the way to the Athens airport to start the trip home. Since we were on Turkish Air we flew for just over a hour from Athens back to Istanbul, had a short layover and flew 12 hours from Istanbul to DFW.
A successful trip for all!!!
Back to reality,
Beth
