Today was a very full day! We started with a wonderful breakfast at the rooftop restaurant in our hotel. It had lovely views of the Acropolis as well as the city and the food was very good. At 8am we were picked up by our driver, George, who took us immediately to the Acropolis so that we could beat the crowds. We hiked up the many steps to see the Temple of Athena Nike (Goddess of Victory), the Parthenon, and an ancient theater at the top of the Acropolis. Given that it was Sunday morning our visit was made even more special by hearing the church bells ringing all throughout the city! It was fascinating to imagine how they built these magnificent structures around 430 B.C. The theater is still in use and has concerts in the summer with some of the original marble seating still in place! We spent over an hour exploring, and on or way down realized why we started so early in the morning, many tour buses had arrived and there were hordes of people in the prime picture spots. We were very happy to have gotten through the ruins with only a handful of other people first!

Next it was on to the Temple of Zeus, this was Kevin's favorite temple of the day. There were only a handful of people there and we were able to get really up close and personal to the columns. One was knocked down by an earthquake and it was interesting to see how they were large slices of marble with notches carved into them so that they would fit perfectly together.

Then we went quickly to parliament to see the changing of the guard. It is their grave of the Unknown Soldier and the guards are wearing very interesting uniforms. They were designed to signify things from the wars between Greece and Turkey, so they end up looking more like a costume than a military uniform. They are white skirts (with 400 pleats to signify the 400 years under Turkish rule), loud clogs with puff balls on the end (to remind them that the Grecians had knives in their shoes to kick downed Turkish soldiers), etc. We were lucky to view this on a Sunday as that is the only day where the changing of the guard is accompanied by a band and parade!

We did a quick stopover at the first Olympic stadium to take a few pictures. It was built in 1895 for the first Olympic Games and can hold 70,000 people. George told us that it was also used during some of the ceremonies of the 2004 Olympics.

Next we made our way to the Roman and Greek Agoras (ancient markets) where we walked through he ruins. The Greek Agora had my favorite temple of the day, the Temple of Hephaestus. This is one of the only temples in Athens that was not badly damaged in their many wars and is more or less intact.

After we made our way through the many sites at the Agoras we headed to lunch. George brought us to a wonderful restaurant that was not in the tourist part of Athens. It was filled with Greek families, and the food was excellent. We had our first spanakopita (spinach pies) of the trip and they were wonderful! We also had a delicious feta and tomato salad and amazing lamb chops. We thought we had eaten enough but when we asked for our bill the waiter brought us fruit with Nutella and an amazing dish that consisted of light fluffy pastry fried and drizzled with honey, Nutella and cinnamon. So many of my favorite things in one dish!

Next it was on to Mount Lycabettus, the highest point in Athens. We worked some of our lunch off climbing the many steps to the top for panoramic views of the city. Athens has nearly 4 million people and it seems like the city stretches on as far as the eye can see until it hits mountain or sea! All of these people on ancient narrow streets made for some precarious driving situations, but George handled it with ease!

On our way to the Acropolis museum we stopped to take a picture with one of the traditional guards we mentioned earlier that also guards their Prime Minister's house. Our final stop was the Acropolis museum, which was built new for the 2004 Olympics. It was interesting because it was built on top of some ruins of the town that was at the bottom of the Acropolis, and they installed Plexiglas floors in certain parts of the museum and entrance so that you could see the ruins while you were walking through. We also got to see some of the original statues and pieces that were rescued from the Acropolis in order to preserve them, and in some instances replicas were put at the monument so that people still had a sense for what it would have looked like.

After a more than 8 hour tour, we were wiped out and returned to our hotel and took a nap! After we woke up we enjoyed the hotel's spa that includes multiple saunas and steam rooms with various infused scents and set at different temperatures. It also included a jetted foot bath and a fancy shower with different options for side, tropical rain, etc. I made the mistake of trying "Rain" and got drenched in ice cold water! So that woke me up! We decided with such a late and delicious lunch that we didn't really need to venture out for dinner and we would just relax before starting up again tomorrow. It was an action packed day filled with lots of ancient history and information about Greece!