Five forty start this morning. I suppose it's a bit like herding cats trying to get everyone where they need to be. We walked out of the Plaka to the Square where the bus was waiting for us. The bus is a special Contiki bus. It's really quite nice which is good cause we're going to be spending a lot of the next three days here.

The first thing we did was take a small tour of Athens city centre and our guide pointed out some of the sites to us. I would have loved to have stopped and looked around but we didn't really have time.

Our first stop was the Olympic stadium. This was site of the original stadium for the Athens games, that was destroyed and was rebuilt in the 1800s for the rebirth of the Olympic games.

Next we went to the Acropolis. It is quite a walk to get up there. All over the place are stray dogs. Our guide said the government has neutered them and given them shots and just let them go. They just lay around accepting pats and food from tourists. They're all perfectly friendly.

The Parthanon is beautiful. More in the suggestion of what it once was then for what it actually is. There's a lot of restoration work going on with all the fallen blocks of marble being put back into place. Where they have a missing piece they need to place a block they are putting in new marble. So it's kind of a hodge podge of old yellow marble and new white marble.

There are other buildings up on the Acropolis too. Theatre's and stadiums and other temples. There is a fantastic view of the whole city and off in the distance you can just see through the haze the Aegean sea.

It was a good thing we started out so early because by the time we were headed down again the place was packed.

Once everyone was back on the bus we left Athens and drove to the Corinthian canal. It was all hand cut by the ancient Greeks. We had a half hour stop for pictures and a snack then it was back on the bus. Next stop Mycenae.

Mycenae was pretty interesting but after the amazing sites of Egypt it was hardly awe-inspiring. There were a couple of tombs and the ruins of the old palace of Agamemnon.

Lunch was fantastic. I had musaka. Also the local speciality was fresh orange juice which was just the best ever. Just as we were leaving though it starts to rain! b*****!!! There was actually a lot of thunder and lightning, which was cool.

Our next stop was a pottery place with some really lovely work. I thought about getting something but I didn't think I'd be able get it home intact. Nothing really jumped out at me anyway. Which was lucky as the ATM ate my secondary travel card!! I am really lucky I still have some money left over from yesterday. I'm going to have to get Mum to put some money into Bec's travel card for me. Rotten bloody luck!

We stopped for ice-cream in the next town which was such a picturesque quintessential Greek town. Really beautiful. I'd have loved to have spent more time there but the rain started coming down pretty hard. It wasn't cold though.

After leaving the town we started the introductions. One by one we got up and spoke up about ourselves. Some times people had some personal questions. Some really funny answers. It was a lot of fun. When it came to my turn I was waiting with baited breath to get up the front of the bus and I was all set, when we pulled over for a bathroom break. It's actually getting to be a but cold right now. I wonder if it's actually cold or if we just got used to Cairo's 39 degrees.

I wasn't asked anything too difficult so it went alright.

It was quite late by the time we pulled up to our hotel. Quarter to nine. Everyone was pretty tried. We all headed up to our rooms and came straight back down for dinner.

I love the food here. It was buffet style and I tried a bit of everything. So delicious.

It's such a pain to be so exhausted after having done nothing all day. I think I'll sleep well tonight. Fortunately our wakeup call is at seven tomorrow so we can have a bit of a sleep in.

Only after these last two weeks would I consider seven o'clock to be a sleep in.