Day 35

Kaliméra,

We had a slow start to the morning. Last night was a beautiful, still, balmy evening, and we wandered around the busy streets after dinner at an outdoor café. For €20 we had a shared platter for gyros pork and chicken (that is meat cooked on a rotisserie), pita bread, olives, capsicum and chippies. The price included a glass of house wine (which Grandma said was really good) and a large bottle of good Greek beer for Koro. Fantastic value for money and great service.

The streets were full of tourists and locals, every one happy and in good spirits. We stopped and watched some street performers dance, we tried different types of roasted nuts a man was selling (Grandma is now addicted to honey and sesame coated roasted peanuts).

The food in Greece is refreshingly different to what we have had in Italia for the last few weeks. We are both enjoying the change. In Greece, honey is often used instead of sugar as a sweetener, even in tea and coffee. Koro has become addicted to Greek Coffee.

Last night we walked past the presidential palace, and had seen the guards perform their half hourly march. They have to do this every half hour. The rest of the time they must stand absolutely still at attention.

In front of the palace is a tomb for the “Unknown Soldier”. Similar to what we have in New Zealand, it commemorates the sacrifices of all soldiers who have died in various wars. There are only two guards standing on duty, and their role is to guard the Unknown Soldier’s tomb rather than the whole palace.

This morning we wanted to be at the palace at 11:00am to watch the weekly changing of the guard ceremony.

As we arrived the police had closed the streets to traffic. No easy feat, as this is usually busy road.

We have to say, that from what we have seen of the police in Greece, they actually do their jobs. As opposed to the Polizia in Italia, who stand around checking their reflections in the nearest mirror and watching the pretty girls.

The ceremony involved a band leading a troop of soldiers up to the palace. The soldiers were all dressed in the traditional, formal uniform of the Greek army. They also marched in a funny step, which is also part of the Greek Army tradition. Very slow, lots of high leg lifts, and lots of clopping with their wooden clogs. The procession was very precise, every man perfectly in time. We even noticed that the mustaches, for those soldiers that chose to have one, were all trimmed and styled in exactly the same way.

After the ceremony we walked down the road to the Temple of the Olympian Zeus. You don’t have to walk very far in Athens to come across another ruined temple. We had seen this temple from the Acropolis yesterday, so thought we better come and see it up close. We’ve seen lots of temples now, in fact, we’ve probably seen enough.

Walking away from the old ruins, we came across a bus stop for the “Hop On, Hop Off” bus. This is a tourist service you see in cities throughout Europe. You buy a ticket for one or two days, and you can ride it as often as you like. The bus does a fixed circuit around the most popular tourist destinations. We have not done the Hop On Hop Off bus since Roma two years ago, when Koro was convinced that the bus driver thought he was Mario Andretti racing at Le Mans.

The Hop On Hop Off in Athens proved to be excellent. We got a great overview of the city, and hopped off at the Sunday Flea Markets. It was just like Cambridge on Sunday Trash And Treasure day; lots of people selling junk. It was just ten ties more crowded and twenty times bigger.

Lunch was at a Taverna with live music that was too loud. The Bouzouki is a traditional Greek stringed instrument that is plucked like a banjo. It is also a bit like Scottish bagpipes - every song played on it sounds the same.

After lunch we fought off the Flea Market sales people as we made our way back to the bus stop. Our destination was the Panathenaic Stadium.

This amazing stadium is made completely out of marble. It was built on the site that of stadium where the original Olympic Games in ancient times were held. The current stadium was built on this site for the very first modern Olympics, held in 1896. It sounds boring visiting a stadium, but this one was truly beautiful.

We wandered around, walked up and down, and walked up the tunnel the athletes would have used to enter from the changing rooms.

The centre of the stadium has a modern athletic surface, including a 400m running track. Buzzy Bee challenged Koro to a race. Koro thought, “this will be easy”. Buzzy Bee won the race easily, although Koro is convinced it was a false start.

For dinner we found a local restaurant on a rooftop. We could look up at the beautifully lit Acropolis and out over the lights of the city. Once again, most of the people in the restaurant were speaking in Greek.

Tomorrow we have to get ourselves organised for the rest of the week, where we are going and how we will get there.

Love to you all from Grandma and Koro and Buzzy Bee. XXX OOO.