A Day in Athens

 Today our tour was scheduled for 12:15pm, you we slept in a bit and had a light breakfast in the World Cafe.

Then I spent the rest of the morning enjoying all the different areas in the spa such as the sauna, snow room, stream room, cold water dump, rainforest shower, hot tub, cold plunge, and mineral pool. The use of these are free for all the guest on the ship. I have a massage scheduled for our sea day.

We had a light lunch again in the upstairs' cafe

Then we were off for our tour. Viking includes a free tour at all of ports. If you wants something else they offer ones you pay extra for. We are only signed up for one that is not included. It is in the last port I think.

Since it was a “panoramic” tour that means for over half of the about four hours we road on the bus. The windows were not the cleanest, so the pictures are not the best sometimes. This is one of the three natural harbors of greater Athens. This one is for yachts, and smaller sailing ships. The one our ship is in is the larges. Athens is made up of several smaller municipalities. The one we leave from is called Piraeus, it is one of the 67 that make up Athens. It is also the larges with a population of almost half a million people. Athen’s total population is around around four million according to our guide.

Most of the city looks more modern and is “newer” as Athens did not become the capital of Greece until 1834 at the end of the 400 years of the Ottoman Empire’s rule. This is not the best picture, but the old building against the much new attracted my eye.

There were some walled churches around

Again through the window across the bus from me. He is a picture or a piece of Athens stretching around the harbor 

An old fortified building next to a much more modern set

Another picture of one of the four major building built for the 2004 summer Olympic Games

This is there new opera house. 

Our first stop is at the site of the first modern day Olympics in 1896. This is the original stadium used

Statue at the site of a runner

A bronze of  discus thrower. We had 10 minutes at this site

Our tour bus in route

We pulled over to see the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier 

Here is the guard as they marched back to their barracks, they are in traditional dress

This is the national library 

Out front are statues of Plato and Socrates

This is the museum that was our second stop. Our guide took us through and we had about 50 minutes on the tour and a ten minute restroom stop

This sculpture was outside the museum 

This olive tree was also outside the museum and is believed to be over three hundred years old, the sun was not at the best angle for the picture, but it was truly a fun tree

Map of Greek holding before the time of Christ 

Urn for ashes after cremation 

Early Greek statue of a woman circa 700 B/C

Pedestal for grave monument. The Greeks show men preparing to be warriors

Bronze of the god Neptune or Zeus, but most believe it is Neptune and he would have been holding his trident

Grave stone of Rich female. Carved in the shape of the temples

This bronze is an unusual piece as the horse was created then the boy jockey was added some two hundred years later

This is the first statue in which the female is partial or fully nude. Males had been done nude for over two thousand years before this statue. It was created 386BC.

The helmet in the upper section is made of leather with boar ivory on the front as both decoration and to add strength to the warrior

This is a fresco that dates back to the time Homer in the 8th century BC

These were from Mycenae, believed to belong to King Agamemnon. They have been date to 16th century BC

One of the main two main square areas of Athens

This is the other one and the building in the back their house of parliament 

Another interesting old building

 

A church bell tower. I believe our guide said a Greek Orthodox one

This one is an other church

The acropolis with the Parthenon. We had our third and final stop in old Athens which sits near the base of the Parthenon and not far from the twelve column that are all that is left of the temple to Zeus. We only had about 35 minutes at this stop, and since we climbed to the Parthenon last time we were in Athens, we only went to the base.

One of the shops in old Athens had this in front of their store. It just amused us

The Main Street of old Athens

Out bus

The pillars of the temple to Zeus

On our drive back to the ship, we passed this, which was the Olympic volley ball stadium 

Another old building closer to our ship

Church near the center of the town of  Piraeus which was where our ship was docked

The town square of Piraeus

We arrived back to our ship. We cleared security, dropped our things off in the room and headed up for afternoon tea.

No pictures of that today as we both left our phones in the room.

I did take a picture of what I over ate for dinner and a couple from this evening singing performance, but alas blogger will not let me add them now. As I am doing these on my phone and/or my iPad, depending which is working best, I will have to just close with best wishes to you all