Port Three -- Athens

But first, more tea....

Bless Bob -- he went out and bought me some plain cough medicine. Here's hoping it works. If not, I'll not be going to church tomorrow, and will miss our new senior pastor's first preaching Sunday. OTOH, he probably wouldn't appreciate someone hacking away every two minutes during his sermon.

But -- on to Athens!

I think one of the things that amazed me was when we pulled away from the port that late afternoon and the city seemed to stretch for miles. There was no sense that Athens stopped or started -- just kept on going and going. We actually ported in Piraeus, driving into Athens from there....

Again, Carole had gotten us our own van and tour guide so we were just the seven of us. That meant we could do a customized tour rather than the ones offered by RC. We wanted to see both the Archeological museum AND the Acropolis -- and in all the tours we looked at we could do one or the other, but not both. So we opted for a day trip we had a little more control over.

We saw the magnificent Temple of Zeus, Hadrian's Arch -- and the Acropolis. But first, the Archeological Museum which was fabulous. The antiquities -- my goodness. They were beautiful...many of them are in the British Museum (go figure) -- guess we'll have to go there to see the rest of them.

Then on to the Acropolis. Just before you climb up to the Acropolis is Mars Hill where Paul preached to the Athenians and talked about their unknown god. It's rather plain. I don't know what I expected...should have looked at the pictures in my Bible Story book a bit more carefully I think.





The Acropolis is right there. It was quite a climb up the hill -- but we made it. Not for the faint of heart or the elderly, that is for sure. I'm a bit nonplused by the scaffolding around all the old structures, but I'm glad they are working to fix it up. So much is damaged by the acid rain and the smog -- looking out over the city of Athens and the suburbs, you can see why.







While we were waiting for Will and Linda at one point, Carole and I had a discussion with our tour guide about -- what else? -- Breastfeeding! It's not at all prevalent in Athens -- too many young mothers worried about losing their figures. She nursed her first baby for 5 months and was in the minority.

Do you suppose that discussion could qualify this trip as a business expense?

No, I didn't think so either.

We wandered into the Plaka and had some lunch at a little taverna which was decorated in the most garish green I've ever seen.

True confession: Greek food isn't my favorite of all the cuisines I've encountered. But it was fun, and I got to try some ouzo for the first time since we were in Greece 32 years ago.

Going through the duty free store on the way back to the ship, we were delighted to see the notices on these cartons of cigarettes:






Tomorrow: Rhodes!!