Our morning started with one last amazing breakfast buffet at the Hilton, after 'sleeping in' to a normal time of around 7:30. Unfortunately, we had loose plans plans of taking a bus to Delphi today (3 hours one way), but with the tiny bit of extra sleep, we missed the first bus of the day and the second wasn't until too much later. So we had a leisure morning and then made a plan to hit all the sights that were closed yesterday.
Our first stop was another visit to the Panateniac Stadium and Hadrian's Arch, as we passed them on our way to the Acropolis. The Acropolis and Ancient Agora were the main monuments on the agenda for today.
I remember wondering how we were going to get all the way to the top of the Acropolis to see the Parthenon. It is just so high up there, you can see it from almost anywhere in Athens. I should have known - you hike! Lots of stairs and paths. But there were so many other ruins to see on the way up.
Once we got to the top, it was quite a bit more crowded...and hot! It was supposed to be 72 (sunny and calm today), but it seriously felt much warmer! Still, we sat down for a few moments just to soak in the Parthenon. It is grand. I had read so much about it in school (not that I remember it all!), but it was cool to observe with our own eyes how the columns and architrave had been built in sections and just how massive of a structure it is to have been built without modern machinery.
We also got to see the Temple of Athena next to the Parthenon.
The grounds all around the Acropolis were like a park - very lush and green. A huge contrast to our time in the city streets of downtown Athens yesterday.
As we continued to head through this park-like setting toward Agora, we passed Adrianou Street and stopped for lunch. I can't get enough of the outdoor seating around here!
Agora was huge. We probably spent a couple of our 10 miles just walking around these beautiful grounds. I loved the Stoa (which housed the Museum of Agora). It had recently been restored and gave you the true feeling of what a magnificent structure it is now and was back in it's time.
Temple of Hephaistos in Ancient Agora
We continued with the last of the sites on our museum pass, including Hadrian's Library and Roman Agora
After this, we passed through the Plaka area briefly, but knew we were almost at 10 miles, so decided to call it a day!!
We went back to the hotel for dinner in the exec lounge and packed our bags for our early morning flight to Santorini! We plan to wrap up exploring the Plaka when we're back in Athens for a day on the 18th.
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