Day 17 - Athens

After breakfast at the hotel we headed to the metro station to get to the Acropolis. There is a lot to see here so we went in the morning to try to beat the heat as much as we could. It didn't do us much good, Athens is sweltering. The entrance to the temples is through the temple of Athena Nike, which I am disappointed to say was entirely covered with scaffolding as part of a restoration process that appears to be taking decades. The Parthenon also had quite a bit of scaffolding, though only on 2 sides and all through the middle. There were at least a few parts that you could see. The views of the city from the top of the hill were amazing. We walked down the hill and over to Ancient Agora and the Temple of Hephaistos which was remarkably well preserved. Around the corner from this we went to Hadrian's Library, which was a mess, and the Temple of Olympian Zeus which still has many pillars standing. On our walk back we stopped and had lunch and then headed to the Archaeological Museum. Everything that used to be in the temples and the ancient cities is kept here. Countless sculptures, statues, pottery, jewelry, weapons, and art. It took over 2 hours to walk through. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel, hot and weary. That night we walked a few blocks over to a nice restaurant and had a good dinner.