Παρθενώνας, Σφινακίας, οδοντογλυφίδα

My school sponsored a trip to Athens this past weekend. It was my first time going to the capital and it was nice to have everything planned for me. We left Friday morning by bus and made it to Athens by Friday night around five. We had a nice long lunch break at a taverna in Lamia and stopped about 50 times along the way--or at least it felt like it.

Parthenon at Night 

The first thing we did was to go to the new Acropolis museum which was built right at the foot of the Acropolis and has a wonderful view of the Parthenon--a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. It was opened in 2007 and has many artifacts that were excavated in Athens and the friezes that wrap around the top of the Parthenon.


We checked into our hotel which was in a sketchy part of the city. The next day when we were walking back to our rooms it appeared that a group of gypsies had set up store all down the street. There was just piles of junk everywhere--old shoes, books, chipped dishes, broken toys, anything random thing you could imagine--was lying in piles. As we left again the police were chasing them all away and the were hurriedly packing everything up.

That night we went to a taverna with traditional Greek music, dancing, and food. Every taverna serves a plate of feta, but this one out did all the others. There was feta, but it was deep-fried and then covered in honey. Delicious!

Getting ready to race in the Olympic Stadium

Saturday we got to visit the original Olympic Stadium (Panathenaic Stadium) and got a bus tour of the city. Then we headed to the Acropolis to see it up close. The sun finally came out as we made the climb to the top and we had a beautiful view of the entire city of Athens.

We also went to a Greek Folk Lore museum and saw an anicent Greek agora and went to yet another taverna with more meat that anyone could handle. The rest of the afternoon we spent shopping at some flea markets and wandering around on our own.

Sunday morning we got to see the changing of the guard before heading out of town. Every Sunday there is a parade in front of the Greek Parliament building with instruments and marching soldiers all decked out in these ridiculous outfits and the funniest shoes (they have pom-poms on them) and a whole crowd or people turn out to watch the event.

One the way back we went reviewed the three Greek words that our calculus professor on the trip said we should have learned on the trip (Παρθενώνας, Σφινακίας, οδοντογλυφίδα for Parthenon, shots, and toothpick) and went to yet one more taverna in Kamena Vourla which was right on the beach. We had a view of the island of Evia, got to sit out in the sun and eat out lunch. It was the picture perfect end to our trip to Athens.