Greece-3-The Acropolis!

The weather is finally warm enough that we can head for the hill!  We unfortunately get the rudest ticket man to attempt to buy our passes.  Kids under 18 are free but he wants to see passports which are back in the room.  After some unpleasant words we head back for them.  For our next attempt we walk around to ticket booths on the other side so we can avoid him!  

A word about tickets, considering what you are seeing we found all the places in Greece to be extremely affordable.  Most museums were about 5 Euro an adult and the kids are free! The only place you can beat those prices is the Smithsonian!

We have seen some pretty amazing things in our travels and consider ourselves very lucky.  I found it so moving to be standing in front of the Parthenon, there was a part of me that still couldn't believe I was seeing it with my own eyes...and it was super special that our kids got to see it too!

Charlie made this while we sat at the top of the hill and waited for everyone to catch up  He went lighting speed to the top to see the Parthenon, and told me all about it. as we walked around it.

The guy in the yellow wanted to join us!

I've recently been hearing about Marie Kondo and her methods of tidying up. It's good to see that the Greeks also have to figure out how to sort all of their stuff and figure out what sparks joy for them!  I loved their piles...

 Having stacked our woodpile in New Hampshire I could appreciate the fine stacking that went into this!

This also reminded me of when I play Legos with Charlie, for some reason I have zero Lego building skills, so I generally end up just sorting all of his Legos into piles...maybe I could get a job here?

Greg called this the Trucker Mud Flap Photo!!!

 The Greek flag proudly flies from the top, as you can see behind the kids in this photo!

The placard commemorates when two brave Greek teenagers, scaled the wall and took down the Nazi flag that was flown here in 1941 and instead flew the Greek flag.  The flag is very visible from all over the town below.  

Admiring the view from the top-thanks for the cool backpack Papa & Nana O'Brien!

Porch of the Caryatids

Spot where Poseidon & Athena battled for the city...

Olive tree that was originally supposed to have been planted by Athena as her gift.

These signs were everywhere but Greg decided he had to touch the marble because it was so cool to be touching something so old!

Thinking about what to touch next!

Real life Jenga!  The lady standing next to it is a "whistleblower"..if you got too close or touched something you should not have they would blow their whistles at you.  Greg never got whistled.but Charlie did for some of his climbing!

Making a bet and Dad was about to lose!

The view from the roof of our place, the beautiful building to our left is the Acropolis Museum.

At night we did a beautiful walk on the path that rings the Acropolis, look at that view!

 We headed back to our favorite pizza place and our game place!  We tried new games this times, both ones that the guy there recommended.  This one was very fun, you had to trick other people by laying down a picture that would throw everyone off.  Kelly was the winner...

 Then the guy recommended this Jenga like game, but it was way more fun.  If the pieces fell you put them back in the bag and the game kept going.

 It was all fun and games until Katie & Charlie started fighting in the booth...then we had to head out of there!

What an amazing day!

Greece-Day 2-National Archaeological Museum

Another cold day so we planned another museum to keep warm.   Our destination was the National Archaeological Museum.  We took a leisurely route that included haircuts for the boys and some shopping for the girls.  Katie literally ran when she saw a Forever 21 store..I guess she hasn't seen one since we have lived in Belgium.  We joked that her coach wishes she would run that fast on the basketball court!

We passed the University of Athens and the National Library on our way, beautiful buildings.

Here are a few photos...

I liked these guys going up the library steps!

He was at the top of the steps.  Sadly the library had closed before we arrived so we didn't get to peek inside!

The museum is located in a part of town called Exarchia, or the Anarchy district.  We were suprised to see that as you walk into the area right in front of this museum, there are police officers standing by in riot gear and also police vans parked with guys ready to respond at any moment.  Here is a picture of the police bus.

It was quite strange to see this right outside the National Museum!  The grounds outside of the museum were pretty run down too, so we were wondering what the inside was going to be like and if we had just made a freezing cold walk for nothing.  Thankfully the inside was most impressive!  There was no kids sticker hunt this time, so while Greg kept himself busy reading every word of Rick Steve's guide to the museum, Charlie and I found a blog post that listed the 5 unmissable things in this museum and turned it into our own treasure hunt.

Here are some of what we found...first Mask of Agamemnon.  Kelly remembered this being on the cover of her history book!

Statue of Poseidon or Zeus...this is the age old question.  We saw people trying to take a picture posing like the statue and the guards would come and yell at them...so here is just the statue!

Fortunately for us, the museum signs were all in Greek and English, pretty much everywhere we went.

Charlie and I's vote is that it is Poseidon and that he was missing his trident in his right hand.

Some of the statues had a sign next to them that showed the statue in 1941.  There was no further information to explain what the signs meant.  I even went through the bookstore hoping to find a book all about it.  It wasn't until we got home and I had time to look it up online, I learned they had a whole exposition that showed what steps were taken during WWII to protect the treasures in the museum.  Here is a link to the exposition...https://whyathens.com/events/burying-treasures-national-archaeological-museum/

A better picture of the red sign talking about how this statue was hidden away in 1941.

Kore and Kouros... another stop on our hunt!

The girls had gone off exploring the museum on their own and Katie sent me to this section...to see what it was really like to be a goddess!

A real headpiece for a Greek Goddess & a belt..not just cheesy Halloween costumes here!

Katie;s favorite bracelets.

Hairpiece for a priestess with the goddess Artemis in the gathered up part!

I just like this giant statue, I have no idea what it was..it was huge though!

Our next stop was super fun, I had read in a magazine about a board game place...and after trying to order a drink at this restaurant that was too cool to serve us we walked out and two doors down was Charlie's new favorite place...Playhouse!

 It had fun funky tables and bright lights and board games hanging on peg boards all around.

 Lucky for us they had a family favorite Bang right on the wall where we sat down.  It was in Greek so we had to translate a few cards, thanks Google!

It is such a brilliant idea!

Pay no attention to Kelly fixing her earring and instead check out that wall full of games!

Our only complaint was that the table next to us started smoking, (even though there were no smoking signs on the walls) so we headed out after we finished Bang.  We did notice that everywhere  we went there were co-mingled smoking & non-smoking sections...when its all in the same room it really doesn't matter all that much...guess Grece is a bit behind the times in figuring this out!

The weather was forecast to be much warmer tomorrow...we head home to read about the Acropolis, so tomorrow we can take the hill!

Girls Pick-Greece! Day 1- Changing of the Guard & Acropolis Museum

The girls both really wanted to go to Greece, so we visited over February vacation.  We stayed right in the tourist district of Athens, directly across from the Acropolis Museum.  Our apartment had a roof top view of the Acropolis, and we went up a few times to appreciate it!

The weather was very cold for Greece, so we tried to be strategic and save the big outdoor sights for the warmer days. Our first full day was Sunday and there is a special ceremony for the changing of the guard at Parliment on Sundays.  They do a ceremony every half hour around the clock, but the Sunday one is special as it has a full band and a large group of soldiers.

We arrived with enough time to get a perfect spot to see the ceremony.  The Greek soldiers are famous for their uniforms, the skirt is said to have about 300 pleats and the flowing white blouse looked impressive when they marched- but freezing!!  They also have a pom-pom at the toe of their shoes, and we later heard a guide say that a knife used to be concealed within the pom-pom. 

Here are some photos & quick videos of the ceremony...

Not sure why this guy gets to wear a special outfit?

 

Greg's observation was that some of the guys were just mailing it in on the kicks, probably not the ones in front but more in the middle of formation, we will let you be the judge.  I later learned that Greece has a mandatory 9 month service, so maybe some of those guys were short timers!

It was a neat ceremony to see but we were frozen by the time it finished, so we made a beeline to the fancy hotel that was right across the street so we could peek around (I read it had a cool restaurant with a view).  We warmed up and had fun looking around.

Just a stairway in the Hotel Grand Bretagne!

We went onto another cafe for some hot drinks, then wandered through this really cool neighborhood below the Acropolis. It had tiny winding streets and little homes.  There were cats everywhere.  We later learned it was called the Anafiotika, and was originally inhabited by people from the little island of Anafi. There were a few posters on houses of the island, which didn't really make sense until we read about it later in our guidebook.

On the hill behind the neighborhood is the Acropolis!

Cute shutters on this house...

The kids liked looking around and even imitating the soldiers march...here they are...

Katie gets points for not being in the "mailing it in" category!

We found a charming place for lunch and had our first great Greek food. 

There were guys playing traditional music and a cat that came around and ate scraps.  

Charlie liked the cat!

Our next stop was the Acropolis Museum.  We had not read a ton about it before we went and boy were we impressed!!  I later read that according to Trip Advisor it is ranked the #6 in the world and I agree!

The museum had a kids sticker treasure hunt where Charlie had to find many different Athena statues throughout the museum. I was pretty busy helping find the statues, so I didn't take many pictures.  I did try to take one of this really cool Athena where she has snakes on her aegis (cape). They have a strange camera policy, some places you are allowed to take pictures and in others you can't.  I tried to snap one of this Athena but it was blurry because the lady yelled at me!

Luckily another visitor put this one on the internet for me:

Still tricky to see the snakes but they were really cool!

Here is the description of the statue from the Old Temple of Athena (not the Parthenon):
Large marble Athena from the pediment.  The pediment represents the battle of the Olympian gods with the Giants.  Athena is portrayed launching into battle with a wide stride, allowing her terrifying aegis with its snakes to billow as she stoops over an opponent to deliver the final blow.

I found this great video that shows the inside of the museum, it takes about ten minutes but really shows you what we got to see:
https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/content/museum-history

Here are a few photos Greg took of the girls as they were not on the sticker hunt!

5 of 6 original Caryatids, we will see the replicas when we go up to the Acropolis...the 6th is in the British Museum...more to follow on this!

With the Acropolis in the background.

What was really fascinating about the museum was the top floor where you could get the views of the Acropolis like in the picture of the girls, but also to see the existing statues from the Pediment of the Parthenon.  If you might be rusty on your Parthenon knowledge, I highly recommend the NOVA video called Secrets of the Parthenon. Charlie and I watched it before we got on the airplane and it was the best primer we could ask for!  He loved pointing out things he learned from the video the entire week!  Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toz7dqlU6Io

I also got a first hand appreciation for the missing statues that remain in the British museum, thanks to Lord Elgin's appropriation of them back in the 1800's.  Apparently Greece has been asking for the statues back for years and I agree that they belong back with the rest of their friends!

We are excited to go up to the Acropolis, but we need it to warm up first, it looks mighty windy & cold up there on top of the hill!  We finish our first day and feel like we have already seen so much!