After yesterday’s success, I did consider getting ChatGPT to write the whole of this blog post, but unsurprisingly, having not actually been there with us, the suggested post read more like a travel guide than anything that I would have written, so this is me again.
Today was a bit of a greatest hits tour as we revisited some of the places that we’d enjoyed on our previous trip. We packed a lot in for reasons that will become clear tomorrow. In the meantime we started today’s tour with…
The Acropolis
I have to admit that I was a little hazy on the difference bewteen the Acropolis and the Parthenon but here ChatGPT could help me out: the Acropolis is the hill and the collection of buildings, while the Parthenon is the most famous building on it.
Despite this being 10 a.m. on a February morning, there were plenty of people at Athens’ most famous landmark, and many of those were school parties. We sidestepped those on the way up and cursed at their standing in the way of my photos at the top!
Having learned from previous experience that the ground here is, if I am being charitable, uneven and that marble is beautiful but treacherous, we’d worn walking boots for the trip. I felt a little weird wearing them on the plane out but was glad of them today. I suspect that had this been in the UK, the HSE would have roped off large sections for our safety, fears that our European cousins don’t share.
Like Barcelona’s Sagrada Família, the Parthenon never seems to be finished. It houses a huge crane in its centre as restoration work continues to ensure that remains upright for future generations.
Changing of the guard
On the walk to Lycabettus Hill we made a slight detour into Syntagma square to see the men with the funny slippers* perform the changing of the guard. This happens every hour, on the hour come rain or shine. Two poor buggers get to stand very still for an hour before a couple more come along to relieve them doing what looks very the Minstry of Silly Walks sketch in Monty Python.
Lycabettus Hill
Final stop was Lycabettus Hill. Having walked from Syntagma Square to the base of the hill we decided to get the funicular up to save our legs which were smarting from the steps. The top is a great place to see pretty much all of the city.
I’ve said this before but Athens is small. You can stand on Lycabettus Hill and pretty much see all the city in one 360 degree sweep as it is bounded by the sea on one side and hills on the other. Every so often there is a rocky crag that pops out of the land onto which something has been built, like the Acropolis.
We walked back down through the cacti lined path and back into the city.
*The funny slippers worn by soldiers during the Changing of the Guard in Athens are called tsarouhia. These traditional Greek shoes are part of the Evzones’ uniform (the elite ceremonial unit of the Greek Presidential Guard).