Adventures of David and Paul: Acropolis & Ancient Antiquities

After a night out on the town we were slow to rise the next morning. Eventually, we got up and decided today was the day to visit the Acropolis. Usually, a ticket to the site costs around 20€, but since it was the first Sunday of the month in off-season all sites were free. Unsure if this was a good or bad thing, we still ultimately decided to stroll up to the Acropolis. While it was pretty busy, it actually didn't seem much different from when I went before in May 2009. Afterwards, we headed down to the Temple of Olympian Zeus before walking along the pedestrian Dionysiou Aeropagitou to our reservation for lunch at 2pm at Restaurant Athiri.

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus. Performances still occur here.

Proplaea - western primary entrance into the Acropolis.

Janice and Peter taking it all in.

Me chilling in front of the Parthenon.

So. Many. People.

Panoramic shot looking north from the Acropolis.

Parthenon's east face.

Caryatids on the Erechtheio. We later learned these were reproductions.

Southern slope of the Acropolis. There were some temples and other buildings here in the past.

Sitting in the Theater of Dionysus.

Olympian Temple of Zeus obligatory jumping photo in GIF form this time!

Temple of Zeus with the Acropolis in the background.

It was a really large temple that took 500 years to build...unfortunately it was destroyed within 100 years of completion.

Temple of Zeus.

Lunch was at an almost completely deserted restaurant Athiri. When we walked in I told the waitress we had a reservation and we had a brief laugh about how it probably wasn't necessary. There was one other person there the entire time we dined. The food was actually very good and we have no idea why the place was deserted!

Broccoli and potato salad and some shrimp and cheese skewers.

Mushroom orzo pasta. This was absolutely delicious, earthy and cheesy.

Galaktoboureko. Basically it's filo with layers of vanilla creme and an orange sauce.

After stuffing ourselves, we decided it was time for a nap before going out for the evening on another bar hopping adventure. Midday naps have become a thing this trip and I'm really enjoying them. It might be hard to go back to work in America!

That evening we made the rounds to about four different places, including a stop for midnight dinner in Plaka. The first place we visited was called Barley Cargo and they had a very large collection of Greek beer. Janice and Peter are beer people and they said they were pleasantly pleased with beer in Greece, overall. Next we went to a bar called Clumsies, which was a trendy looking cocktail bar a few blocks away. Third on the tour was a Greek wine place with an...unfortunate....name for English speakers. The place was called heteroclito. The service and wine here was really good, and our waiter was eager to help us find a bottle we'd like.

Finally, after a failed mission to find a music venue I had marked on my google map, we settled for some wine and food at a random restaurant perched on an alley of stairs in the Plaka. There were tons of restaurants here, so it's hard to pick one that's good...but we sat outside with the acropolis behind us and the city spread out below, so who cares if the food was a C-? At this spot we got a Greek appetizer plate with dolmas and a variety of fried cheese (I think my blood is like 20% fried cheese at this point). We also shared some moussaka, which is something that's kinda hard to find in America. We also made a few cat friends in the alley. One in particular was very friendly and sat on Janice's lap. We named him Yamas (Greek for cheers).