Day 2 Athens,Greece

Well today we awoke at 6:30 - okay so I had really been awake since 2 am ;)!  We had a delicious breakfast included with our room at Hotel Fresh - the hi-light being freshly squeezed orange juice!

Then we started on our 20 minute walk to the Acropolis of Athena as we had 9 am tickets. Well who would have thought that half of Athens was also in line for tickets!!  It was a tolerable 30 degrees Celsius at 8:15 am when we set out on our walk. 

We had 65 metres elevation to gain along with our walk to the ticket gate. We were dripping with sweat by the time we got to the gate. 

Wikipedia states the following:  “The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient citadel located on a Rocky outcrop above the city of Athena, and contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historical significance, the most famous being the Parthenon.”

We had our own brush with fame watching travel expert, Rick Steves filming at Acropolis. 

The Acropolis was amazing!  And hot.  And crowded. If only we had time to linger and read more of the history as we were seeing the sites - but staff would prompt you to keep moving.  Oh the history on this site!!  The buildings on the site were coordinated for construction around 429 BC.  The Parthenon and other buildings were seriously damaged during the 1687 by the Venetians during the Morean War when gunpowder being stored by Turkish rulers in the Parthenon was hit by by Venetian bombardment and exploded. 

After about 90 minutes on the site we had to leave and seek shade, water bottles offered by the Red Cross and finally air conditioning at the Acropolis Museum!

The air conditioning offered respite from the heat and we spent about three hours there. What a stunning building!!

And then my knee started paining me a lot. I am awaiting a full knee replacement so pain in my knee and limping is nothing new but this pain was noteworthy. So ME and I took a taxi back to the hotel and JP and DG slowly shopped and walked back to the hotel. 

After Advil, Voltaren, a swim, elevation and then a tensor bandage application to my knee, it felt better. Fingers crossed it lasts. 

And the saga of the lost luggage continues.  Air Canada tells us that our luggage will be returned to the port tomorrow. Not our hotel, as promised. We will see if it finds us. 

DG and I wanted to buy a couple of cool clothes in case we don’t get reunited with our luggage - so we revisited a little shop. We then had a lovely Greek dinner along a pedestrian walkway. 

Tomorrow we check out of the hotel and board the Enchanted Princess!!