Athens, our first stop around Europe. Greece was our starting point to tick one more wonder of the world in our list, the Acropolis. Defnetly a wonder on how it lasted 2000+ years.
This shot was taken from on top of Lykavittos Hill (Mount Lykabettus) which was a damn steep hike - 250 meter ascent. The plan was to get up there before sunset and get this shot, stay there until dark and then take a night shot. It was a nice plan, except that I did not include variables like weather & sunset time.
After waiting for nearly 3 hours and braving the intense chill and rain on top of the hill, we finally managed to get this picture of Acropolis at night. I owe a big one to Ramya for her patience on my photographic endevours. She says, its coming in Venice.
This is the home of Olympics. There is a lot of history about it, but the story in short, it was first built many many centuries ago. It was re-constructed in 18xx something year when the first ever modern day olympics was held.
This is the Ancient Agora, one of the well preserved structures. Agora is a place of assembly.
This one is worth a mention, any guesses why? This was built I think around 200 BC and is the birth place of the "Theatre".
The city of Athens has ruins everywhere. This picture was taken in the Acropolis Museum, that is built on top of ruins. The ruins are in the Metro stations, parks you name it.
There are many more sites with broken columns and fallen walls. By then end of the second day, we were over it. Overall, Athens is very similar to cities in India, believe me, it is very much so. Houses are all built the same way, similar people attitudes, same nuisance in public places but much cleaner. But by western standards, it is not what we would call "clean". The Metro trains are great, frequent, cheap and well connected. 4 Euros lets you ride all day everywhere.
Food, ah almost forgot. Good food. The souvlakis and spagettis were a great hit with us. Did try the Mousaka, they are OK but not worth raving about. The food is reasonably cheap. The Greeks are almost half immersed in Olives and Olive oil I must say. Oh by the way, there are olive trees every where.
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