Doing the tourist thing

and doing the local thing as well. All in one day.

19.09.2008 - 19.09.2008 25 °C

It is rather neat to be living in a place and not be a tourist. Like today I completely did the local thing. For the first time I went to the laiki. The laiki is the weekly open-air market.

It’s a bustling busy place were one can buy all manner of produce, paper goods, plants, linens, and clothing. It’s also colorful.

Eggplant of some sort. I'd love to learn more about the Greek foods and produce.

Assorted vegetables

Cheaper and fresher than the supermarket, the produce is wonderfully flavorful. The grapes I bought today were like eating candy they were so sweet. White grapes from a US supermarket will never fill the bill after snacking on these little gems.

I will look forward to the laiki each week now. It is not something the tourists do. In fact you would be hard pressed to find a tourist in Pagrati.

But today several of us decided to do the tourist thing and visit the Acropolis. We started out by boarding the Athens sightseeing bus, which is suppose to take you around to all the rather touristy sites for a mere 5 euros. A ticket is good for 24 hours and can be used on all forms of transit. Seemed like a good bargain at the time. The sightseeing bus is supposed to stop at certain stops every 30 minutes. We boarded at the stadium, almost on time, and got off at the University of Athens.

The statues were most intriguing, especially the “sad man” statue. I’m not sure who he is, but the expression is, well, quite expressive. Not one I've seen on too many statues before.

After a walk around the university we wanted to board the sightseeing bus and make our way around to the Acropolis. We were told earlier that there would not be a stop at the Acropolis due to a protest. I think the protest had made it up to the university though. I’m not sure if the protest had anything to do with the un-timeliness of the bus. In fact, I am not really sure what the protest was about.

It was interesting to watch though. And thankfully was peaceful.

We finally decided taking the metro to Acropoli was going to be our best bet. The metro here is nice. It’s clean. It’s quick. It’s fairly easy to use. It got us to the Acropoli metro station quicker than we could have walked. Saved a few steps of wear and tear on the feet as well.

So there we were at the Acropolis. The one thing most people come to Athens to see.

Yes, I'm really here. And some of my fellow students insisted I have the photos to prove it.

Lucky me, my student ID got me in for free. I can explore the Acropolis over the next three months as much as I want and it won’t cost me a dime. Hopefully. I thought I would be a bit more awestruck that I was once I got to the top and near the Parthenon. I think the mass of people and the huge quantity of scaffolding actually took away some of the awe. I do understand the need for restoration though.

But still. The Acropolis. Wow. To think I’ll be having class here at the Acropolis on several occasions. Up close and personal.

The Acropolis cat was not so willing to be photographed.

I did love the Karyatids on the Erechtheion. The Karyatids, statues of women, were used in place of columns on this porch. These are not the originals. Originals are housed in the Acropolis museum.

The view looking over the ancient agora was stunning. Thankfully it was a rather clear day. You can see one of the most well preserved buildings, the Haphaisteion, in the center of the photo. I can't wait to make it to the ancient agora!