Surly They Won't Make It

On the first day of Christmas

By

23/12/24

For a while we had planned and hoped we would make it as far as Athens for Christmas. It was completely arbitrary but a target we’d achieved all the same. 

The tourist track
Where the hell do we go?

On the first day we left the house at a lazy 11am. The plan was to visit the Acropolis museum. We wandered around a little bit first, getting a little bit of fresh air. We were fortunate enough to be only a few minutes walk from eastern side of the Acropolis. After struggling to find our way to the entrance, we visited the Agora. It literally means ‘gathering place’ and was the centre of political life, among other things. The highlight is a wonderfully preserved temple. 

The little museum at the Agora
Inspecting the ruins but heading for that beautiful temple
This lady was brushing the walls
Quite a lot of it is intact
It must have been the best preserved ancient building we’d seen

At this point we agreed that we were in no mood for touring the museum as we’d previously planned. We just hadn’t got the mental capacity and needed more rest. After returning to the flat to use the toilet, like every other city the people were non-defecating, we went to a vegan restaurant that had gyros. 

Views to the Acropolis
Frankie and one her cat friends
A statue outside the main forum
Falafel wrap and seitan Gyro

Afterwards we walked to the Temple of Zeus, of which the scaffolding surrounding it was perfectly visible without paying for the privilege. Further along were the botanical gardens with a very disappointing lack of greenhouses. There was a greenhouse, but it was tiny and completely empty. Walking back down the hill we passed the presidents residence and then stumbled upon the Panathenaic stadium, which was quite exciting as we weren’t looking for it.

The temple of Zeus was clad in scaffolding
Hadrians arch
Glorious trees
Tortugas in the botanical gardens
The only marble stadium in the world
They have silly costumes here just like at home

It was time to visit another Lidl. We wanted to find some of the ingredients for our Christmas dinner and it was only about five minutes further away than the mediocre one we’d visited yesterday. It turned out to be superior, with a much better range of products. Among other things we bought a huge bag of reduced peppers for €2 and mustard, a condiment that prior to our trip, we’d thoroughly underrated.

Crazy people in/on motorised vehicles
All of that for €2

For dinner we had wraps, stuffed with plentiful peppers, tofu and feta cheese. We made scones for dessert, served with an assortment of jams and coconut cream. We were watching a show called Kaos. Aptly enough it was a modernised version of the tales of Greek gods. Already we were disappointed that it had been cancelled after the first series as it’s really rather good.

Scones – that’s Dionysus, the god of wine, on screen
Bonus: even she doesn’t know what she’s doing, let alone why!