Athens

After our sea day, we arrived at Athens.  The first stop on our tour of Athens was a trip to the cemetery.  It was actually fun to walk through a cemetery with a large group of funeral professionals!

 

It was a beautiful cemetery!  We were told that it was the most expensive cemetery in Athens.

One interesting area was the ossuary.  The deceased person will stay in the grave for a period of a few years, and then the bones are disinterred and put into a box and stored in a building on site.  It was interesting how many had flowers, pictures, or electric candles in it.

The next stop on the tour was the Olympic Stadium.  The stadium is huge and in surprisingly good condition!  We didn't spend long here, but it was interesting to see.

Next, we went to the tomb of the unknown soldier, where the guards to a ceremonious changing of the guard on an hourly basis.  The men are volunteers and change each hour, no matter the weather.

 

It is definitely a ceremonious walk - not an efficient one!  The walk involves a large leg lift and occasional scraping of the foot along the ground.  It was fun to watch!

Finally, we went out to the Acropolis. It was super crowded and quite windy, but the Acropolis was incredible!

One part that was interesting was how they were re-building it.  There were definitely parts that were clearly new, and other parts that were original.

Jared played the role of tourist very well, with the backpack and multiple cameras!  We were both surprised how large and spread out Athens is!

We ate a good traditional Greek meal with Cameron and Jenny Black, then walked the streets looking for souvenirs.  It was a fun day walking through such an anciently significant city!