Athens

Athens was a bit of a let down. I don't know if for the two days we were there it was a holiday or if the economic crisis has killed Athens, but it was a deserted, dirty, closed up and creepy city. 

We first went to the national archaeological museum as we still had a little time that afternoon. Shyla was exhausted so took a well earned nap in the foyer while I wandered the huge museum. I very much enjoyed it especially the large vase I same across which I In fact studied in school. Sadly no photos as iPad was dead by this point. 

We stayed in camping Athens which was nice enough however in the 40 plus heat it became unbearable to try and sleep. Added to this a group of obnoxious French teenagers had their tent next to ours and decided at 11 at night that cleaning up whatever kitchen type thing they had going in their tent needed a tidy. I've never heard so many pots and pans being clashed together in my life. And then to top it off one of them decided to start blow drying their hair at midnight. I should point out their tent was right next to ours so by this point I wanted to explode, happily Shyla did first after which they were lovely and quiet. We could not however defeat the heat and I ended up sprawled outside lying in the dirt after deliriously crawling out in the middle of the night. After this night of hell we were up at 6am to see the sites we wanted to see and then leave as quickly as possible so as not to spend any longer in this unpleasant town. I really wanted to like Athens, but it just didn't happen.

View about halfway up the climb. (Lots of trees but I'm afraid the rest was gravel, no flowery meadows mum) 

The theatre was impressive. 

The acropolis was cool, it was nice to see something so iconic, but it was also under construction, half of it closed off, and the rest cordoned off anyway so couldn't get near. 

It was also overpriced and swarming with tourists. It felt like something that needed to be ticked off the tourist lost, but I much prefer quiet and beautiful sites like Mystras. 

I felt like the photos did it more justice than it was worth, although beautiful looking, constriction adorned it from side to side, the floor was modern board walk, and i had to wait far too long to not have tourists in shot. 

As close as I could get.

Although of course impressive, it was in fact the erechteion that was my favourite. 

Even with my camera on zoom, they were sadly far away. 

Ending with the usual tourist photo!