Athens (7/3)

The journey through Greece continues. It was absolutely incredible. This was our little (109 people) travel group. It was a very interesting group to say the least.
Our little group within the group - minus Dad since he was taking the pictures.
Isn't it beautiful? Although in reality this was our cold, almost miserable day. We did get wet, but who cares we were in Greece!
The Temple of Zeus.
A little better picture of the Temple of Zeus.
The Olympic stadium. It was so neat to see.
Stopping for a pose. We didn't have any volunteers to go out and take a quick run around the track.
The Arch of Hadrian
The Acropolis. So amazing. (Is it wrong that the whole time I was up there I kept thinking about a random scene from The Chipmunk Adventure?)
View between the trees on the way up to Mars Hill or The Areopagus.
So this is where Paul delivered his sermon about the Unknown God. Can imagine having that kind of bravery? This is a group of people who had a statue and god for everything and were so paranoid about missing one and offending them that they put one for the unknown god. Yet, he had the courage to stand up and say he now knew God and wanted to be able introduce them to him.
The hill of Philopappus, whoever that was.
It seems like no matter where you go there is construction or renovation.
The birthplace of democracy. It was cool to be here.
The Lycabettus.
The view from the top of Mars Hill.
The Odeon of Herodes Atticus. This is where Yanni did his concert - if you care.
It really was an incredible sight.
Just loved the detail work.
I got to see the Parthenon! It just doesn't get much cooler than that.
And the Propylaea.
And back to the Parthenon. I don't think they are trying to rebuild or restore or renovate so much as maintain, but that part was never really clear to me.
The Erechtheum (Caryatides) These ladies were so beautiful.
So this was something that absolutely amazed me. As they are doing their project, all of the pink stone is the original. The white is what's being done to strengthen it. When you look at the pictures, there really isn't all that much white.
And the pretty random blossoms. The color here was red.
More detail work. I am trying to imagine how they did this and what tools and I complete draw a blank.
Monk was saw on the way down from the top of the hill. He turned around and I was never able to get his face.



Then we went down to the Athens museum. We weren't able to take pictures in there, but we were able to see some of the original statues from the Acropolis. It was just so incredible. I need to find some new words.



When we were eating that night, all of a sudden there seemed to be some kind of commotion. We went to the middle of the restaurant and this is what we found on the balcony above us.

We had our own little lip sync thing going on. It was quite fun to watch.