We arrived at our hotel around 10 pm and were greeted by this sight from our balcony.

Saturday was a tour day and our first stop was the Acropolis.  The Acropolis is a large fortified area high above the city where several temples were constructed, around 500 BC.  We are standing in front of the Parthenon, the most impressive of the remaining structures.

Before lunch, we spent time in the Acropolis Museum.  It’s an awesome museum, only about 5 years old and full of wonderful artifacts found in the Acropolis.

We walked through the Plaka, the historical neighborhood of Athens, on our way to the Agora.  It’s so impressive to walk around and look up to see this!  Interesting fact: Athens did not become the capital of modern Greece until 1833 (after Greece regained independence from the Ottomans and a new king was chosen).  At that time, there were only about 5,000 people living in Athens, most of them living in the Plaka area.

In the afternoon, we walked around the Ancient Agora, learning more about life in ancient Athens (and picking flowers).  The Agora was the city center where politics were discussed, commerce flourished, courts ruled and people interacted with each other over everything from current events to arts and culture.  There were also many temples in the area making the Agora a religious center as well.

By the end of the day, the girls were excited to spend some time at the hotel drinking tea and discussing the history of Athens on the balcony.

Later that night, the students and I attended Easter midnight mass at a nearby church. Again, everyone gathered outside the church, this time waiting for the priest to emerge.  He stood outside and chanted in Greek for a while, then everyone lit candles while he chanted some more.  Suddenly bells rang while everyone cheered and started kissing each other’s cheeks.  I’m pretty sure that was the Christ Has Risen! part.  🙂

On Easter Sunday, a group of us decided to climb Mt. Lycabettus. On the way, we walked through the National Gardens and found this playground. We played a mean game of tag on this rope contraption and had so much fun!

One of many views of Athens from our walk up Mt. Lycabettus.  Once again, there’s that Acropolis sticking up!

We ate a delicious Easter lunch at Smile restaurant. Jon had lamb, a traditional Easter meal. We also enjoyed Greek beer and music, and some dancing (I even joined in the dance party).  We also got to witness plates getting tossed over Lily’s head and smashing to the ground accompanied by a big hearty OOOPAH!

On Monday, we all went our separate ways.  The students split up and went to Ireland, Paris, the French Alps, northern Greece and a couple Greek Islands. We headed west, down the Greek coast to Nafplio. It’s a cute little down dominated by a huge rock and a beautiful bay.  Nafplio has quite a history in Greece, including a stint as the capital in 1829, before Athens took over the title a few years later.

We hiked up the huge rock, also known as the Fortress of Palamidi.  Built between 1711 and 1715, it is a group of bastions built to protect the city.  The fortress included water reservoirs, food storage areas and “murder holes” among other things.  There are supposedly 999 steps up to the top.  We counted 907 coming down.

We spent a little time on the beach in Nafplio.  The water was freezing! And the rocks were hard to walk on, but the sea was so beautiful we still loved it.  Later that afternoon, we took a bus back to Athens and left the following morning at 6 am for the last leg of our journey – Italy.