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Amber's Journal - Day 2: We joined up with our tourmates and our happy tour elves Chris (just remember...we love you!) and Vivian. Our first stop was the first modern Olympic stadium which was build in 1896. The Panathenaic stadium is all marble, gorgeous, very, very steep, and features no handrails. The next time I do anything like this I'm wearing a light shoe or sandal with a nonslip sole or bare feet. I felt like I was walking on ice with my hiking boots which I wore to keep my ankles safe during all the walking on rough terrain we were to to that day! The stadium features a small Olympic museum of torches and a few ancient pieces of sculpture too. Our next stop was the Acropolis which is a hilltop complex of temples, shrines and even a music stadium dedicated to the Greek gods. This place is a World Heritage site and very rightly so. This site is really stunning, even as a ruin. I can only imagine what is was in it's heyday. The Propylaea (the temple most featured on postcards) is under heavy renovation right now which I found fascinating--they're pulling out iron bolts and putting in titanium since the iron ones were damaging the marble, and using modern marble to rebuild pieces of the temple. The only way you can tell the difference between modern and ancient is color--they're doing a good job of carving the patch marbles. I also adored the caryatids of the Erechtheum (one of the temples) which although copies are stunning. The terrain at the Acropolis is indeed rough--but most of the footing is worn marble--another slippy place to walk! We didn't have time to see the Acropolis museum (sigh) but only had just enough time for a very needed lunch--we had some traveling ahead of us before we got to the taverna where we had a traditional Greek dinner complete with high stepping dancers! |
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