Athens

Hello from Athens or as Joani puts it, part two of our vacation.

 Having reread my first two emails from this trip, I'm thinking that anyone who isn't into art is thinking, why am I getting these emails again? If that's the case I'm going to try to drum up some interest by writing about history. Now I'm sure that will be entertaining and exciting for everyone.

 Joani and I wandered around Athens Greece today. 

We visited the Acropolis,

The Temple of Hephaistos,

The Ancient Agora that was a meeting places for the ancient Greeks, and the Roman Agora that was used 5 or 6 hundred years later.  We saw ruins and relics that were from 3500,3000 and 2500 years old right up to walking among modern housing built only 500 years ago. I love putting that into context by thinking about how later this year, Joani and I might take a trip to Ottawa to celebrate Canada's 150 birthday.

 When Joani and I visited Rome we were amazed at the amount of history we were seeing, but it seemed that every historical sight we came across was cordoned off and protected from public damage. Here in Athens, the whole city seems to be one giant historical ruin and the people who live here seem to take it for granted. At one point in time we came across some ruins that looked like they could be 2000 to 2500 years old that were walled off on one side with a train track running alongside, and the wall on the other side was adorned with graffiti tags.

I'm thinking that if you could translate that graffiti it would read "The Greek gods were here".  Now, whether the Greek gods were a local street gang or Zeus and/or Athena swooped down and painted the graffiti themselves, your guess is as good as mine.  Besides that shot, I included some other historical shots that you might find more interesting.

Reporting live from Athens,

Garry