Athens - Day 1
What a gorgeous first day in Athens. The weather is spectacular as are the surroundings. We are staying at The Royal Olympic Hotel, a very nice hotel with spectacular views. The main lobby, bar, restaurant and pool area are all beautiful. The rooms, while a bit dated are just fine but the view from our room is spectacular.
From our balcony we overlook the Temple of Olympian Zeus constructed in the 6th century BC. When built it contained 104 columns and was the larges temple in Greece. It was pillaged during the barbarian invasion of 267 AD and later quarried to construct churches and homes. Only fifteen columns remain and the site is now an outdoor museum with work being done to preserve the remaining columns. The first 3 photos below are from this site. Mount Lycabettus in the baackground is the tallest point in Athens, 277 meters. The Chruch of St George can be seen at the top.
Less than a quarter mile away from our hotel is the Parthenon which is also visible from our balcony. I took the 4th photo below of the Partenon from out balcony. There are also spectacular views of the Parthenon from the rooftop restaurant at the hotel where we had dinner and our walking tour tomorrow morning will take us there along with other nearby ancient sites.
Speaking of dinner, what a difference a day makes. The rooftop restaurant at the hotel was a perfect place to spend our first evening in Athens. The food and drinks were top notch. Our server was delightful and had excellent suggestions for our meal. We sat at an outdoor table and got to see the light change on the Parthenon from dusk till dark when the entire structure is illuminated.
We enjoyed a nice bottle of Greek wine along with an excellent dinner which began with a nice salad of greens, quinoa, beets with a feta cheese dressing, David had sea bass and I had lamb shank. Both were excellent. For dessert we had something they called warm chocolate soup with fruit compote. Our server said it was like a lava cake. It was more lava than cake but it went great with the Greek coffee.
After dinner we just had to walk 2 flights down to our room to relax for the rest of the evening - and take a few more pictures from the balcony.
Tomorrow morning we do the walking tour of some of these sites where we will get to see them up close. In the afternoon we are doing a walking food tour. Lots more to come from Athens.