Fortunately for our day, both kids finally got a good sleep. We did play it safe and had a lazy morning at the apartment. I ran down to the grocery store and got us a frozen Greek pizza. It was an interesting combination of Cesar sauce, gyro chicken, onion and corn. It tasted quite good and yes, in case you were wondering, Kieran liked the pieces he had. Then he had a 40 minute nap. Oh the life of a baby.
At 12:30pm, we headed out towards the Ancient Agora. As with nearly everything in Athens, it was a quick jaunt on the metro including a change to Line 1. The trains there are the older model and have been tricked out with very cool murals on them showing the different stops. After a stop, the tracks emerged into the open air and we got a brief look at our destination which tickled Jordan’s fancy. But before that, there were little handmade market stalls set up on the road and Jordan got herself a cute little ring.
Entry to the Agora was €20 each for Emily and I, but free for Jordan. She loved it from the first second and pulled her camera out right away to start snapping pictures. Our first stop was the museum area which had artifacts from the history of Athens all the way back to 1700BC. We perused the ruins and got great views of the Acropolis throughout. Some of the paths were pretty rough, but the stroller made it through just fine.
The highlight of the place is the extremely well preserved Temple of Hephaestus which still has all of the columns. It was so cool to Jordan that she says in addition to being an erosion scientist, she also wants to be an archaeologist. She was quite taken with all of the statues, busts and pottery.
From the ancient Agora (aka marketplace), we did the Athens thing and walked throughout the modern market streets. We ended up at the same square as the other day and spread the love by trying the *other* gelato place. This turned out to be a mild mistake, as they charged by weight and it ended up being €2 more expensive than across the street. I wasn’t a super fan of the cheesecake gelato, but the fererro hazelnut and lemon sorbet were both good.
We continued on our way through the streets and came across the (according to the signs) oldest house in Athens. It has been turned into a little museum and showed off walls and wells from the Roman era. Shortly after, we hit the main street and didn’t quite feel like heading back to the apartment so we traipsed through the trails of the park and settled down for an hour at the playground.
This time, we actually timedcour walk to The Greek Parliament correctly to arrive just as they were starting the changing of the guard. This consisted mostly of the same slow tap dance marching from the other day, but with some more elaborate sweeps of the leg and additional participants. Did I mention the very odd “raised hand in a fist but with a super strange wrist angle downwards” last time? Very odd way to hold one’s hand. Probably the most fun was the supervisor who would shout out very loud instructions throughout the ceremony.
We watched the strange dance ceremony for a few minutes and headed down the conveniently placed stairs to the metro. But before getting on the train for our familiar two stop journey, there was a pop-up market inside the station. So of course we did a lap, though the stalls weren’t super interesting and we didn’t get anything.
Back in our area, we stopped for some more gyros, this time with a sausage for Jordan and fried zucchini for the table. Kieran once again demolished half a plate of Tzatziki while Jordan cleared her sausage in no time. This set us up for a perfectly casual bedtime that went off without a hitch (as far as I can tell at 10pm).
Facing slightly more of a hitch is Liam on his way to join us for our time in Crete, as Air Canada has cancelled his flight to Montreal. Air Canada originally tried to booking him on tomorrow’s flight, which was insane. So they have settled on the *slightly* less insane llan of sending him and a random couple from his flight to Montreal in an Uber and slotting him onto the later night flight to Athens. And he isn’t even travelling with Kieran! I guess the aura of joining Kieran on a trip was brought o cause mechanical issues on the plane, even absent lightning.
Hopefully that all turns out well, but we will be crossing all the fingers and toes. Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion of the “what will Air Canada do crazy this time” saga!
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