Well, folks, this is it. My final honeymoon recap post. It's been fun sharing our experiences in Europe with all of you. Be sure and stay tuned for a post on travel tips and, of course, the wedding recaps!
When I left you last, I said that our ferry from Naxos was heading back to Santorini--what was that all about? Well, we had booked our ferry from Santorini to Athens before leaving for our honeymoon. Then we decided, while in Santorini, to take a side trip to Naxos, which meant we had to get back to Santorini in time to catch our ferry to Athens. We ended up backtracking a bit by going from Naxos to Santorini to Athens because Naxos is actually in between Santorini and the mainland. In fact, our ferry from Santorini to Athens stopped in Naxos on the way. In theory, we could have just stayed in Naxos and tried to board the ferry when it arrived there, but we weren't sure how the system worked and didn't want to take the risk of not being able to board our ferry. So back to Santorini it was but only long enough for a quick bite to eat. Then it was on to Athens!
We only had two full days in this city, so we tried to fit in as much site-seeing as possibly, even though we were incredibly worn out at this point in the trip. Our first morning in Athens, we woke up and headed a couple of blocks from our hotel to Hadrian's Arch.
The Dude let us to some steps that were worn smooth and looked very precarious. But once we got to the top, it was totally worth the climb.
Check out this view of the Acropolis!
Then we checked out Ancient Agora, basically the hub of ancient Athenian civilization. This building was completely reconstructed to look as it did back in the day.
The entire porch area was filled with marble statutes from various eras. We have no idea who this bust is.
This building is part of Ancient Agora. It's the Temple of Hephaestus, and it is known as the best preserved ancient Greek temple.
After grabbing some lunch, we headed to another ancient site, the Kerameikos cemetery. It was filled with ancient headstones, beautiful views of a basilica, and lots of turtles.
Finally, we headed back to the neighborhood near our hotel to see the Temple to the Olympian Zeus. It was on lower ground than the other sites we had seen that day, and it was much much larger in scale than any of the other ancient temples. It was completed by Hadrian in the 2nd Century A.D., and it was meant to rival the Parthenon. It was pretty much breathtaking.
The next day, it was our goal to get up before the sun and see the sun rising over the Acropolis. We attempted to this, but in our groggy state, we decided to go back to the hotel after the sun came up because we were so sleepy and cold. We went back to sleep for two hours! So then it was time to go and fight the masses to see what has to be one of the most popular tourist sites in the world--the Acropolis.
I was reading a book on Greek mythology the whole time we were in Greece, and so luckily I was able to point out that this tree is the olive tree that was planted by Athena when she was running against Poseidon to be ruler/protector of Athens. The story goes that all of the women voted for Athena and all of the men voted for Poseidon. When Athena won, that's when men decided to take the right to vote away from women.
We finally made it to the Parthenon! So crowded, but totally worth it.
It was amazing and pretty surreal to see all of the ancient runes in Athens. Our two days were so jam-packed with seeing as much as we could that we didn't really get a chance to soak up Athens culture like we wanted to. I'd recommend staying for longer than we did! It's a beautiful city, and it has a lot to offer.
We woke up very early the next morning to catch our flight back to the United States. We were sad that our honeymoon was ending, but so happy to get back to our home, our cats, and married life.
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