Athens: Marathons, and Temples, and Protests! Oh My!

This morning I was up to meet my guide for a walking tour of the city. Today was the day of the annual marathon here in Athens where they run the actual historic path of the original marathon, so many of the streets were blocked off. There was also a Special Olympics 5K today, which I saw the start of, but the city was pretty much shut down, at least the streets were.

We started our walk and saw the remains of the Temple of Zeus, a massive structure of which only several columns remain. We then visited the Acropolis museum and then the actual Acropolis, the remains of the Roman Agora and the Roman Forum, and the Library of Hadrian. It really is amazing how you can be walking along the street in a modern city and then walk around the corner and BAM! Ancient ruins! After the walking tour, I had a delicious lunch. As I was sitting outside, I could see the people who had finished the marathon hobble by. I honestly can't see why anyone would want to put themselves through the agony of one of these things: everyone who went passed looked like they were in severe pain and were wrapped in these shiny silver aluminum foil looking things... I suppose if you were to do a marathon, this would be the one to do since it actually retraces the route of the original runner who ran from the battle of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Greeks had won the battle against the Persians. Still, why someone would do that to themselves is a mystery to me...

The rest of the afternoon I walked around the Placa, or old part of the city. After walking until I couldn't walk anymore, I headed back to the hotel and on the way ran into a huge protest. HUGE! There must have been at least 20,000 people marching. I could see as far as about four city blocks packed full of people chanting something (don't ask me what; it was all Greek to me!). I watched for awhile and then decided it was time to head back to the hotel since the police were starting to gather in force...

The rest of the evening was spent getting my bags all situated and ready for my departure tomorrow. I will be boarding my cruise ship tomorrow, which will be my home for the next 23 days. It will be nice to be in the same bed for that long, as the longest I've been in any one hotel in the past three-and-a-half weeks has been 4 nights.

I am not sure how good the internet connection will be on board, or how often I will be able to blog, but I will be cruising to Egypt, through the Suez Canal, to Jordan, then to Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. I am very excited for this next leg of my trip and will be sure to blog when I can!