Alas, it was time to leave our idyllic coastal town and head for the capital city of Athens.
We wound our way through the country roads on the way to the main highway, passing olive orchards, vineyards, citrus trees, and ripening apricot trees. The latter proved to be a temptation too great to pass-up. The bus driver pulled over at a roadside fruit stand and bought a bag of freshly picked apricots. At our next stop he washed them for a mid-morning snack for us all. I'm not a big apricot fan, but these were great.
As for our first scheduled stop, we once again had a chance to see the Corinth Canal. Completed in 1893, it is about 4 miles long, connecting the Gulf of Corinth of the Ionian Sea (between Greece and Italy) with the Saronic Gulf of the Aegean Sea. Because of narrowness of the isthmus, people have dreamed of digging a canal here for nearly 3000 years. It's rather narrow for today's shipping, but still a marvel.
On to Athens. We arrived along one of the city's main shopping streets, sort of a hodgepodge of resale and antique stores, and caught our first glimpse of the Acropolis (which we will visit tomorrow). That was kind of exciting, leaving me to wonder what ancient visitors, such as the apostle Paul, felt when first seeing the hilltop buildings.
We disembarked on this street, making our way to the central market. There we saw dozens of butcher stands, well stocked with freshly butchered, or about to be, goats, cattle, and poultry. In some cases, heads and tails and feet still attached. In the center of the market was Epirus Taverna where we had lunch. Now, imagine eating a fantastic goat or chicken soup, while looking just outside the glass walls of the taverna at a ready to be butchered goat or chicken. It tasted great!
Following our lunch, we saw the fish market, with all the varieties of today's catch on ice before us, then headed for one the plazas in town, the Monastiraki. It is the home of a large flea market, souvenir shops, a church, and a great view of the Acropolis.
We walked past the ruins of a library built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd Century, the former Roman Agora (market), and many other ruins before returning to more of the shopping streets.
From our hotel, we can see the ruins of temple of Zeus. Our dinner was nearby at a great little Greek (what else) restaurant. We had gyros, and learned that the way we get them in the US would be considered street food in Athens. Ours were served with the bread and yogurt on the side. Very tasty.
As I mentioned above, as we walked today we passed many shops. Those that sold "real" stuff - brass, old DVDs, vinyl records (remember those?), and clothes, for example - didn't get a whole lot of attention from the tourists. Instead it was the gift shops selling magnets, t-shirts (including some promoting Sparta, a rather odd thing it seems to sell in Athens), and Grecian urn reproductions that got most of the traffic. And I confess, we've spent some funds at places such as this. But in this city of so much authentic Ancient Greece, one wonders why the inauthentic gets so much attention.
"I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Philippians 3:7-8)
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