Acropolis – Parthenon

Blog by Tony (Friday 2 August, 2019)

After choosing to tackle the Acropolis and Parthenon on our own opposed to spending 200 euro for a guided 5hr group tour…we decided to catch a taxi from our hotel which took just 15mins and 12 euro.

We arrived at 2pm when many of the tourists were leaving as they were smart and had gotten there early to avoid the midday sun. We had little to wait in getting our tickets which were 20 euro each and we started the climb to the top of the Acropolis to reach the Parthenon*.
*Apparently the Acropolis is the ‘mountain’ and the Parthenon is the monument at the top of the mountain. This is something I did not know until I Googled it the day before. It seems that I’m not the only one as I queried our waiter the day before and was also unaware!!?

Anyways…after attempting the climb to the top we were glad that we wore our sneakers (Kellie had bought a pair the morning of) after seeing people slipping and sliding on the smooth slippery marble rocks. As we were walking up the hill a little girl had slipped and fallen over right in front of me. I helped the poor little thing up and gave her her water bottle. We had several water breaks on the way up as it was close to 40 degrees.

We took 60+ shots making sure that we had enough photos to remind us of our visit. When taking selfies I could barely see the screen…hence me squinting instead of smiling. There was a lady who obviously working for the Parthenon as she was walking around blowing her whistle…and making people delete pictures that they had taken. I’m not sure why they were asked to remove pictures as we did not see any signs saying not to take pictures of certain buildings etc.

After about 40mins we decided that we had seen everything that there was to see…and began our decent. After reaching half way we decided to have a little break as there was a nice breeze coming through. I did not realise that my backpack was touching one of the ancient structures when another worker yelled out at me to move 🙁

We got to the bottom and noticed that there were plenty of taxis waiting for tourists to rip off. We approached one taxi driver who said it would cost 30 euros (opposed to the 12 euros we paid to get there) and another arrogant driver would say the same thing. After telling him with our body language in no uncertain terms where they can shove their take we had one driver chase us down the road calling out behind us…but we continued to keep walking. We approached another couple of taxis with the cheapest being 20 euro. We did wait at a bus stop after a bar owner had recommended we catch a bus instead…but being dehydrated we decided to go to a restaurant to have a drink of water and collect our thoughts. Kellie spotted a taxi parked nearby so I went over and negotiated 15 euros for our trip back to our hotel.

We arrived back at our hotel at around 4pm and after falling to sleep I awoke around 9pm. Kellie was fast asleep by then so I decided to go back to sleep…..