One final ferry trip back to Athens and our island hopping days were over. We each did our own thing for the afternoon – last minute sightseeing, internet, packing – and caught up for farewell dinner and drinks that evening (after walking for miles to find a bar, Ios it was not).
The following day was my only full day in Athens, so I woke early and walked. And walked. I saw all the main sites in the city and decided that Athens was wonderful despite the concrete and less-than-perfect scenery. The Acropolis, encompassing the Parthenon, Temple of Athena Nike (she of hot shoes), and Erechtheion were claustophobic if anything to see, people were crammed in like, um, european tourists at the Parthenon in the heat, which wasn’t pleasant.
But it was interesting. Something you have to see even if you’re not overly impressed once you see it. A lot of the site was being reconstructed to rectify ‘earlier mistakes’ of reconstructions of the past, so it didn’t exactly look as pristine and tourist free as the postcards, but it did make me wonder. How do they know the previous reconstructions over the past few hundred years were incorrect? What if they keep pulling it apart and putting it back together forever? Will it resemble chinese whispers and eventually look nothing like the original ever did? And who would know otherwise?
Anyway, Athens was well worth exploring and I had my last Gyros (I could eat them forever, Greek food rocks), before settling into my hotel room with, like, my roommate who like, was, like, totally 18 and was, ohmygod so excited about her, like, island hopping tour.
Bless.
-Sarah
Sarah