Ready, Set, Go!

I started out my morning with some Greek yogurt and honey, a breakfast I am definitely going to start repeating back at home. After breakfast we had much better luck getting a taxi this morning, the key I believe is that all of the empty cabs are going in the opposite direction, so by simply crossing the street we were able to get one within the first five minutes, a big improvement on yesterday.

We started our day at the Theater of Dionysos. The site had been used as a theater since the 5th century B.C. although in those early years it may not have been more than a gathering of people on the hillside, it wasn't until the 4th century B.C. when a more structured theater was built. The Theater of Dionysos where the famous tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were first performed as well as the comedies of Aristophanes. There were several other ruins near the Theater of Dionysos including three Temples or Sanctuaries dedicated to Dionysos, the Stoa of Eumenes II, The Sanctuary of Asclepios, and the Choregic Monument of Thrasyllos.

After the Theater of Dionysos we strolled down past Hadrian's Arch to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The Temple of Olympian Zeus was started in 515 B.C. by Peistratos but came to a halt when he was overthrown. Construction of the Temple did not resume until 175 B.C. when Antioch IV Epiphanes started work on the Temple once again. Work was continued by Augustus and then finally completed by Hadrian in 131-132 B.C. Hadrian constructed a statue of himself adjacent to a statue of Zeus at the Temple, both were worshiped as equals. The Temple of Olympian Zeus is one of the largest in the ancient world, consisting of two rows of 20 columns on each side and 8 columns on each end.

Our final stop of the morning was to the Panathenaic Stadium. The Panathenaic Stadium was the site of the first modern Olympics held in 1896. The Stadium was build on the site of an ancient Athenian stadium that had been previously excavated. The modern stadium was built in its model and was near completion at the time of the 1896 Olympics. The stadium is the only one built entirely of pentelic marble and can seat 68,000 spectators.

After our tour of the Panathenaic Stadium we spend about 20-30 minutes trying again to catch a taxi, I swear I have never been anywhere where it is so hard to hail a taxi. When we finally got a taxi, our driver didn't speak a lick of English and apparently was new, so he had to look at our map in order to figure out how to get to the National Archeology Museum, which was our next destination, but he did get us there and upon our arrival we stopped first at a cafe outside of the museum for a quick lunch.

After lunch we spent a couple of hours perusing the National Archeology Museum, which held an amazing collection of ancient pottery, gold, jewelry, sculptures, bronze, etc.

When we finished at the museum, luckily we were close enough to our apartment to walk back, because I must admit I was not looking forward to trying to get another taxi. Once home, we again enjoyed a leisurely evening watching the soccer and relaxing. Tomorrow we leave Athens and begin our tour of the rest of mainland Greece. Highlights over the next several days include: Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae, Meteora, etc.