17th September - National Gardens, Panathenaic Stadium, Central Markets and Archaeological Museum

 Early start again today so we could get to the Stadium for David to have a run before the hoards arrived. We set off to Syntagma square metro station to view the artefacts in glass cases then on to walk through the National Garden on our way to the Panathenaic stadium.

Beehive box 1st century BCE - 1st century CE

David doing an instagram pose in the National Garden
We made it to the Panathenaic stadium and found that the track was closed due to an event from 12th to 19th so David didn’t get his run. We set off for the Lykeion Archaeological site which is the area where Aristotle taught. They found this site when the government had given the area to a museum to build on but after the find they made it a publicly accessible site. 
Panathenaic stadium, built in 6th century BCE, renovated 1896 and hosted opening and closing ceremonies of the first modern Olympics and again as a venue for the 2004 Olympics.

Smiling but disappointed ☹️
The Lykieon site

The ancient cistern in the Lykieon

On exiting the Lykieon site we found a water fountain, so David decided to empty some of the water from his drink bottle to show how it worked the only problem was that it didn’t work. It was a nice looking Fawcett though! Everywhere we walk there seems to be an archaeological site. We encountered another cemetery in an open site and some ruins under a new building next to the National bank of Greece and remains of drainage in covered sections in the walkway.


More drainage from ancient greece


We then headed for TAF coffee which I had seen on a food tour of Athens YouTube video. I ordered a Greek coffee and found it wasn’t as good as the previous ones I have had and it cost €3.10 rather than the €1.65 from the video of only a year ago. Fuelled up with caffeine we headed to the Central Markets also a stop on the food tour but we were there a little early for lunch and David is not big on animal parts so we exited quickly.
Entrance to Central Municipal Markets 



After our brief trip to the markets we set off for the National Archaeological Museum only to find it didn’t open till 1pm on Tuesdays. Luckily it was close to midday so we found a restaurant close by to have lunch before venturing back to the museum. Once inside we followed another Rick Steves audio tour that narrated certain stand out exhibits in the museum and took an hour to complete.
National Archaeological Museum 

Earliest examples of Cycladic figurines, older than the pyramids at between 2800 and 2300 BCE

Finds from grave circle A, Mycenae 16th century BCE



Replica of the giant statue of Athena from the Acropolis made to 1/3 size in 200-250 CE
After the museum we were totally wreaked so headed back to the hotel to rest and have a drink on the balcony overlooking the archaeological dig in the square opposite. We noticed they have been working on it as the markings and coverings are different from when we first checked in.

Even thought things didn’t always go to our plan we managed to do almost everything and we had an enjoyable day.

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