Waking up in our hotel room across from the Temple of Zeus, made for a pretty cool sunrise this morning.

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We had an early (7:30 a.m.) breakfast and waited out front to be picked up for a tour of the ancient sites here in Athens at 8:30.  There was another couple from our hotel who were also joining us on the tour who happened to be from Portland, OR.  It’s a small world.  Our tour guide met us at the hotel entrance and walked us to a massive tour bus.  We climbed on board and found it was already loaded with about 60 other people.  Surprise is an understatement.  The four stunned Wagnersons had to make our way to the back of the bus to find an empty seat and we looked at each other as we sat down.  “Oh my!  We’ve become one of “those” tour people.”  Keep an open mind we reminded ourselves.  Let’s just see how this goes.  As we pulled out and our tour guide started speaking over the speakers, her soft spoken voice was almost unintelligible.  Doug started mumbling with a “you’ve got to be kidding me” look in his eyes.

Our first stop was at the Panathenaic stadium, originally constructed in 566 BC and rebuilt in marble in 329 BC.  It was updated and a new section of seating was constructed for the start of the modern Olympic Games in 1896.  The best moment of this stadium stop was seeing a man dressed in ancient battle dress with a helmet, spear and a shield (so tourists could pose with him), but he was talking on a cell phone with his helmet on.  None of us were quick enough to snap a photo as the bus was stopping in front of him.  All passengers were told as we departed the bus that this was a five-minute stop.  Everyone seemed to make it back within about 5-7 minutes except for some clown and his family who apparently relished the idea of making everyone on the bus wait for him.  This was even after the tour guide walked up to him and found them and said to return to the bus.  They eventually did after another five minutes.  Ooooohh, this tour is just getting better and better.  The bus finally left when the family climbed on board.  We quickly drove past several other monuments and things that our unintelligible tour guide was mumbling about.  No clue about what they were.  We stopped at one other place and everyone got off except the four Wagnersons.  We remained in the bus mumbling to ourselves about what we had become.  The tour guide even had an umbrella she was holding up to lead the group that we were in.  Are you kidding me?

After a short stop the massive herd of tourists all climbed back onboard the bus and we drove another few minutes and stopped again to go into a museum.  Everyone got off the bus and as before, the four Wagnersons remained on the bus.  We looked at each other and said, ENOUGH!  So, we got off the bus, ducked out of the tour and went on our own never looking back at the tour people.

We had a much better experience after we ditched the tour.  The four of us walked to the top of the hill to visit the Acropolis.  It was pretty amazing with absolutely breathtaking views of the city of Athens.  I took more than 30 photos but upon returning to our hotel afterwards, only 3 photos were present on the camera.  Bad camera malfunction? Or Tour ditching Karma paybacks?.  Oh well, it was about 90 degrees outside and we were not climbing back up to the Acropolis again for a re-do of the pictures.  I will just have to picture those views only in my mind!

After our tour, we partook of some authentic Greek food, or as they call it here in Greece…….food!  The four of us ordered and ate LAMB gyros and some Uzo to wash it down.  Lamb!!  My, my, my, how far have I fallen?  If only Mary didn’t let the lamb follow her to school that day!

Here is a view of the Acropolis from our hotel’s rooftop restaurant where we had dinner tonight.

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