Escape From Athens!

Athens is everything it's reputed to be. Huge, sprawling and chaotic. Driving in Athens kicks the whole experience up a notch. It's complete anarchy on the freeways, and apparently anything with wheels is allowed to drive. In spite of all that, we enjoyed the city once the car was parked.



This picture was taken in the suburbs. Jolene put the camera away and assumed crash position when the real craziness began. Navigating in the chaos further complicates the experience. Greek road signs are typically written in both Greek and English, except for the actual places that English speakers are likely to go. In those places the signs are either entirely in Greek or made illegible by thick grafitti. Our GPS uses English when you are putting city names into the device but only Greek for the map display. Our map has both languages but its English translations don't match anything in any guidebook or road sign. As we are nearing an intersection where we need to make a decision, with traffic aggressively on our bumper, our frantic conversations go something like this:
"Do we take this exit or not?" I impatiently ask.

"I can't find it on the GPS," Jolene replies curtly.

"Well. Check another spelling. I need to know soon."

"All I've got is Greek. It looks like tent, horseshoe, pitchfork, little fish, squiggle--not pointy squiggle but rounded one, triangle. Do you think that's it?"

"Wait. I think I just saw that on the sign. Did you say pitchfork then pointy squiggle?"

"No! Rounded squiggle then triangle. Sheesh!"

We set up in a dusty, crowded campground with no pool and decided that we would spend one day in Athens. Late in the afternoon we took a bus to the Acropolis and it was spectacular. Considering its age it is very well preserved. Most of the statuary has been stolen over the years as conquerers hauled off victory booty to their home cities. There was a famous statue of Athena that was 40 feet tall that simply disappeared. The kids were sure that it was in the ocean off one of the islands and vowed to keep an eye out for it while swimming. I offered that it might be in a box in Jolene's mom's garage. We sat on the steps imagining great philosophers standing around chatting and laying the foundations for western civilization. It's overwhelming and the kids enjoyed the experience as much as we did.







We wandered over to the the parliament building, site of all the riots last year and watched the changing of the guards. The rioting has really subsided since last year, in part because they outfitted the guards with these intimidating pom-poms on their shoes.



The following morning we left Athens for the Peloponnese peninsula. We picnicked on a secluded beach only two hours out of town but a world away. We took a dip in the warm, turquoise ocean. We braced ourselves for Oregon Coast temperatures and were pleasantly surprised at the warm waters. Tomorrow we will head further south and may jump over to an island.