Greece, Day 5 - Exploring Athens

Day 5 - 4th June 2008, Wednesday

We did not booked any programme with the agent on 5th day as we had well planned to explore Athens on our own. We had plentiful of things we wishes to explore, shopping is 1 of them.

As no appointment with the bus, we woke-up at 7.30am, get ready and had late breakfast at 8.30am. Nasrul went swimming as soon as he finished his breakfast. After he returned, we were able to leave hotel by city bus to look for Hard Rock Cafe at around 11am, thinking to have our lunch there. As we were clueless of the bus system, we jumped into a bus right in front of the hotel without purchasing a bus ticket and it was lucky that a kind hearted lady in photo below was kind enough to share her bus card with us. She refused any compensation.

She advised that we should stopped at Constitution (Syntagma) Square and with the city map, we successfully arrived at Hard Rock Cafe (HRC) without much difficulties. First thing we did was selected few t-shirts at the HRC retail outlet just at the left side corner of the restaurant for all our family member excluding my husband. The shop assistant was not happy as I did not purchased anything for my beloved husband though he had suggested a few. While ushering us to the 1st floor to have our lunch, he repeatedly asked why did I not buying anything for my husband. "You don't love him that much, do you?" Hahaha... It was him in the photo with the kids in below photo.

The lunch at Hard Rock cafe was great as the quality of the food served suited the ambiances. we were amazed with the restaurant decoration. Very pretty, inst it? 

I had various individual shots of the well known guitars for memory. The corner below was still my most favourite.

Thereafter, we walked and stopped at many places to explore other attractions surrounding Syntagma Square, Athens Cultural Art Centre, the university building adjacent to it and many other places for photos ( see below).

Syntagma Square, a hub for many transportation, i.e. Metro Lines, Athens Tram, buses and trolley bus are available here. Below are the waiting area and/or meeting point for passengers.

Changing of guards in front of the unknown soldiers tomb annexed to Greek Parliament House, Syntagma Square are happening daily. The guards, known as Evzones are the elite soldiers guarding the tombs had similar duties like the guards in Buckingham Palace. Their uniforms and attires were the same wearing by the Greeks fighter in 1821 revolution, established by Otto as a formal court dress.  The Parliament House was formerly the King's Palace, built between 1836 and 1840 by King Otto and financed by his father Ludwig 1 of Bavaria. The square has a long list of history, during Nazi's occupation, it has been used as resistance points by the Greeks.

Feeding pigeons at Syntagma Square

Greek Hellenic Parliament house, the other side.

The National Library of Greece was designed by Danish architect in a neo-classical buildings. The same architect who design the below photo of Athens Academy.

The Academy of Athens is the Greece's national academy, the highest research establishment in the country. It was established in 1926 and operates under the supervision of the Ministry of Education. The academy's building is one of the major landmarks of Athens. 

At 3pm, we decided that we had enough of the tour as we needed rest before adjourn for dinner in Plaka Restaurant. Too tired to notice, we accidentally took the wrong bus to the hotel. It was a very funny experienced but one of the bus passenger guided us to get down and take another bus route to be back to our hotel. We finally reached Dorian Inn at 4pm.

Citi Travel had provided us a dinner voucher at Plaka Restaurant, seated at the bottom of Acropolis. We left hotel for our diner at 6.30pm. Despite of Nasrul objection to go there by taxi, we took Athens Metro at Akropoli Station not far from Dorian Inn.

The dinner was heaven. They served us all sorts of seafood's, i.e. fish, cuttlefish, prawns, lobster, crabs and 3 of us cannot finish all of them. It goes wasted.

Plaka was developed mostly around the ruins of ancient Agora of Athens, seated at the foothills of Acropolis. The area has been continuously inhabited since antiquity. During the years of Ottoman rule, Plaka was known as "Turkish quarter of Athens", the seat of Turkish Governor. During the Greek war of Independence, Plaka like the rest of Athens was temporarily abandoned until the 5 years ruling of King Otto, it has been repopulated till presence. It is now a famous tourist attraction and since we were there, we explore the night market nearby and did some shopping of Greek's handmade items available there.

Cruising on Saronic island will be the next entry :)

to be continued...