Sunday in Athens

We started today with a nice breakfast at home before heading out to the Parliament building. This used to be the Royal Palace until 1973 when the monarchy was abolished.

In front of the wall, you see two small blue roofed huts. These are the guard shacks for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Unlike Arlington Memorial Cemetery in the U.S., there are no human remains but there is an inscription on the wall dedicated to all Greek military killed during war. They have a changing of the guard every hour, but at 11:00am on Sunday they go all out. I think every tourist in Athens was there, but we got there about 30 minutes early so I managed to find an empty space of curb to park the wheelchair so Peter could see.

Here are a few of the videos I took of the ceremony.

After the ceremony, we couldn’t get anywhere near the monument, so we plan to go back later in the week when it’s not as crowded. Stay tuned for pictures from that.

Then it was off to the Monastariki Flea Market about a 15-minute walk from the Parliament building. Along the way we passed a little church with a combo from South America entertaining the crowd. They were very good.

We also did a little window shopping.

In some places we had to walk in the street because the sidewalk was either too narrow, blocked with cars, or had so much broken pavement to navigate. Luckily, we made it to the market unscathed.

While the flea market is open every day, Sunday is special because people come from all over to buy and sell there. In fact, it’s the day when the flea market really is a flea market and not just a collection of small shops. You can literally find anything here, from antiques to transistor radios, phone cards, cell phones, books and stuff that I would classify as sheer junk. In fact, I would classify most of it as junk, but I guess that’s in the eye of the beholder. Many of the people selling are refugees from Russia, Turkey and various, Eastern European countries. Some people are selling family heirlooms while others are selling stuff they fished out of the garbage.

We were only in the merchandise part of the market. There’s another section for meats, seafood, fruits, veggies and flowers. Maybe we’ll go back later in the week to see if we can find it.

Since it was around noon, we decided to stop for a snack and to rest before trying to find our way home. We shared a slice of red velvet cake that was very delicious.

Then it was time to head home. According to GPS, our flat was only 19 minutes away but it was a very difficult 19 minutes. Unfortunately, there’s no way for me to tell Google Maps that we need paved sidewalk. So, it took us the most direct route, which was cobblestones and uphill (Peter had to walk) for about 800 meters before turning us onto a gravel path. This was relatively flat but with lots of rocks, holes and loose gravel, so Peter had to walk some more (about another 400 meters). We stopped after about 10 minutes of walking on gravel to eat the sandwiches we brought with us.

As luck would have it, we had wandered into the Ancient Agora, a marketplace and gathering space for the ancient Greeks. This area was fenced off so we couldn’t get in but there is an entrance to it at a different location. It would be way too difficult for us to maneuver, though, so we’ll settle for seeing it from the other side of the fence.

Once we left the Agora, we finally had paved sidewalks again (but I use the word “paved” loosely). Between the market and the walk back, Peter done a lot of walking and was slumping quite badly so I’m glad he was able to sit for a little while.

What, according to GPS, should have taken 19 minutes took almost an hour. Of course, we stopped for our sandwiches but that was only about 15 minutes. There were some very scary moments where the surface was so uneven that I was afraid Peter would lose his balance. So, we’re going to have to come up with a Plan B for getting around Athens as walking is just too dangerous for us. I would have been happy to jump into a cab, but the market is pedestrian only so we would have had to backtrack through the market to reach a street which made no sense. I’m not sure how the locals who are disabled get around as this city is definitely not wheelchair accessible.

Tomorrow, we head out of Athens to Delphi for one of our day trips. We booked a private tour with the company that provided our airport transfer. We decided to pay a little extra for a licensed guide, but we think it’s worth it as without the guide, we have no idea what we’re looking at. We’ll let you know how it goes.