We started very early as we were in the first tour in the Acropolis. We had a quick breakfast at 6.30am enjoying the acropolis view.

We then had to pack up and put our suitcases in the luggage room as we were moving hotels. We got it all done and then walked up the hill to the entrance of the Acropolis where we met up with Paulette and Mike.

Our tour group were the first through the turnstiles and we hotfooted it to the Parthenon that we had all to ourselves for 15 minutes.

It was amazing to be right beside it and get the fantastic views in the golden morning light.

The guide was very good telling us the history , the mythological stories and explaining the architecture behind the temple.

We then moved onto the other buildings.

The statues in the Caryatid temple are now replicas with the originals now protected in the new Acropolis Museum. The statuettes had been given large braided hairstyles to thicken out the neck area to be strong enough to support the building. They had also been painted with each in a different colour of dress.

The last small temple was the Temple of Nike , the god of victory. This was very important to celebrate beating the Persians. However it was destroyed and rebuilt 3 times.

We then saw the first theatre for musical concerts – still used to this day.

It is the Odeon of Herodes Atticus who was a very wealthy man whose whole family individually died in strange circumstances. Even his wife and only son died. There were 2 stories found in the theatre – he was either a very sad man who had suffered a lot of tragedy – or he was so greedy he couldn’t bear to share his money with anyone else even his son so disposed of them all.

We then finished at the theatre of Dionysus, the first ever theatre – and the prototype of Greek theatres, in which all classical Greek plays were first presented. It could seat 15,000 people. Special seats were in the front row for VIPs.

It was now getting hot. After this 2 hour tour but before seeing the new Acropolis Museum we needed a break. Luckily there is a great cafe in the museum so we made a beeline for there first. After being revitalized we checked out the decorative carvings that have been brought inside to protect them. The pieces stolen by Elgin and others have been recreated and joined with the pieces that were left. The whole top frieze of the Parthenon has been rebuilt.

There was an example of how Elgin’s gang had crowbarred off the front carvings and left the back part of the marble block.

There were many other amazing carvings from different parts of the Acropolis.

After checking everything out we headed back to the Hotel Adrian seeing some interesting sights along the way.

We then had to retrieve our luggage and move 200 metres to the Hotel Plaka.

After getting into our room we took our dirty washing round the corner to the very convenient laundromat and got it all up to date.

We later went for a wander finding a nice quiet low key restaurant.