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Our first day of the tour was a walking tour around central Athens. The walking tour was to start at the hotel, departing at 9:30am, so we set our alarms the night before for 8:30am. The problem was we went through a time zone change between Italy and Greece and completely forgot to put our watches and cell phones (our 'alarms') forward an hour! Five minutes after we awoke, thinking it was about 8:30'ish, we got a phone call from our tour guide wondering where we were and if we were still coming hahaha! Five minutes later we were down in the lobby, looking terrible. Great start to the tour.

Athens is a massive sprawling city with around 3.7 million people all crammed in there, and (mostly white) buildings backed right up to the hills surrounding the city.		There's a shitload of traffic here too and a lot of congestion, but it's a lot more organised than Naples was hehe.
With the abundant number of shops and flea markets, Athens is a great place to just meander around and window-shop.
This is the old Olympic stadium - Panathenaic Stadium. About two years ago I watched the Olympic marathon finish here live, obviously having no idea I'd be here just a couple of years later :)		The Greeks absolutely love animals, and Athens (and Greece in general) is very unique in that the place is full of countless numbers of stray dogs that are all (apparently) given regular shots courtesy of the authorities and well fed and taken care of! Despite this, I didn't see dog shit anywhere at all! They seem to have no problem with humans, and likewise humans seem to have no problem with them. The owner of a restaurant where we ate on our second night even gave a couple of them a big bowl of leftovers. Completely normal and common according to our tour guide, very cool :)

While wandering around I found this girl giving this stray a good tummy-rub with her foot, and the dog (with his tongue hanging out and back legs wide open showing off his assets) was absolutely loving it! So much so that after she walked off, he just stayed there, probably waiting for more. For the next five minutes (until he got up and left) people walking past all stopped and stared, probably thinking he was dead hahaha! I had tears streaming down my face, it was hilarious!

		Oooo yeah, 80% Absinthe! I almost bought some (it was dirt cheap) but thought better of it ;)		There were several "Missing" posters throughout the city and in train stations.

The ruins of the ancient agora with the Acropolis in the background. The ancient agora was the marketplace of ancient Athens and the focal point of civic and social life. Socrates spent a lot of time here preaching his philosophy.		The Parthenon atop the Acropolis, the best-known remaining building of Ancient Greece and an iconic feature of Athens. Built between 447 and 432 BC, the Parthenon has had major reconstruction work done on it over the last few decades with work still continuing today (as can be seen here). The Parthenon itself replaced an older temple of Athena, and in the 5th century was converted to a Christian church, and then a mosque, and then got badly damaged in 1687 when Athens came under attack by the Venetians.

Looking southwest from the Acropolis.
And looking northeast from the Acropolis.

The Temple of Zeus as seen from the Acropolis. Not too impressive these days hehe.		Night shot of the Acropolis as seen from our hotel roof - nice :)		Sunrise over a hazy Athens. We had to get up at the crack of dawn to get the ferry out to the islands. First stop: the island of Paros.

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