Previous Day (Santorini - Ancient Thira & Oia)
Destination: Greece
Duration: 9 Days 7 Nights (Oct 18~Oct 26, 2011)
Day 7: Santorini -> Athens
It was our last few hours in Santorini before leaving the hotel at 10.30am to catch our Aegean Air flight to Athens. We took the opportunity to walk to Fira for the last time for some last minute photo shooting and souvenir hunting. It was truly a surreal experience to be able to experience this beautiful and exotic island. Let’s hope this was just one of the many times to come. =)
 |
| Last Breakfast at Santorini - my beloved cheese, ham topped with egg white |
 |
| Morning in Fira |
 |
| More Cats |
 |
| Another Church before Departing |
One embarrassing thing happened when I was in Santorini Airport – their bathroom basin water was to be switched on by a pad by your feet! You basically had to step on the pad to ‘activate’ the water. I just couldn’t find it until a kind hearted lady told me about it. *blush*
 |
| Santorini Airport |
 |
| Our Ride to Athens |
When we reached Athens, we were warmly welcomed by our ground tour manager. He offered us 2 choices for our afternoon activity:-
- A shopping spree at Plaka
- A stroll in the National Archeological museum
We were to check in Novotel and the bus would stop at the museum then followed by Plaka. However, those going to the museum would have to find their own way (by bus or taxi) to Plaka at around 6.30pm for dinner.
 |
| Random Photos from the Bus: Marathon icon made with glasses |
 |
| Random Photos from Bus: 1st Olympic Stadium |
 |
| Random Photos from Bus: Tombs of the Unknown Soldier & the Parliment Building |
 |
| Random Photos from Bus: Library |
We ended up going to the museum as we were not too keen to spend our time in a city so rich of culture and history with shopping. If I wanted shopping, I would’ve go to Paris or Milan instead. We arrived at the museum at around 3pm and got ourselves the entrance tickets (EUR7/pax).
 |
| In front of the Museum |
The museum was extraordinarily huge and it was rightfully dubbed as the largest archaeological museum in Greece. There were various sections in the museum which consisted of Prehistoric collection, Sculpture collection, Bronze collection, Vases & Minor Art collection, Stathatos Collection, Egyptian collection & Cypriote collection.
We walked into the Prehistoric section and were blown away by all the artifacts in various sizes. We saw one of the first depictions of human form followed by bowls, pots, jewelleries, wall paintings and such. These artifacts represented the major civilizations that flourished in the Aegean from the 7th millennium to about 1050 BC. We also looked at the famous “Mask of Agamemnon”. This section alone cost us more than an hour before we realized that we were out of time for other sections.
 |
| Female Figure from Amorgos, Early Cycladic II - made from marble |
 |
| Pans, Bowls etc.. |
 |
| Cute! |
 |
| Carving on the wall |
 |
| More Artifacts |
 |
| Mask of Agamemnon |
 |
| Grave of a Woman |
 |
| Cuties! |
 |
| OMG! I want this! |
 |
| All the golds! |
 |
| Amazing mini-size statue! |
The Sculpture section was even larger with tons of astounding statues! There was simply no time to look at every piece of the masterpieces in detail. These sculptures came from Athens, Thessaly, Central Greece, Peloponnese & Crete from 8th century BC to the end of the 4th century BC. I was literally hyperventilating halfway strolling at this section due to amazement and wariness! Wait? Wariness? Strange feeling huh? Well, the place was simply so big that we would have to basically walk around nonstop to take a look at all the sculptures until we were out of breath literally. I actually had to sit down in the middle of it to compose myself due to breathing difficulty. Hmm.. guess my lack of exercise finally caught up with me in the most inconvenient timing. *facepalm*
 |
| Statue of a Young Woman - Marble |
 |
| Attic Sarcophagus - Marble! |
 |
| Emperor Claudius |
 |
| Children with Doggie!! |
 |
| Naked Man!!! Bronze Statue of a young athlete |
 |
| Young Boy on horse.. looks like Alexander on Bucepalus.. not it's not |
By the time we finished the sculptures section, there were not much time (& breath!) left. So we had to rush to go through the remaining sections. The Egyptian section was awesome with sarcophagi, mummies and statues. Would you think less of me if I told you this remind me of the Stargate franchises? *smirk* Hey, there was a beautiful gold wreath there too! Anyway, Egypt is definitely in my high list of place to visit. Guess the artifacts here were a teaser then? =)
 |
| Sanctuary of Olympia |
 |
| Wreath.. i want! |
 |
| Mummies!!! |
 |
| Wall Painting |
We also rushed into another section which had all the mythical Gods & Goddesses such as Aphrodite, Zeus & Apollo. It was really fun to look at these statues as we always read them in books or watched them in movie. The last photo we took in the Archeological museum was of Homer which was kind of fitting because without him I wouldn’t have the chance to learn of Iliad & Odyssey which fueled my interest in Greece in general.
 |
| Zeus! |
 |
| Athena! |
 |
| Medusa! |
 |
| Heracles-Alexander |
 |
| Homer! |
All in all, it was a great museum that one might lose itself there in a full day. I did hope that it had a better direction pointer in the building as many times we found ourselves lost or missed out certain places since it was such a maze in so many exhibition rooms. I did see some people hiring a guide there to bring them along the museum and explained some of the more important artifacts to them.
As time was drawing near, we walked over to the opposite site of the museum to grab some late late lunch (hmm.. dinner maybe?) of cheese & spinach pies before getting on a taxi to Plaka. Plaka basically was the tourist shopping center in Athens incorporating labyrinthine streets and neoclassical architecture. Other than souvenir shops, they also had lots of brands there such as Mango, Zara, Timberland and such. We met up with the group and had our dinner at a taverna there.
 |
| Food!!! |
 |
| More Foods!!! |
 |
| Totally Foods!!! |
 |
| I wanna eat! |
 |
| Cheese Pie & Spinach Pie |
We were served with the Mediterranean soup and Greek Salad again. I was pleasantly surprised when they served us with fried calamari rings! Greek calamari rings were awesome! The main course was not to my taste and it was some sort of braised pork. I did love the ice cream especially the one with milk flavor. Normally if we look at a white color ice cream, we would automatically thought that it would taste vanilla – but not for this one! It tasted so milky and I loved it even more so than the chocolate.
 |
| Plaka |
 |
| The Restaurant |
 |
| Soup |
 |
| Bread |
 |
| Greek Salads |
 |
| Fried Calamari |
 |
| Braised Pork |
 |
| Ice Creams! |
We went back to the hotel after dinner and went up to the rooftop to have a night view of the Acropolis. We saw a notice in the lift informing hotel guest of a general strike happening tomorrow. Hmm.. seriously?
 |
| Random Church on the way back |
 |
| Acropolis from Hotel Rooftop at Night |
 |
| AGAIN?! |
Next Day (Acropolis)
Masterpost (Click to get to day to day link)
No comments:
Post a Comment