Soaking it in and moving on

This morning was relaxing. We meandered our way out about 10am for the last few sites we wanted to see.

Along the way I started taking photos of one of my favorite parts of Athens... all the cats! They are everywhere! When I asked my tour guide about it he said “cats are better than rats” and then went on to explain that at the height of the economic crisis in Greece, over 40% of Greeks were unemployed. They couldn’t feed their animals so let them loose. Now the streets and ruins are filled with them and everyone just lets them chill wherever. We’ve seen them napping on motorcycle seats or chilling out on the counter of a ticket booth. Our guide also explained that the community takes care of them - takes them to be fixed and leaves out food. There are apparently Facebook pages dedicated just to the cats! Look at just some of the cats we encountered over 3 hours of walking around.

Our first stop was the Ancient Agora. We listened to a Rick Steves audio tour that walked us through the ruins and explained some of the key pieces. It was a huge help in understanding what we were seeing. I read tons of Rick Steves guides and used his website forum when planning this trip and I highly recommend the books and the tours if you travel to Europe. 

Within the Agora is this amazing church, the Church of the Holy Apostles, that dates back to the late 10th century. It was closed up so we couldn't go inside, but it's one of the few structures in the Agora that is still intact. 

Our favorite part of the Agora was the Temple of Hephaestus. Seeing that helped us really understand how the Parthenon might have looked in it’s prime. So impressive!

Next up we thought we might hit the Roman Agora but ran into Hadrian’s Library so visited there instead. 

They had the remains of the most amazing mosaic with hearts! This started what would become a photo theme for this trip. In each country I found at least one heart and took a photo. Those photos were printed and framed to make a mosaic on my office wall (well, if I ever get to go back to the office!).

By now we were about an hour left before we had to be back at our AirBNB so we grabbed a few last souvenirs and one more little snack then headed back.

We are now at the airport headed to our next destination. Any guesses? Here’s a hint ... FAMILY!