Exploring the Acropolis and Athens Bric a Brac Stalls
Happy Father’s day! I say that like I remembered the holiday before 2 pm, when Teddy turned to us all and said, “I haven’t heard anyone wish me a happy father’s day!” Oops. We were halfway up the hill to see the Parthenon at that point, btw, and it was nearing 95 degrees.
Today was our last full day in Athens and we’d saved the Parthenon for the occasion. Actually, I thought I was being clever and had researched/reserved an Acropolis “treasure hunt” tour for 10 am – 1 pm, thinking this would be an awesome way to knock out the Parthenon. Case in point that you don’t know what you don’t know* – it was indeed an awesome way to knock out three historical touring hours, but had nothing to do with the Parthenon. The Acropolis (aka the hill and surroundings) are vast and not synonymous with Parthenon.
(*Socrates said: “I know that I know nothing.” I learned that on the Acropolis treasure hunt and it reminded me of the biggest lesson of our 2019 trip: We don’t know what we don’t know. Or as our big brother Copey used to tell me and Julia when we were little: “You don’t know nothin bout nothin.”)
But we were good with this misunderstanding. It was time outside, hours spent with a friendly local named Anastasia, meandering among the sites, frequent stops in the shade to solve puzzles, etc. It worked.
We wrapped at 12:30 pm, the final prize a set of “golden” laurel goddess headbands Willa had been begging for since we’d arrived (how convenient).
We bid Anastasia farewell and made a tough call: To just plow ahead and knock out the Parthenon before lunch. It’s something I’m not sure we would’ve dared to do even a year ago, but with bigger kids, went for. We explained it was their chance to complete all touring before lunch. It required a bribe, of course: Willa and James, pick any Lego under $30 from the toy store in Plaka — AND you can order a Coke at lunch.
We charged ahead up the hill, distracting the kids by asking which gods they thought their friends and family were. Here’s some of what we came up with:
- Teddy: Nike (athlete)
- Margaret: Mix of Athena and Dionysus
- Willa: “I’m pretty sure I’m Athena” (obvs)
- James: Demeter (god of grain…and therefore god of cereal, James’s favorite food)
- Beepaw Jim: Apollo (artist) and also a little Demeter
- Grammie: Dionysus
- Beepaw Brendan: Poseidon, obviously!!
- Lobsy: Dionysus
- (Grandmothers like wine).
Before we knew it, we were there! I couldn’t help but notice that along the way up we’d passed quite a few slow-marching walking tours led by Greek-local guides plodding through their spiels. “…and here you have…” and “…as you can see…” All I could think was THANK GOD we had not booked such a thing. It was broiling up there.
We were up there for a total of 11 minutes, I’d say. Just the right amount to soak it in, take some pics — and get the hell out of there back down into the shade.
Lunch back down in Plaka was at Ella Greek, and it was very, very good. James has decided that while he adores Coke, it makes him ill (me too!!) and so settled on orange Fanta. We had yet more Greek salad, olives, pita and spreads, and the carnivores (Willa and James) added a chicken gyro with fries.
The toy store was closed which we should’ve seen coming but didn’t (it was Sunday! duh!) so we made it up to the kids by returning to the bric a brac stalls we’d seen the day we arrived. Nothing makes me happier than the fact that a bric a brac street stall holds the same weight for my kids as a toy store selling Legos. They genuinely lit up when we proposed this alternative. Yesssssssss!!!
James picked up a blue stone pyramid paperweight and I got a little pink stone box I’d eyed that other day. Willa seemed content to browse. The guys running the operation were Albanian, which I think is the biggest immigrant group in Greece — they came in droves in the 90s.
By around 5 pm we walked over to the Psyry neighborhood (hipster), which we’d first visited on our golf cart tour, and found a Panama-themed bar with no one in, outside or remotely near it, and enjoyed an afternoon beverage there. The kids were charming and lovely and our waitress was so taken with Willa’s many outspoken questions about a pink grapefruit soda on the menu (is it more sparkling water with a hint of grapefruit or is it a grapefruit juice with bubbles?) that she called her a “very nice lady.”
At home around 6 pm we had to administer a Covid self-test for the kids (a negative result was required for our flight the next morning to Naxos). This was no nasal test. The kids had to spit in a tube instead. Sounds easy but it was tedious for them to fill a whole tube with saliva! Eventually I took a giant bar of almond nougat I’d bought the day before and took commercial-style slo-mo bites out of it while they watched, salivating and, eventually, spitting into their tubes. Ha! When they hit their marks, they got to finish the nougat. Which was, admittedly, delicious.
We called Grammie and Beepaw to say hi (and Happy Father’s day — which occurred to me 30 minutes in, only after my mom cleared her throat and suggested I say it). Oh and we gave Teddy some cards the kids had drawn last week for the holiday and I remembered to pack.
We hit the sack, ready to fly out the next am for the islands
Misc:
I finished reading “Circe,” the 400-page 2018 bestselling retelling of the Odyssey goddess Circe. Vivid and pretty heartbreaking. A story mothers in particular can relate to. I thought it was great. Not a book I would have picked up in a million years had we not come to Greece, but so glad I did.
I wrote about it in 2019, but our kids grew kind of clingy on that trip — they became brave and independent, but still needed to be physically close, always. It might have had something to do with the fact that we trained them to, for lack of a better word, “heel” very well — with so many predators and/or crowds, they got used to staying close. So they were clingy when we returned to NYC and then we had a year of togetherness without newness or crowds. Here’s how it manifested itself for the two kids…
Willa: Itching for independence. Caught wind of something called “sleepaway camp” and begged to go (we were too late — she’s still waitlisted). When I told her “Can you believe someday soon we’re going to drop you off at college and drive away and you’re going to be alllll on your own without mommy and daddy?” Her reply: “Honestly? I can’t wait.”
James: Clingier than ever. The more crowds returned in NYC, the more we saw it happen. At a 3rd grade farewell party last week, he was so underfoot that I tripped over him multiple times. Despite being a popular and well-adjusted human, he only has one thought when I’m around: “Where are you going to be?” It’s usually followed by: “Can you just come with me?”
Now, in Greece, his first time away from home in his little recent memory (despite rolling with 100 places in 2019), he’s all freaking out. Wants to sleep with us. Fine. Arg.
