Athens - Like Cleveland, With Graffiti

Our first full day on Tuesday saw us in Athens, and my summation of it is that it is a lot like Cleveland - big, sprawling, urban (4M of Greece's 11M people) - but with tons of graffiti.  That apparently came during the economic downturn of 2008 when there were massive demonstrations downtown, and it remains in place for the most part.

Our best view of the Acropolis
Our start to the day was a little rocky as I ass/u/med that the Viking Ocean cruising was a copy of the Viking River cruising.  It isn't.  I had registered for some optional tours for a few of
the days and ass/u/med that the "included" tours meant to just show up and you were on them.  That wasn't the case but Guest Services bailed us out by registering them for us.  Now we're good to go for one tour per day for each of the next two weeks.  I'm not good with disruptions to my plan but we got it straightened out with the ever present help of Viking staff.

I should've read the tour descriptions more carefully for this particular day because I ass/u/med that the included tour actually meant we'd get a first hand look at the Acropolis - you know, that sine qua non ingredient in Athens.  It wasn't.  We got to see the Acropolis from our bus headed downtown, and got a decent photo of it from our first stop - the modern (1896), original Olympic stadium.  I wasn't alone in my thinking, though, as I heard some other couples on the bus complaining about the same thing.  Oh well.

Most of our time was spent at the Athens Archaeologic Museum where we saw glimpses of pottery, statues, etc. from the BC period.  While our guide was interesting, it was after a few minutes I could've said "you've seen one museum, you've seen them all".  It reminded me greatly of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, packed with people but not as nice or as large.  But , tomorrow, we'll largely be outdoors in Santorini, our first stop away from Athens.

By the way, I don't mean to sound ungrateful and complaining because, hell, I'm lucky to be alive to enjoy all of this.  Must be just getting old enough that the balance of comfort of home vs. the wonders of the world might be close to tipping toward the former.  Perhaps a good full night of sleep and I'll be extolling the virtues of Greece with eager excitement.  Read on tomorrow to find out!

PS - For Ray Urban, the 18 wineries on Santorini are calling your name.  Where are you when we need you?

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