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Traveled by underground train to visit the Benaki museum (something I was really looking forward to) only to find it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays!
Decided to go on to the shopping precinct of Kolonaki where we stopped at a Starbucks for a coffee - VERY large cups and very nice sitting on the sidewalk
Continued walking after our coffee and hunted down a WSBC bank so we could withdraw more cash, then continued poking into a number of shops (boring)
Time came to go up the Lykavittos hill via a cable car, this involved walking to the starting station - up about 15 levels of stairs between a huge number of apartments going up the hill. Arriving at the station we purchased tickets but we were told we had to wait 25 minutes before the cable car would leave. Once on the way we were surprised just how steep the ride was, the cars designed at an angle to compensate. The view from the top of this hill is nothing less than startling with 360 degree views - way higher than the Acropolis and allowing us to see for many miles in every direction, which really highlighted the bleakness of the city. Took lots of photo's from here and spent a good while taking in the total city panorama
On the top of this hill there is crammed a church (typical) and a lovely restaurant which looked appealing to our appetites!
Catching the cable car down we commenced the long walk down all those stairs and then walked to the underground station again so we could visit the Panathenaic stadium. This was awesome and one of the best things we visited. This is the site where Olympic Games have been held for over 2000 years and it was an amazing experience to stand on the track, walk along the seating and go through the athletes entry tunnel while listening to an audio recording that described the details of the site. Just loved visiting this place!
Leaving the Panatheniac stadium we decided to walk back to the underground instead of the tram which we took to get there. On our walk back we stumbled on a very large and interesting building that had a very grand entrance and when we went inside we saw the most beautiful painted ceilings and huge rooms - but nothing in it! This is the Zappeio building and is used for official ceremonies and even private functions. It was a true treasure to find and we absolutely enjoyed walking through the gardens and viewing the massive fountain down near the road.
Back on the underground we decided to go and have an early dinner and then head to our hotel room for an early night so we went over to Thisio and found a lovely Indian restaurant down a quiet side street. It was only 6pm but the meal was a nice change because we hadn't had a rice meal for a long time and the meat dishes were just beautiful, we kept raving about it to each other during the whole meal!
So we returned to the hotel room - our last night in the city of Athens but we have loved it here and this little hotel has been lovely, close to everything like we had planned, very clean and the people friendly. Now for an early night ready to check out, pick up the hire car and head out of Athens on a road trip that will take us to Thessaloniki God willing
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