Introduction
Flight and Athens
The Acropolis
Athens Protest 2011 and Mount Lycabettus
Acropolis Museum
Trip to Gythio, Mystras, and Ouzo
Monemvasia – a fortress you can live in
Diros Caves near Gythio and Night-Before Dinner/Antics
Back to Athens and homeward bound

July 2011:

So something was very odd today. Streets empty on a weekday:

I wonder where everyone’s going?

Why would they be sealing the store when they’re running an awesome 70% off sale?

There’s some kind of “Occupation Academy” going on here.

Then I started seeing the crowds. Yea i found something.

This was about the time I realized I walked into the protest. It was pretty peaceful right now and this was day 1 of 2. The general strike would occur on day 3 I believe. I walked right in front of the Greek Parliament to take pictures of both sides:

A protest always needs the country’s flag. Never been at a political protest without a flag.

The next picture just shows dedication of the Greek workforce. This guy is setting up and selling food. Remember this picture as I’ll double back to this:

The Zoo was closed because of the protest.

There were streams of people marching into the square for the protest:

After staying to take a few more pictures, I walked towards Mount Lycabettus. Today, it was very hot at around 90F. I wanted to get up quickly and then quickly come down. There are two ways up, the tram that was a bit expensive, or walking up. There are two ways to walk up, and i found both of them. I went up a fairly vertical walk through some streets, while the other was a gradual slope in the park to the east of the hill. I found this entrance to Mount Lycabettus on google maps. Note the zig-zag route on the satellite view:
[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.980536,23.74407&num=1&ie=UTF8&t=m&z=14&ll=37.981957,23.744566&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

The first half of this route was covered with trees. Then we were too high up for trees and there is no shade on the upper half of the route. I managed to walk up in about 40 minutes, 20 of them on the unshaded part. It was definitely a good workout.

View of the Acropolis

View of the Acropolis

Saint George’s Chapel is on top of Mount Lycabettus.

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I left the church to enjoy the sights shortly before I went into the restaurant below the church and adjacent to the Tram station for some Greek Coffee. I also managed to black out for about an hour.  I had the coffee when I woke up.

View of the vertical walk up. Yes no shade and all up hill.

The Parliament and the crowd from the protest.

Aegean Sea in the distance.

The Acropolis. We are much higher than the Acropolis.

The route down was through the park which was shaded.

I stopped by a restaurant on the way back for some lunch. It wasn’t bad. I got some meat skewers.

So it was at the spot in the picture below where i smelled the tear gas for the first time in my life from the Parliament. This was the reason why everyone was leaving.

The below pictures are people going back towards the Parliament

That biker with mask came prepare. Too bad it doesn’t work.

At this time, I couldn’t get near the Parliament because of the tear gas so I went to the Acropolis Museum (next post). I did go back towards the Parliament after the tear gas settled:

This cafe was open the entire time. Many people took refuge here.

This vendor is back at selling food. Hardworking.

At night, I was taking the train back to Omonia and stopped by the station closest to the Parliament to see how the protest was going. There was another round of tear gas to disperse the crowd and many took refuge in the subway station. I would never forget a person with a do-rag over his nose and mouth and sunglasses with a small spray bottle. The spray bottle has a solution to dissolve the tear gas on people’s eyes and nose. At first he offered me a spray but when he saw that my face was totally clean, he gave me a thumbs up. I didn’t have the heart to take a picture of him.