Athens redux

It's a big funny for us to back in Athens again so soon, but at least we knew of some things we could redo, like the little tourist train, or trennino, as we liked to call it. We easily got a city bus at the port, for 4 € each all day. He dropped us off right near the Acropolis. I told several people on our bus about the trennino- really anyone who would listen. I think it is one of Athen's tourist gems. It is cheaper than the hop on hop off bus, and more fun. 

We were dropped off right by this gate, which is Hadrian's gate, of course.

We had a coffee ( half price morning happy hour!) to use free wifi so I could load some blog posts, then looked for the train, which was nowhere to be seen. Horrors! Had I been telling fellow tourists about something that was not there? Fortunately at 9 am it showed up, and we hopped on.

Last time in Athens I discovered frappes, which are quite delicious, and even more delicious with a thick head of cream. Luckily there won't be time to drink too many of these.

It seems strange to be writing about Athens when we are now just arriving in Napoli, watching the seagulls fly past our window...

Anyway, back to Athens! 

Jim came to love the trennino as much as I did by the end of our day.

Happily we saw several of our fellow passengers from the ship also taking a ride. 

Lots of Greek school kids waved and yelled hello, and I was even slapping high fives with them at one point! Their idea, not mine. But it was fun. 

Last time we rode the train, a group of deaf kids from Middle Eastern countries who were there for a math conference hopped aboard. 

They were so cute about having their photos taken...

Next to the groups of school kids were the police, ready to ride off to what? 

They had a hard time getting away from all the people who wanted to pose with them for a photo.

I said they were probably riding off to quell some riot. We actually saw them later at a pre May Day rally.

Things in Athens and Istanbull really got a bit rough the next day, with big angry parades and violence in both places that made the news. Glad we were off in Santorini by then, where the May Day tradition is to hang flowere wreaths on your door.

I hopped off the train at a red light to take this photo of flowers on the back of a truck- same one I saw before. 

For some reason the Greeks love this slogan. I have seen endless variations on the theme.

The view of the Acropolis from our restaurant at lunch was quite stunning. Even though it is waaaay at the top of the hill.

And lest you think we didn't even see any ancient statues while in Athens, here is proof that we did - in the subway...

They remind me a bit of "Winged  Victory" in the Louvre, on of my favorite statues anywhere.

Well, I guess there wasn't much new to show you from Athens this time, but it was a nice relaxing day, and we enjoyed our bus ride back through the suburbs to Piraeus where our ship was docked.