Greece Adventure -- Day 2 -- Athens and Crete

Napping Camera-store dog and I, taken with the newly re-charged camera.

After a big breakfast at the hotel, we went to the newly built Acropolis museum. All the entrances to the Acropolis were hidden behind residential buildings, and the streets reminded me of Taiwan 20 years ago. On the way to the ticket booth, we found a camera store that was open (stores are normally closed on Sundays in Greece, but this one was obviously open for tourists.) The old lady who worked at the store spoke very little English, and she took a look at our camera’s battery, and started trying it on a couple of chargers that obviously wouldn’t work. We invited ourselves to rummage through her inventory on the shelves in her very hot and very small store, and we eventually found a charger that worked on our charger battery. We spent the next two hours at the Acropolis museum while the battery was being charged in her store. After the museum, we returned to get the battery and the charger. Everything worked out smoothly and I was so happy that I asked to take a picture with the old lady. She passionately wrapped her arm around me and held my hand for the picture.

Look how we wear matching white tank tops. I like that bright blue mascara and eyeliner she had on!

I don’t know why I find this camera store old lady story more interesting than the museum visit for this blog. It was my first interaction with a Greek local and it is a really cute story. I was not happy with Albert losing our charger, but now I am glad he did.

The New Acropolis Museum was just opened this June. It was highly anticipated in the archeological society for years with the hundreds of thousands of pieces of artifacts dating back over 500 B.C. The museum did a fantastic job showing people like me with limited knowledge about Greek history or Archeology that every stone found in this area could be extremely meaningful thousands of years ago. (for example, that rock can be a goddess’s nose on the sculpture!) Before this museum, many of their ancient pieces were stored or were on exhibit at other museums around the world. This new museum obviously made Greece proud, and now all those masterpieces have a home to proudly be presented, steps away from where they were meant to be in the first place. There is now a Greek National program that flies elementary school students from all over Greece to the museum to learn more about their country’s rich history. What a beautiful project to educate the next generation and to give them a sense of national pride.

The New Acropolis Museum Entrance (from official website)

To catch our 4:15 pm flight to Crete, we did not have time to see the Acropolis for real that day. We only went to the Dionysus Theatre at the South slope of Acropolis.

Click to magnify this picture and see if you can find me!

The rest of the day was spent making our way from Athens to the biggest island in Greece – Crete. After the short 45 minute flight, we rented a car from the airport in the capital of Herkalion and headed toward our hotel in the coastal town of Elounda. It took a bit longer than we expected, due to my inability to read maps and street signs in Greek, and Albert’s inability to operate a very old and underpowered manual shift tiny car up and down the single-lane highways. We left our hotel in Athens at 2:30pm and checked in at the Crete hotel at 9:00pm. We passed out without eating dinner (no lunch that day either) in the most beautiful hotel room I have ever stayed in...