Had Enough Yet?

Located three blocks from the Athens apartment Lisa uses when she is in town.
No a/c, fyi.  Spent two nights there, and the second one was a story all by itself.

  A great big rock stands in the water to the left..
Mindy and I chose  the rock for our destination while the wash was in - a good  swim workout.

...

Wind Store.  Free Wi-Fi.

Temple of Zeus.

The Corner, aka the second Malfunction Junction I know.  

Indicative of the general state of traffic and in addition to the heat, why we did not bike in Greece! See that blue sign? This centralized location in Adamas, or Adamantas,  - the bus stops where that man is standing -  is 10 km to Pollonia to the right and 5 km to Plaka straight ahead by switchbacks which territory the bus claims to its complete extent to make the corner.  

We saw just one accident from our bus but whatever ran into it destroyed the car.  Two lane roads and city streets don't have shoulders and are really half a lane each, built before city buses were designed perhaps.  The cars park on both sides, using the sidewalk for parking wherever possible. This often turns the road into a one lane passage or at most, one and a half.  There was a lot of give and take, and while buses seemed to have priority, they were also considerate of other drivers and remarkably patient.  Schedules wasn't quite as loose as the internet led me to believe.  The ferry lifted its ramp right on time.   

Walking on the sidewalks, though, required flexibility as we wove our way in and out between cars and street traffic. Interesting job the servers have, waiting tables across the street from the restaurant where we ate our dinner beside the sea, and dodging traffic in order to get the food served.  Mindy resorted to walking on top of the wall, leaping over the openings where you could walk down to the sea, but it was not a requirement.  After the initial concerns we felt moderately safe despite the lack of restrictions and began to wander about like everyone else. The Greeks must be fairly relaxed as a whole.  I remember only hearing horns once and it was at this corner.

Going through the streets of Plaka by bus, we encountered a small sedan double parked.  As we approached the bottle neck, the driver appeared from a doorway across the street, keys in hand and hurriedly backed out of the way.  Another time it required the driver of the car who was attempting to use the same street to back up into someone's driveway in order for us to pass by.  We were bigger than he was by quite a bit!

Some snazzy restoration work.

Mars Hill

Athens from Mars Hill with the Acropolis to the left off screen.

The First Olympics Stadium