James Gaston

Athens map

Athens ruins 12 Nov 2026 Athens ruins 12 Nov 2026 Athens, Greece --

The weather is beautiful (again) so we spent the day walking around Athens, mainly viewing ruins but also admiring the pedestrian-only shopping streets and the large botanical garden.

Mid-morning we took the metro from the Monastraki station to the Syntagma station. It was but one stop but the crowdedness of the station and the resulting packed-like-the-proverbial-sardines metro car was a bit much. All that was needed to amp up the grim experience for a claustrophobic like me is a fellow on the platform pushing even more passengers into the car.

From Syntagma we walked through the National Garden where I admired the sages and hot lips still in flower, as well as a beautiful nightshade vine. From there we checked out a couple of churches, Anglican and Catholic, then we walked down a lively pedestrian-only street where we picked up a quick lunch. From there we followed a path that tracks around the base of the Acropolis, above the buildings, which provided a good view of various collections of ruins.