Tag Archives: Temple of Hephaestus

Magical, mythical Athens

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One of the most wonderful things about our Greek holiday was to experience the absolute delight of both G and M as we trekked our way around Athens, visiting those ancient sites that they both associate with the fantastic Greek myths that they love to read. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when we introduced the children to the Greek myths, but they both love to listen to the audio-book of “Atticus the Storyteller” and M has been known to spend hours at bedtime absorbed in re-reading his favourite tales. There are just so many places to go and sights to see in Athens that we had to carefully pick out those we wanted to visit during our limited time in the city.

You just can’t visit Athens and even consider not wending your way to the top of the Acropolis to see the Parthenon and other monuments. Climbing up in 34°+ heat is not easy, but the views from the top were definitely worth the effort, and all the water we drank. Mike’s must-see destination was the Acropolis museum and whilst neither children was initially that keen to go, the lure of the air-conditioned inside, the wide array of artefacts on display and the brimming bookshelves they discovered in the shop soon overcame their reluctance. Our hostel for the duration was less than 5 minutes walk away from the museum, which made it the ideal place to head back to for a much-needed late lunch and a little downtime after our busy morning.

As well as his yearning to find a city playground to spend time in, M chose to take us to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. We visited these incredible remains in the early evening and were fortunate that there were very few other visitors to the site whilst we were there. The remaining columns were simply awe-inspiring and we were fascinated to spot the individual pieces that were so carefully used to construct each column. The ancient engineering skills that created this spectacular monument left the children speechless as we contemplated just how the Greeks managed to build it in a time before modern machinery existed.

Poor G had to wait to the end of our holiday to get to her location of choice, but it was definitely worth the wait. She would have loved to go to see the Temple of Poseidon, but the 2 hour journey there was just too much for us to squeeze into our already time-pressured holiday schedule. Instead, G decided she wanted to see the Temple of Hephaestus and it proved to be a great choice for our last day in Greece. It is found in the ancient Agora, which has so many wonderful ruins to explore as well as the impressive temple itself. The Temple of Hephaestus is the most complete temple in Athens and gives just a small insight into what it must have been like to live in the city over 2 thousand years ago.

By the time our first 3 days in Athens drew to an end, we were all ready to embark on the next part of our Greek adventures, which began with yet another early morning start, a cross-city taxi journey to the port and a passenger ferry trip to the beautiful Greek island that would be home for the next few days. 

Γεια σαυ Αθήνα

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It could appear that I’ve been keeping our final summer holiday destination close to my chest, but hopefully the title of this post will have given you some idea of where we headed to get a healthy dose of natural vitamin D and a much-needed complete break from it all. We decided to head somewhere that the children had never been and a country that Mike and I had last visited close to 17 years ago: Greece.

For those of you not yet fluent in the Greek alphabet and language, the above words say “Hello Athens” and that was how we chose to top and tail our trip to this beautiful Mediterranean country, with a few days spent soaking up the history in the capital city. Our early flight from Gatwick meant that we had reached our hotel by mid-morning and were soon ready to get started on our explorations. We stayed at the centrally located Athens Backpackers hostel, which was only a few minutes walk from both the Acropolis and the Plaka. The double set of bunk beds in the bedroom might not be every family’s idea of a great start to a holiday, but we wanted something that gave us easy access to all we were hoping to see in Athens and were delighted with our choice. With a spacious living area, small, but well equipped kitchen and the all-important air-conditioning, this family studio apartment was everything we could have wanted to start off our holiday.

Following in the tried and tested footsteps of previous holidays, our first destination was to buy tickets for the Athens City Sightseeing bus tour and having stopped to grab a quick lunch, with mediocre success meeting the allergy needs of G and M, we set off around this ancient city to pinpoint exactly where we wanted to visit over the next couple of days. One of the highlights of our city stay was, without a doubt, the Panathenaic Stadium, site of a simple racetrack for the original Panathenaic games and latterly home of the first modern Olympics in 1896. It somehow felt fitting to visit this Olympic stadium following so shortly after our trip to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London for the 2017 IAAF World Championships and M in particular was keen to soak up the history by listening to their comprehensive audio tour. One of the hidden gems there for me was the small museum that housed a number of posters, artefacts and torches from several Olympic Games over the last 120 years. G and I took our time walking around this single room housing numerous treasures and delighted in spotting the posters and torches from all 3 London Olympics Games: 1908, 1948 and 2012.

The children also enjoyed our stop at the Monument of the Unknown Soldier in Syntagma Square, where we watched the changing of the Hellenic parliament guard, who are known as the Evzones. This ceremony is impressive to watch, not only for the incredible historic costume, but also the slow, careful and measured movements that the soldiers make as they take up their official posts for the next 60 minutes.

Travelling to Greece in August had its advantages. Not only did we enjoy constant sunshine and temperatures that could sometimes be stifling in the city, but most Athenians have also gone on holiday and so the queues and crowds were not as big as they might otherwise have been. The one downside was that our holiday coincided with the Feast of the Assumption on August 15 and we were warned that many shops would be closed on the day. However, we planned our day carefully by having a good supply of food in our apartment for lunch and fulfilled M’s desire to visit a local playground, which we found quietly hidden in the beautiful National Gardens located just behind the Parliament buildings.