Day 339, Athens, Greece
Rest and Baklava. Yes, we’ve discovered this ancient city’s secret baking-remedy recovery plan that works like magic. Exhausted, Kier arrived three days ago and has mostly slept and eaten baklava. We’ve put off doing major sight seeing for as long as we could, but today, we need to see some columns. When in Athens, it’s what you do. Getting to the Parthenon is a lot of walking and stairs, but we will walk slowly, and take as many baklava breaks as necessary to reach the column madness. Heck, there are four of us, we can carry the little whisp of a thing up. Even stuffed full of baklava I can throw her over my shoulder.
Normally we would hoof it or take public transit from site to site, but given the circumstances, we thought we’d try a Hop on Hop off tour bus. It will also gives a city tour and Kier won’t get as tired out. Perfect for the day.
First stop was the Acropolis. We walked up to the ticket booth, rested and recharged with some frozen lemonade. We took our time. Difficult to explain how much I loved seeing the girls and Paul enjoying this amazing place.
At this point, Kier was pretty much done, although you’d never hear that from her. We hopped back on the bus and went to the Archeological Museum of Athens, which was amazing. Cali is such a sweetie and didn’t want her sister to feel like she was missing out, so kept her company. They hopped from bench to bench. Since they were often surrounded by naked marble men, there was no shortage of jokes. Excessive marble nudity, they called it. Cali tried to find benches with a back view as opposed to a front view. 
I always ask before I take photos in museums, this was no exception. I usually get a, “Yes picture, no flash,” kind of answer. This time, the man said in broken English, “No flash, only serious.” I heard, “Seriously lady, don’t use the flash or I will personally take that memory card and stomp the daylights out of it.” Then he re-emphisized, “Serious picture, no smile, no laugh.” Huh? You mean like Canadian passport photo instructions? Uh, ok. Then he pointed to the naked statues of the men. Oh, got it! No photos mocking the marble men’s ancient man parts. Do I look like someone would would do that? Guess so. Fine, fine. Your ancient frat house, your photo rules. 
Above was Agamemnon’s mask, the Mona Lisa of prehistory. After seeing this we went into the basement to the cafe overlooking this garden. Kier was exhausted so we went looking for baklava. In this little cafe is the world’s best baklava. Kier ate it and lay down on the bench for a nap. The birds were so bold, would come into the cafe when the door opened, and steal people’s food. We know how to protect our pastries, so they helped themselves to other people’s lunch. Here’s the potential baklava their and the booth where Kier took a nap.
This is Madi’s favorite kind of museum, and it had an Egyptian section. She was in heaven and could have stayed for days. After baklava, we parked Kier on a bench with Cali and we went off to explore the rest of the museum with Madi.
We toured the rest of the city from the top of the bus. Amazing how ancient ruins are interspersed with modern living. This happens so often in Europe, but we certainly don’t take it for granted. We ate in an outdoor cafe that had so many kinds of baklava to choose from, it was overwhelming. 
We stayed in the city into the evening and got some ice cream before we got on the train to go home. With a little help from the magic pastry, we were able to to do the entire day.
Baklava Remedy and Excessive Marble Nudity
