For day 2, our plan was to visit an island, and Hydra was the recommended choice for a day trip from Athens.  Hydra is pronounced “Ee-dra”, just like “Gyro” is really pronounced “ee-rho,” and “typically” is actually pronounced “ee-pically.”  After an early start to catch our connections, we arrived on Hydra at about 10 AM to be confronted with this picturesque view.

Hydra is a fairly small island – over 90% of the population lives in this main town.  There are no motorized vehicles except for a few garbage trucks.  Somehow, we managed to encounter this truck about four times in the first hour, but after that the lack of traffic noises was very noticeable.  Instead, you encountered “parking lots” like the one in the blog’s banner image and this one.

Hydra, even more than most Greek towns, is also full of cats.  I think their intended purpose is to deal with vermin, but these guys seemed mostly interested in sleeping under tables at the waterfront tavernas.

Interesting trivia note: Leonard Cohen wrote “Bird on a Wire” while living on Hydra.  Probably not about this exact bird, but possibly this wire!

After exploring the main town for a bit, we walked down the coast to a nearby fishing village, and then decided to come back via the “high road” through town above the water.  And by “high road,” we mean “just keep attempting to go east through tiny cracks between houses.”  Astonishingly, this actually worked, despite the fact that this is what a “street” on Hydra usually looks like.

Eventually it was time for dinner, so we went back to the fishing village for a lovely meal of grilled red mullets (heads still attached) and octopus while sitting at a table overlooking the ocean.  Then it was time for another sunset!

Finally, back to Athens.

Statistics:

• Modes of Transportation used: Subway, Hydrofoil, Boat
• Cumulative Total: 5
• Geocaches Found: 1
• Meals Containing Feta: 2
• Free stuff: After-dinner fruit

The reason for our trip to Greece was a conference of Leigh’s in Thessaloniki: a joint meeting of the European Society for the Cognition of Music and the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition.  (What a mouthful!)  We made a point of arriving early so we could spend some time in Athens.  This turned out to be a really good idea.

This is Syntagma square, home of the Greek Parliament building and guards with pom-poms on their feet.  After dropping off our luggage at the hotel, we went on a self-guided walk around town, with the Acropolis as our ultimate goal.

This is the remains of the temple of Zeus.  It’s hard to believe, but this was actually larger than the Parthenon when it was still standing.

Speaking of which:

How would you like this to be your front door?  Coming from a country where “old” means a hundred years at best, it’s astonishing to climb stairs that have been around for 2,500 years.

And there it is.  The Parthenon is one of those things like the Grand Canyon.  You see the pictures, and figure it can’t possibly be that impressive in person.  And yet – they both are.

This is another temple on the same hill.  I’m sort of proud of this picture.  It really captures the “Lawrence of Arabia” level of really, really, hot that the weather was that day.  It was about 100 degrees when we were there.  Which is apparently 15 degrees cooler than it had been the week before.

After a long day of walking around Athens, we decided it would be a good idea to climb yet ANOTHER hill (climbing hills turns out to be a theme of this trip) to watch the sun set.

And it was.

Statistics:

• Modes of Transportation used: Airplane, Subway, Funicular Railway
• Cumulative Total: 3
• Geocaches Found: 4
• Highest point: 277 meters