Jewel of the Seas: Athens (Agora, Temple of Zeus and National Archaeological Museum)

This is a continuation of our port day in Athens on the Jewel of the Seas Greek Isles itinerary. Find part 1 here. After leaving the changing of the guard George drove us to the Agora.

I felt like a VIP with my name on the minibus

There were some interesting sights along the way like this tiny, old church between modern buildings.

I’m not sure what this place was but it had lots of people there on this Saturday.

Agora

The Agora of Athens was a gathering site in ancient times.

The site now includes a museum in addition to many structures and buildings that have been excavated. The temple of Hephaestus was one of the fewt intact buildings.

It was up on a hill with not a lot of space around it to get a better picture. There was a wonderful view from there of the Acropolis.

Most excavations at the agora were like this one below (or even less stones).

On the grounds is the Church of the Holy Apostles which was built in the 10th century.

It had a lot of old wall paintings dating from the 17th century.

Moving towards the entrance was the Museum of the Ancient Agora which is in the Stoa of Attalos which was reconstructed in the 1950s. It is quite large with lots of space and open air porticos.

You can see how much open space was in the museum as well as the open air porch

There were so many wonderful artifacts on exhibit.

I wish we had more time to spend looking at all of the exhibits but we had two hours here and wanted to grab lunch as well.

I loved the Agora but again should have done more pre-trip research to get the most out of our visit (next time, right?). It was not very crowded as you can see in the photo above.

We stopped at a restaurant not far from the main Agora entrance that was on the main walkway and in in the shade.

Unfortunately I didn’t write down the name but it’s at the corner of Adrianou and Agiou Filippou. I think it’s the first restaurant on the right after you leave the Agora.

We ordered coke zero for Steve and water for me to drink. It was served with this basket of tasty bread.

I had moussaka.

Steve ordered spaghetti bolognese to continue with that kick.

We both really enjoyed our entrees. I also ordered baklava.

Although it looked good neither of us liked it. The pastry was too tough. Our meal was 26 euros for all. Not bad!

We left to meet up with the group and everyone showed up five minute early. George drove us off to our next stop.

National Archeological Museum

When setting up the tour I had decided on the National Archaeological Museum over the New Acropolis Museum.

There was a 10 euro admission fee and I was surprised not all of our group wanted to see the museum. It was amazing with exhibits dating from earliest man in Greece.

early figures from Cycladic civilization

The range of artifacts included paintings, metalwork, coins, sculptures and more.

This bronze sculpture is known as the Jockey of Artemision and dates to 150 BC.

Here are a few pictures of favorite pieces on display.

This bronze piece is either Zeus or Poseidon

This sculpture of Poseidon dates from 460 BC

This sculpture represents the god Hermes

This was a wonderful museum but overwhelming with the volume of pieces to view. As you can tell from a couple of the pictures it was not crowded at all and I loved how close you could get to the artwork.

Temple of Zeus

Our last stop after this was the Temple of Zeus. The entrance fee was covered by our multi-site pass we bought at the Acropolis.

We got a great view of the acropolis behind the temple ruins from one corner of the site.

Yes we were there!

I managed to even find a fountain.

After here we piled back into the minibus to head back to the ship. George would have been happy to make other stops but we were all worn out. After a little souvenir shopping at the cruise port we boarded.