From a Medieval Tower to an Ancient mineral workshop

Let me show you around my neighbourhood

You saw me moving in my previous post, time to show around now.

I start my walk relatively early in the morning and I love those days that you can still see the moon up in the clear blue sky as a bright white dot:

The pros and cons of moving

It's been a while since my last post but the title is a spoiler of why. Now that begs the question - my absence is among the pros or cons? 😄

So, here's my fully loaded bike ready to transfer some of my stuff to my new place:

(One more) Birthday on the road

The title of this post used to be an unthinkable case before I started travelling intensively (mostly on 2 wheels) but for the last decade (plus) it has been rather a normality for me, unless weather sucks big time making it time to stay home. Well, "home" has also become relative as the saddle of my bike frequently feels more like home than my official one but that's another story (and another post maybe).

There couldn't be a longer middle finger to the energy war we all experience than this beyond superb weather that we still have here over Hellenic soil even in the beginning of November, embarrassing the summer days. Simply couldn't get any better under this bright was sunshine so I'm leaving the big city named Athens behind and head West.

West of Athens there's lots of industrial/dodgy areas so I'll spare you that part of the route but as the traffic drops after Mandra I start enjoying the good tarmac and the sweet bends on the E962:

Βοτανικός - Ελληνικό ένας κορμοράνος δρόμος.

Αν θέλετε να βάλετε δύσκολα σε ένα δημοσιογράφο πείτε του να σας βρει μια επένδυση στην Ελλάδα που δε βρήκε απέναντί της την Αριστερά ή την KGB/FSB/MYT ή όλους μαζί.

Nature does it better

Τα καλώδια των τηλεοπτικών κεραιών, εκτός από αηδιαστικά, στα μάτια μου πάντα φαίνονταν σαν ομφάλιος λώρος με τη σαχλαμάρα. Και μπορεί στο παρελθόν ελλείψει εναλλακτικών να υπήρχαν δικαιολογίες για αυτό το ελεεινό δάσος των κεραιών που μετέτρεψε τις ταράτσες των κτιρίων σε οπτικό βασανιστήριο αλλά σήμερα είναι ακόμη περισσότερο αδικαιολόγητο αυτό το χάλι.

Έρχεται όμως η φύση και σου λέει σε άπταιστα Ελληνικά "hold my beer":

Απλές σκέψεις

Σε χτεσινό δημοσίευμα σχετικά με τη συμμορία της Πολυτεχνειούπολης αναφέρονται μεταξύ άλλων τα εξής:

The ancient sites of Athens and their 4 legged fauna (part 4 - final)

It already took 3 parts to cover 3/4 of my walk around the historic center of Athens - betcha you can write books about those ancient sites if you wanna go into details. Speaking of books, fancy a visit to a Roman library?

Let's go:

The ancient sites of Athens and their 4 legged fauna (part 3)

Takes many parts to cover only part of a casual walk around Athenian antiquities - if nothing else we the citizens of this important city are very lucky. Walking down the pedestrian (and most commercial) street Ermou brings me outside the ancient cemetery of Athens named Kerameikos:

The ancient sites of Athens and their 4 legged fauna (part 2)

Continuing my walk in the Ancient Agora of Athens from part 1, here's where I have the luck to spend my time at:

It's so lovely to have images like this filling your eyes in total absence of anything contemporary cause on the other side there's bits in the background that spoil this sensational view:

My next aim is to visit the Stoa of Attalos, this long building in the distance:

I might be walking the Ancient Agora but this is belongs to the Roman period. It's also the building where the expansion of Europe was signed back in the early 2000s. Let's have a closer look:

How could the EU leaders imagine back in the day that 20 years later we'd be experiencing a war on the East end of our Union? Well, some of them should actually. At least mr. Schroeder...

A funny bit I recall from that time is that our PM welcomed Tony Blair by saying "As you can see we have some nice marbles here" with the UK PM replying looking at his entourage "You can't escape that guy...". Again, how could mr. Blair imagine that 20 years later we'd be closer to the return of Parthenon's marbles than ever. Times change...

In front of that historic building one can also see the oldest orthodox temple of Athens, dating back to the late 900s:

Close your eyes and imagine you have a nice house right next to one of the most important ancient sites of the world..now open them:

Still I can't take my eyes of the temple of Hephaestus (see why in my previous post):

Funny thing is that a moment later a place draws an arrow above it:

I can spend the whole day there taking various pictures as the vary same spot in front of the Stoa of Attalos offers top view but let's just put just one more which shows the National Observatory of Athens far in the middle,

and let's enter that extra long Stoa:

Just a couple of steps and you're in its impressive ground floor:

Which is full of statues,

And nice view through its arches:

Inside this building is a museum with nice items like the following one:

(You can enjoy a walk inside the museum while watching a 4K video I will post later)

I love the ground floor so much that as I exit I can't resist a few more shots:

Here's how the rest of the city looks like from the North end of Stoa:

The oldest metro line of Athens is just one breath away:

And here is me struggling to capture the whole building from the very same spot:

As you see it's got one more floor so let's see what's waiting the visitors up there:

Oups, that's a tall one!

Huge column!

I love that the upper floor is full of miniatures of the Agora and Acropolis. Nice job!

The view from up there is even more impressive. The observatory's hill in its full beauty:

The temple of Hephaestus just got one more arrow above it:

And both of them compose this stunning view:

Of course there's numerous statues as well:

As I leave the whole Agora behind I am exposed to the intense contradictions this capital offers. An under construction ancient site, surrounded by old and new buildings peppered with some graffiti:

A few graffiti later I find this rather insecure kitten:

Regardless how tender I am she is too afraid to socialise so I continue my walk as I still have lots to see and it's not early anymore meaning that I have less chances to take picture in the absence of humanity.