Trip to Athens, Greece - Day 6

Our last full day in Athens was on Thursday.  We had one site left on our tickets that we had bought.  We left in the morning after we ate breakfast and took the subway to find the Kerimikos Cemetery and Pottery sites. We didn't realize that it was very close to the ancient Agora site and we ended up getting off at the wrong stop and then walking in the wrong direction (we did a lot of walking on this day!).  When we did find the spot we were on the back end.  We walked all around the site and could see it.  We decided not to go around to the entrance and walk the whole thing again.  The kids (and me a little bit) had done enough walking by that time.

The site, looking through the gates.

After our long walk in the morning we got back on the metro and rode downtown and went to the National Archaeological Museum.  The museum was very large and had a lot of interesting exhibits.  It was like the archaeological version of the Hermitage - too much to see everything and too much to concentrate on for the whole time.  We especially liked the pottery (from the Kerimikos site) and the statues.  There was a large section with Egyptian mummies - those poor Egyptians really had everything taken away from them - and the kids were surprised to see the real mummy and not just the sarcophagus that they had seen in other places (like the Vatican museum).

Satisfied museum customers

Horses - Yulia couldn't resist a statue with a horse! This one was lifted up from a sunk ship.

Reading and learning

Egyptian section

Our favorite style of pottery.  The black relief designs were so amazing.

After we finished with the museum (about two hours worth of browsing) we stopped and got some pastries that we ate right outside the shop and then took the metro home.  We went home and rested for a while and then went out to the first little pita shop that we had gone to on our first day and had our last big meal in Greece.

Pastry shop with everything from savory to sweet treats.

Enjoying our last big Greek meal.

Some baklava treats for the road.

Friday morning we woke up and had breakfast and packed.  At about 10:00 we went out.  While I bought tickets for the trip to the airport, Yulia went and got some pastry treats for our lunch later in the day.  Our trip to the airport was smooth and after waiting for about fifty minutes we were able to check in and wait.  Our trip back to Kazakhstan was smooth.  A brief one hour layover in Istanbul and a late flight (arriving at about 2:30 a.m.) into Astana.

The view from the metro station at the airport. It reminded us of Utah so much!

Reading and waiting for our flight!

We had chosen to go to Greece rather than Hungary because we thought the weather would be better and because our kids had learned quite a bit about ancient Greece in school.  It ended up being a very enjoyable trip and we were very glad that we went.  We loved the food. The people were very nice, and we were impressed with the sites.  Athens isn't like Rome where everything is dense and there is ancient art and sculpture and architecture all over, but the sites that are there and preserved are very impressive.  We took things a little slower than our usual vacations since I was recovering from my surgery, but it was a perfect trip with perfect weather and a perfectly lovely time.