The Unknown Soldier

Very strange idea -- what if the unknown soldiers all over the world could meet in the afterlife, have a kind of FB page, and count the number of 'Likes' depending on how many tourists watch the Changing of the Guard ceremonies at their tombs?  Yea, a really wacko thought.

Today, instead of the ancient parts, we strolled around the more modern parts -- Syntagma Square (there is a restaurant with the most delicious chocolate soufflé), the city park, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Parliament buildings (site of so many anti-government demonstrations), and, further east, the Panathinaikos Stadium of 1896, where the first Olympic Games of the Modern Era were staged. 

Before all that, though, we decided to formally visit the old Temple of Zeus because all this time we'd been photographing it from the outside only, and as we still had the 'unified' ticket, we thought we might as well use it.  I must say that the marble columns left behind made a perfect spot to practice with all the camera filters I had, including all the pano possibilities.  Hubby did the same with his camera, so now we have way too many shots of Zeus old hang-out.  Not that we mind.

The old Olympic stadium, the only one of its kind made entirely of Pentelic marble, was the grand finale of the day (we did start out late and finished brunch at 12.00).  An audio guide will walk you through the centuries and there's a tunnel somewhere in the side where the nymphs used to dance naked (sorry, no shots of those) preparing to reward the winner of the games.  We were well on time to catch the sunset, and I've put some extras, one taken by me and the other by hubby (you'll be able to tell who took what).  For dinner, we decided to go to a swankier place where I had bream with lemon and dill sauce and rice while hubby had veal with a spicy tomato sauce and cream potatoes, after which we shared a dessert of chocolate cake with ice-cream, all al fresco, so very cozy.  29 degrees during the day and about 21 degrees in the evening ... what can we say?

Net result for our album for today = 250 shots, but I was too sleepy to do them all in one go.  The entire album now has about 700 shots.