Ohi Day

Not quite everything went as planned today. Firstly, we got up too late to put our plan of going to Piraeus and getting the ferry to Aegina into action. Then we were waylaid on our way to Syntagma Square by the Ohi Day parade. The square was closed, so we joined the crush of onlookers, expectant of some kind of Russian style tanks-and-quick-stepping-massed-ranks-of-troops circus (certainly there was an incredible presence of armed policemen, motorbikes, riot shields and helicopters) only to be greeted by representatives of 200 Athenian Primary Schools, 100 Athenian High Schools, assorted Boy Scouts, a smattering of marching bands and the Greek Special Olympians. When we finally extricated ourselves from the crowds, we discovered that both the National Gardens and the Benaki Museum were closed and we could find neither the funicular railway station nor the energy to walk very far up the Lykavittos Hill. That said, when things started to get back to normal after all the excitement of the Parade, we discovered that the ritual of the Changing of the Guards outside the Parliament building was even more awesome than Beck and I remembered and that the 'Zoo' in the now re-opened Gardens was even more amusingly rubbish. Then we walked down to Monastiraki for what is rapidly becoming our daily routine of a late Gyros lunch followed by siesta back at the hotel and dinner later on in the neighbourhood.