Athens

 The food is great and not a supermarket in sight.

Here is the meat market and there is a similar fishmarket and wonderful dried foods also all very reasonable. Nothing costs a lot here, and is great quality. There are people everywhere and police everywhere particularly near the markets. Not sure if it is because of the crazy Athenian drivers or because things are tensing up here due to Greece defaulting on a payment of 448 m euro. The have claimed they are owed 500 b euro because of nazi war crimes against Greece. It's as good a tactic as any to delay I suppose. However for the average Greek it is a tense time waiting to see if they will remain with the euro. To return to the Drachma would be a real problem with banks and investors ( depositors ) taking a no1 haircut.

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The poppies are out as wild flowers really cool. And speaking of cool,  it was 5 degrees, and there was snow on the hills of Athens this morning,  not often I need 2 layers of merino and still feel cold.

How's this for some serious coffee?

Athens is so steeped in history, it's just everywhere you look. At the hill of the muses, the treasures from the acropolis and the Parthenon were hidden during the 2nd WW in Socrates prison.

The acropolis is an amazing place,  not only is it where the Parthenon is built, but there is also on the acropolis the place where Paul preached to the Athenians and many other historic events.

Here  is the Parthenon from half way up the acropolis.