We started our tour of the Peloponnese in Athens. We stayed in a very nice hotel but I have to say that Athens itself went straight to the top of my 'Disappointing European Capitals' list, displacing Madrid which had held the title for several years. A lot of the older bits of Athens have been torn down and replaced with what I assume is less interesting architecture. I can't know that for sure, but its hard to believe that any of the C18 and C19 century buildings that they pulled down could have been inferior to the oddly coloured concrete blocks that replaced them. And those concrete blocks are not improved by the ubiquitous graffiti which was to be seen in every small town and village wherever we went as well as Athens.
Anyway we spent a morning being shown the Parthenon. This wasn't a particularly enjoyable experience because:
the site was very very crowded
it was very very hot
you are not allowed 'into' the building, but can only shuffle around the outside. And I use the word shuffle advisedly
the building is full of cranes which are being used by the restorers to clean it; given the level of smog prevalent in Athens I suspect this is a job with a roughly similar end date to the painting of the Forth Road Bridge
I discovered that I have an allergy to something within the combination of bright sunlight, high elevations and olive trees. Not sure what but I developed an unexpected runny nose here and it became a feature of subsequent site visits, although at least after this I was prepared for it.
Still at least I've seen it. We carried on to the Parthenon Museum but my back objected to the guided tour so we did a quick individual visit and had lunch.
And that was as much of Athens as we saw at that point, as later that afternoon we all had to clamber back on the coach for the journey to Delphi.
And here are a couple of pictures - note the cranes, they're impossible to avoid
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