After seeing all the magnificent edifices that make Athens famous, we decided to walk back to the Hotel Titania. The streets were empty of cars because a big major protest was planned to start about 10 AM. We found out these protests are quite common in Athens and there is even a website to go to which explains the details for anyone interested in joining. But first we had to have Gelato! Haha. Lunch followed and the strolling of the tourists traps
and running into Rick Steves. Nan and Bruce broke away and decided to go back to the hotel, while Steve and I went on a walk about to discover more ancient trails. After all, Athens is completely built on all these ancient historic grounds. As were were splitting up we saw the protesters walking and chanting down the main drag. A Greek gentleman noticed us and came over and said he would explain what was going on. It was quite interesting. He was very exuberant and a colorful talker, but he knew what he was talking about and we were grateful for the opportunity.
After walking all over the place, I wanted to just go back to the hotel and relax a bit…. But we got swept up in the protester groups, so I decided just to do the protest since we were all going the same way. It was fun, peaceful, and interesting. The riot police are a big presence EVERYWHERE when these happen, and some people don’t like it. And some people feel safer with them there. As we approached our downtown hotel , we could see it was completely in lockdown with big metal doors and barricades surrounding all the windows and doors. All the rest of the businesses were the same. It looked like a war zone. And we couldn’t get in thru anything. Finally, after the thousands of people passed, the hotel pulled up the barricades and we got back in……
Just another day of fun in the land of democracy!
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