Greece

We like Athens. A lot.

Here is where I am writing the blog from.

I know it looks like two pictures joined together but its not. You’ve seen my Photoshop skills, this one is real.

We are literally a 9 minute walk from the Parthenon.

We got in last night and came through passport control in seconds. The guy checking the passports just had a quick look to see if you had one and waved you through. The bloke in front of me got in with a library card. It was a bit more of a challenge finding the hotel as every hotel in the city is called the Acropolis View or Acropolis Road Hotel. We have a fantastic view of the city. Next time I’ll get a camera that can do night shots because we are missing out on some great ones.

Well we might as well get it over with. You all know its coming. The one thing that Athens is most famous for is that it has the world’s largest collection of Barney Rubble.

Now we’ve seen some of the best rubble in the world but nothing holds a candle to Athens. These pictures are all from the Parthenon (except the last one which is Zeus’s Bolder World downtown). Seriously Greece, sort this shit out. I had a Greek guy do my crazy paving and he was excellent. He’d get this all done in a fortnight. Let me know if you want his number.

The Parthenon must be the world’s biggest building site. Despite not fixing anything, they have workman’s huts and scaffolding everywhere. They are still blaming Turkey for storing gunpowder in it in 1687 (in case you missed the news recently, it was hit by the Venetians and exploded). Its a bit like your neighbours tree falling on your car and you refusing to get it fixed for the next 20 years, just to make a point. At least all of the essential repairs have been done.

Now I know some of you are wondering what the difference is between the Parthenon and the Acropolis. Well, the Acropolis used to be next to Acton Town tube station in West London but has been turned into a secondhand car showroom and the Parthenon is being investigated for following a loose definition of the term meat in its doner kebabs.

However in Athens the Parthenon refers to the wobbly thing on the edge of the hill that you see on post cards and the Acropolis is the name given to the various other left over building material scattered around it.

Apparently the hardest part with restoring old marble buildings is matching the colour. Good to see they got this one right at least.

Phew. I’m glad the whinging is over.

So now I can be totally honest. The Acropolis is wonderful. It is a fucking mess but there is something quite magical about it. We might even go back again tomorrow.

Here is Tub pretending to be part of a tour group. She said the guide was pretty good.

And here she is nearly getting cleaned up by a guy with a selfie stick who swung it quite fast.

This is the parky shouting at people to get off a wall. He had a whistle too. 5 minutes before, Tub was stood on the wall telling me how good the view was and trying to get me up there.

By the way I suggest you don’t ask them which ones are the Elgin marbles, especially if you have an English accent.

Here are a couple of pics we took. I like the one of the Parthenon as it shows the cranes nicely.

How do you follow that? Well obviously with a bus tour!

Greece is a fantastic place now but this wasn’t always the case. In 1999 they decided to drop the Drachma and adopt the Deutsche Mark and ever since Germany have sent them a cheque every second Thursday. Greece is a bit like your mate who claims the dole and just does jobs for cash but always seems to be rolling in money.

They invented democracy so they like to have a shout from time to time. These people are asking Germany to send more money as they need to build an extension so their mother-in-law can move in.

I didn’t fully understand this bit of the bus tour.

After lunch (yes, everything above only took 2 hours), we went to the Houses of Parliament.

Tub met the nice lady above and then she and her mate did a dance for us.

Moving on…

Then we went to some Olympic thing that was really good.

And Tub climbed some steep stairs.

And pretended to be the Queen.

Before beating herself in a race.

We also got to see this masterpiece by the same guy who did Martin Luther King in Washington. Seriously, just a head and a cock?

Apparently Red Bull really does give you wings.

We had one more stone-filled adventure in us so we went to see Zeus who had been threatening to rain on us all day but hadn’t.

This guy was stood outside the ticket office in his jeans and denim jacket selling “tickets”.

I said “Two students please.”

He looked at me and said “You don’t look like students.”

I said “And you don’t look like a ticket collector. How about we meet halfway.”

4 Euro later and we were in.

Cats and Dogs

Dogs love a historic monument almost as much as school children hate them, and cats just love attention so you are never far from an animal.

For some reason people much prefer taking photos of cats than historic monuments.

Dogs really don’t give a fuck.

But cats are sticklers for the rules.

I also managed to get a video of a dog that looks like a pig but I’ve run out of time so I’ll need to load him up later.

I’ll leave you with a nice house and some sunsets from our hotel.

Ok. Here he is. Dog who looks like a pig (a bit).

And here he is later at night when he was a bit knackered.

Today was another day on the bus. Here is an American trying to pay with 100 Euro.

Now I know you are all interested in the true story about the Elgin Marbles. The Greeks claim they were stolen over night by Lord Elgin who is a wanted criminal (unlikely since he spent 11 years getting all the ones he wanted) while the Poms claim he saved them from destruction and that the Greeks still aren’t responsible enough to have them back. I’ve done some reading and this is what really happened.

Elgin went over to Athens and asked the ruling Ottoman dictators if he could take moulds of the marble engravings on the Parthenon. “Sure mate. Do what you like. We just use that thing to store stuff. Just don’t break any of our barbecue equipment.”

He specifically liked one of the sculptures but when he got his crew to make a copy of it they found it was missing. He asked the Turk guy who was sent to keep an eye on them what had happened to it.

“It fell off, so we burnt it for lime.”

A bit shocked Elgin asked “How often does something fall off this thing?”

“Every time we need some lime.” replied the Turk.

Elgin whispered to his boys “Forget the moulds guys. Grab what you can and shove it in the van. We’re leaving.”

He made small talk with the guard while his team hacked big bits off the Parthenon and chopped them into small enough bits to fit into the van. He was pretty good at small talk because he kept it going for 11 years.

One day there was a huge crash and Elgin and the guard looked round to see two of his guys on top a piece of scaffolding holding the head of Athena while the body crashed to the ground landing on a big stack of Turkish outdoor heaters.

“Run lads!” he shouted, “I think they are on to us.”

They drove that Reliant Robin as fast as they could arriving back in Britain just in the nick of time. Elgin knew he had to fence the gear as quick as he could. These weren’t a nice bunch of Greeks in skirts he was dealing with now, this was the Ottoman Fucking Empire.

“I’ll take it, cash in hand. No questions asked.” said Napoleon.

“No way. I saw what you did to the Mona Lisa.” said Elgin. “I know who’ll buy this.”

So he sold it all to the British government who put it in the British Museum next to everything of any value that had ever been in Egypt. The End. And if you don’t believe me, read the long version here.

We found another boat but Tub started looking a bit sick so we didn’t get off the bus to look at it.