Kerameikos Cemetery and Museum

For the first time on this trip, Oscar and I leave John in the place and go get breakfast like we talked about.  We walk to Oscar’s new

Athens Holocaust Memorial adorned for the anniversary

favorite bakery and get a sugar donut for him, a croissant with chocolate for John and some kind of bun for me.  The lady at the check out gives Oscar a mini donut on the house and he is so excited about how nice people are to him.  I have to second that.  I fully recommend traveling in Europe with a 

 child.  Everyone goes out of their way for you and your child.  At least that’s the way it feels to me.  We walk back to the place and John says that he was able to get a lot of work done and we all have breakfast on our porch with the sun shining down on us.  It’s a 

The Sacred way of tombs

beautiful day and it’s a difficult feeling, wanting to stay in place and just enjoy sitting on this balcony, and knowing that we should get going outside and see some of the things that we came to see.  We finally get the impetus to get up and go toward the Kerameikos

the walls of Ancient Athens with the Acropolis

 cemetery with a stop at Little Kook café.  We have heard a lot about this place and it’s been recommended in multiple places, Oscar is super excited and we were turned away on Sunday because they were full.  On a Tuesday at 11, they have room for us and we enter a 

 Christmas wonderland where every conceivable inch of the place is covered in decorations.  The wait staff are all dressed as elves and Nutcracker Suite is playing on the stereo.  We have a sugar and cinnamon crepe with hot chocolate that costs as much as some of our full meals

 we’ve had on this trip.  Oh, well, it’s a once in a lifetime chance, but Oscar wants to come back tomorrow and see if they’ve redecorated for the next theme.  The elf that shows us out reports that they never know what the next theme is going to be and when it’s going

    to happen, they just come in and it’s changed.  So, apparently, this is a big Athens secret that is kept until it happens.  So, we head off to the cemetery and wander through it without any other people even in there it seems.  John says again how much he loves

Oscar's cranberry juice compliments the colors of our beers

 traveling in the off season because we haven’t had to wait at any site that we have visited.  We take some pictures of him on his way to Plato’s Academy outside the city gates and play a game of cats and turtles.  We see our first cat as we enter, but then see a turtle sunning itself.  We run into 11 turtles and only

4 cats in the couple of hours that we’re there and with just a few turns in the small museum, Oscar doesn’t even realize that he has been seeing ancient sites today….It was a very nice change from the huge and overwhelming monuments.  We had a HUGE meal at James Joyce Pub which had been 

Little Kook Christmas decorations

recommended and my Guinness pie was amazing.  I want to try to recreate it, but know that I probably can’t.  Oscar eats all of his fries and we have a couple of cats that want our leftovers while we want naps.  Even Oscar says he’s tired.  We waddle home to rest from a very nice day.