Mt. Lycabettus

Another easy morning with a load of clothes washed and we head

 out to Mt. Lycabettus.  This is a high point in the city to see everything and there is a funicular, so as long as there is transportation involved, Oscar’s game.  He is excited that we have to change metro lines even and when two trains arrive at the station at the same time, his eyes light up.  You can see some Athenian commuter looking at him and seeing the station through his eyes a

little, hopefully it brightened her day.  They say that travelling with a child will make you look at things in a new way and it does.  I take for granted hurtling trains coming at each other will slow down, stop and let people on and off.  It’s pretty amazing when you see the excitement on Oscar’s face and this kid is no stranger to subways.  We get off and orient ourselves, hoping to find another

 market on our way back down and we are going up.  Up and up and up and I ask John to make sure that we aren’t passing the funicular because isn’t it supposed to be doing this work for us?  We haven’t reached it yet and I’m starting to wonder if the funicular will be worth the cost since I can see the peak of the mountain from where we are now, but by the time we make it to the funicular, there’s no way we would make it up the next 25 flights of stairs that we would have to take.  Besides, one of the reasons for 

 coming was to ride the funicular.  Which is great because some alcohol has taken the time to make a light show while you’re going up and coming down and decorating the top and the bottom stations.  So, it looks like you’re moving toward the sun on your way up.  And when you get up there and out, well, it’s a breathtaking view of Athens.  And that’s with breath to lose because you didn’t climb up here.  It’s windy and colder up here and Oscar starts to get afraid that he will blow off the mountain.

 Again, one of those things that we as adults know can’t happen, but he’s seriously worried about it.  We have to sit in the sun and pet a kitty who is clearly not blowing off the mountain and weighs less than him in order to make it go down a little.  Any time out of the wind makes it better for him too.  We had seen some mountains in the distance from the Acropolis that I said had snow, but then a guide mentioned marble quarries on the mountains. So, we thought, oh, it’s marble.  But from up here, you can tell where the quarries 

are and where the snow is too.  And the Corinthian Sea is shining off in the distance.  We just sit and soak it in.  360 degrees of Athens and the rest of Greece with it’s seas and harbors and you can see from here how strange the acropolis is.  Just the perfect flat surface to put all of your big monuments on.  The funicular runs every 30 minutes and some of our group have already gone back

down, but we stay for an hour and a half.  Sit at the café and have some drinks, feta rolled and crusted with honey and sesame and fries for Oscar.  He tells us when he is done and says, “dig in guys”.  He acts like such a grown up some times and has such moments of understanding.  This trip has given us plenty to talk about since we didn’t plan some travel until we knew some areas were “more stable”, we had an advisory today for Turkey because

of the recent Middle East “peace plan” that was unveiled last night and I was trying to explain that.  We’ve talked about world wars, pandemics with coronavirus making it’s mark and as we’re walking across streets with his hand in mine, I explain that I would rather get hit before him.  He states, “Is it because you would give up your life for mine?”  Well, yeah.  I guess that’s it and I don’t think you’re supposed to understand that at this early age, but oh, 

well.  It’s so much easier to just count kitties and talk about easy things, but he might as well know now that peace in the middle east has never happened in my life time with the presidents that I’ve seen try it and probably won’t happen in his.  And that parents would give up their lives for their kids’.  We return to the market we passed and buy some more groceries including more pull ups for getting through Turkey to the UK.  We drop them back off at

 the apartment after our metro stops and sit on our balcony to cool off and relax a little.  It’s a beautiful day here and it’s hard to think about being at work today, or what “real” life should look like right now.  We occasionally have moments of missing home (mainly his toys on Oscar’s part, our bed for John and I), but there is something so wonderful about being able to walk around in 60 degree weather and just enjoy being in the sun.  It’s not beach weather, but we’re not shoveling snow either and that’s a plus for me.  We have dinner near us and gorge on souvlaki with Oscar eating homemade spaghetti again because we made it plain that he had to have the parmesan on the side.  That made all the difference…..we’re in early for an early start tomorrow.  Our one planned thing in Athens, a day trip to Delphi!