Evzones Sunday parade and Acropolis at night

We grab some breakfast to go and head to Symtagma Square to see

the Sunday parade for the changing of the guard.  I’m heading to the Byzantine Museum because you have to make choices in what you want to see as I tell Oscar and a military parade is not on list compared to mosaics.  I leave them to fight off the hoards of 

people and watch for pickpockets.  The Byzantine Museum is very nice and easy to get through, and free today because it’s the first Sunday of the month.  So, the acropolis is free, the Temple of Olympian Zeus is free and we get some more things knocked off our list 

of things to see in Athens.  I meet the boys back at McDonald’s because the one in the square is the only one we’ve seen in the city at all.  Oscar’s been great of getting through all of this site seeing, but he still doesn’t understand the idea of a “low profile” and

we constantly have to keep telling him to stop singing, screaming, running around when he shouldn’t.  He’s having a good time, but it gets on our nerves, much less other peoples’ and there are times when it’s not appropriate.  We head out to the Panathenaic

 stadium and Oscar and John get to run around the track together.  I climb to the top to get pictures and there is an extreme sense of vertigo at times.  You’re so high up and you look down and there is nothing but a ton of white marble staring back at you with no railings and nothing to stop your fall.  I’m walking down sideways putting both feet on each stair in order to avoid any kind of accident and realize that this is something that I will never do again.  It’s a great place to see 

and experience, there’s great views from the top, but this is a “Been there, done that” moment that I don’t have to repeat.  We’re trying to waste time today in order to catch the Acropolis lit up at night.  We have a long dinner and then start heading toward it, but still

have time until we get lost in the Anafiotika section around the Acropolis.  We’re climbing up, but I have a feeling that we’ll have to come down again before we can get in to the Acropolis.  We pop out practically on top of Mars Hill, which is awesome because I

wanted to come up here at some point and here we are.  We clamber up a little bit more and the marble is so slick on this rock, I’m afraid for myself and it’s really hard to climb with a 5 year old holding your hand and slipping everywhere.  This is an awesome view and

it’s magic hour.  We get to see the Evzones marching up the Acropolis for some reason, but don’t know what it is.  But now, Oscar wants to hurry and get there in case they’re doing something special.  Then starts the constant questions, “why”, “why”, “why”.  I finally have

to tell him to stop and tell him that we don’t know the answer, but get him to stop by promising that we’ll ask at the ticket center.  As we get closer and closer to the ticket area, we’re starting to notice that there is no one in the Acropolis and realize that it is closed.  So,

climbing the Acropolis again when it is free and dark is not going to happen for us.  But as we rest our tired feet at a café to wait for sunset, we see that the Greek flag and flag pole are down, so we know what the Evzones were doing up there now.  After some

         dessert and drinks, we get our pictures of the Acropolis at night and get the hell out of dodge because we are all dragging now.  We walked almost 10 miles today alone.  Sleeping well tonight and not going anywhere tomorrow.