Visiting a place like Athens requires quite the imagination. Many of the ruins are very ruined, and the purpose of most that you'll find there was to pay tribute to one of countless Ancient Greek gods. The mythical story of the birth of Athens is like an ancient 50 Shades of Gray. It involves one male god coming onto Athenia, then getting rejected at the last moment before accidentally impregnating the earth. You can look up the fuller story if you want more details. Or you can just move on, much like we decided to do.

Compared to many other capitol cities that we visited, Athens seemed to be cleaner and less crowded. We stayed in a hostel under the shadow of the Acropolis. Since I'm a connoisseur of chocolate milk, I was naturally quite pleased to discover that iced chocolates are apparently popular in Greece as well. I ordered one on the way up to the Acropolis at a beautiful cafe in a neighborhood called Anafiotika. The cafe also had water misters and caged birds that sang to visitors. And for all these reasons, the both of us really enjoyed the experience. 

Throughout our stay, we visited Hadrian's Arch, the Library of Hadrian, and several other structures including temples that were finished by the famous Roman emperor. It's interesting how much Ancient Greek culture and tradition was promulgated by subsequent leaders like Alexander the Great and Hadrian who weren't Greek. 

The roots of the Western world start in Greece. During a fifty year golden age, an enormous and iconic complex was constructed on the top of the Acropolis. It paid tribute to the gods and to Greek democracy, the first instance of democracy in the known world. Today, many of its main features are contained in museums in London and Athens, some of which we visited. Not far from the Acropolis is Mars Hill, where Paul preached to the Athenians. Since they were a superstitious people wanting to cover all of their bases, they had erected an alter to the unknown God. In case they forgot one, they didn't want to incur his wrath. Paul used this as an opening to talk about the one and only true God named Jesus that offered salvation and forgiveness rather than punishment. 

One last place we visited was the Ancient Agora, where Athenians conducted their daily business, attended the theater, voted on public policies, debated philosophy, and started their annual pilgrimage up to the Acropolis. One of the stoas had been rebuilt and houses a museum with artifacts from the area. A stoa is like a modern shopping mall, where artisans sold their goods and cooks served up hot souvlaki.

Speaking of souvlaki, we found a place called Souvlaki Row, where you could order a takeout portion for two Euros. Only two Euros! Thank you, god of souvlaki.