Salty Seniorita

7/13/08

Today we went to the City of Athens Museum which is housed in a mansion that was once lived in by King Otto and Queen Amalia. The bottom level had all these paintings and drawings of the famous ruins in the 18th and 19th centuries. The second and third stories of the house had lots of furnishings and items used by the King and queen. The place was pretty cool but like everything else we have come across in Athens, lacking in sufficient explanations of things to make it really interesting.

After the museum and a failed attempt to find an internet cafe (it's a Sunday and about 50% of everything is closed) we decided to spend the remainder of the full day in Athens at the beach, like the rest of the Greeks. We grabbed our swimsuits, sunscreen, and a few euros and hopped the metro to Pireas, a coastal port, and then to a tram that runs between all the beaches . We stopped at the first beach we saw and stumbled upon a very small beach jam-packed with people. The beach had little to no sand but instead was covered in rocks. After a slightly painful walk from our towel to the ocean we got into the very clear Aegean sea and for the first time in 5 days felt truly cooled down. We swam for a bit there and decided to hop the tram to another less-crowded beach. The next one was still rocky but with less people and even clearer water. It was so wonderful to get out of the busy, noisy,hot and dirty city to nap on the beach and cool off in the water. the funniest thing was how salty the water and beach were. The rocks were covered in salt and by the time we left we were perfectly seasoned as well.