Athens, Greece

We flew from Dubrovnik to Athens in the afternoon and had some time before bed to stroll around with city. In our neighborhood, which is in the shadow of the Acropolis, we happened upon a wonderful restaurant called Spika, which means wasp in Greek. We ended up going to this restaurant twice because we loved it so much!

We were all excited for the next morning because we were going on a Percy Jackson themed tour of the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum. Teddy is a huge Percy Jackson fan and has read all of the books. Percy Jackson is to Greek Gods what Harry Potter is to Wizards. Percy is a demigod son of Poseidon. 

Part of the tour was having a 3D iPad to see what each building at the Acropolis looked like when it was in use. In the middle of this photo in white is our tour guide who is an archeologist and fan of the books!

After getting our iPads we ventured to the top of the hill to see the Acropolis. 

On our way up, we passed a beautiful Ampitheater that is sill in use today. The story is that the person who built it for the city built it in honor of his dead wife because she loved music. The bad part of the story is that he killed her. Yikes!

Teddy was so excited to see the Parthenon and said to be before this picture was taken, "I can't believe I am here!"

Athens is named after the Goddess Athena. It is said that she and Poseidon had a competition to see who the city would be named after. Poseidon gave the city a salt water well, which wasn't very useful at the time. But Athena gave the city an olive tree, which was very useful so the city was named after her. While the Parthenon is dedicated to Athena, so is this smaller temple which is the site of the two gifts.  There is a salt water well to the left of this entrance and an olive tree to the right. Cool, huh?

In the opposite side of this small temple is said to be the grave of the first King of Athens. The stone women are marking this place as giving permanent offerings to the King. I remembered this from when I visited as a child.

As we walked out, this was the view of the city. Spectacular!

We then walked down to the new Acropolis Museum, which was absolutely amazing. The first thing we encountered in the floor was the remains of an offering. I loved that our guide got all of the kids down on the floor to talk about it.

The statues in the previous picture are actually replicas to preserve the originals from acid rain. Here is one of the originals in the museum. We got to learn about how they were restored.



One of the coolest parts of the museum is the beautiful view up to the Acropolis. 

The inside of the museum has the exact dimensions of the Parthenon so you can see what some parts would have looked like. I loved these scrolls that would have been on the top of the original roof. 

That afternoon, it was so hot so we found a shady spot with 100 other Americans to watch the US Women's National Soccer Team defeat the Netherlands.

The next morning we walked through the neighborhood surrounding the Acropolis called Plaka. After enjoying breakfast and a stroll, we went to the Parliment building to see the changing of the guard. 

We then walked to me of the original Athens settlements to see the Temple of Haephestus who is the God of Blacksmithing.

The view from here to the Acropolis was amazing. 

The boys enjoyed pretending to be Greek Gods at one of the structures. 

Even Michael got in on the fun!

 

 

We love playing games, especially Uno, and have played it all over the world. Greece was no different!

We finished the day at the Temple of Zeus. 

Kotor, Montenegro

We traveled by bus (a bus that was supposed to take two hours but actually took four hours because of the boarder crossing into Montenegro) to Kotor, Montenegro, which is Shana's 50th country! As we have done our whole vacation, we were excited to stay in the old part of the city. In Kotor, the old part of the city is inside the walled city. This beautiful and small city reminded us of a miniture version of Dubrovnik. 

We started our time in the city at the Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas, which was built in 1902, after the original church and monistary where destroyed in a fire. 

Opposite this church is the smaller St. Lucas' Church, which was built in 1195 (yes, you read that correctly).

Our guide book said that some of the best and most iconic baked goods in the city can be found at Cafe Forza. We are not ones to pass up a good baked good so we headed to the restaurant in the main square. Michael and I absolutely loved the baked apple dessert (top photo) and the traditional lemon and almond cake called Dobrotska Torta (bottom photo). Since neither of these desserts were made from chocolate, the kids refused! Too bad, they were amazing!

The sun was starting to set so we walked to one of the gates to see the city walls.

Our apartment was owned by the same people who own Bokun, an amazing local restaurant in the square below where we were staying. We ended up eating there three times!

We also took the long way back to our hotel through the small lanes. 

The next morning, the boys were so excited to go to the Cat Museum. Cats are a fixture in Kotor (almost every souvenir has a cat on it) and we thought this was a great way to start the day. In addition to two beautiful little kittens, the museum had one of the largest collections of cat related items we have ever seen!

We then took a little boat tour around the city and into the harbors that surround Kotor. Our first stop was a little island with the unimpressive Our Lady of the Lake Church (so unimpressive that we didn't even take a picture). We did take a picture of Teddy and I standing on our respective directions on the compass rose.

We then went out into the Adriatic to see the blue cave. We had all wanted to swim inside the cave but there were too many boats and the driver thought it was too dangerous. We did get to swim outside the cave and the water was beautiful.

We also got to drive into a submarine tunnel from WWII or later. 

On the way home, we got to take a quick dip in the water off Kotor. 

On the way to find a spot for dinner, we found some really wonderful cats!

The kids loved pretending to be in prison on the city walls.

We ended up back at our favorite restaurant for our last night in Kotor!