Aah #Athens! This city is my unofficial favorite of the whole trip for the moment. Friendly people, friendly #cats, charming streets and neighborhoods, random ruins amidst them all, a chill-laid-back cafe culture with tons of hole-in-the-wall and rooftop-of-grandma’s-house restaurants, beautiful weather....sigh❤️ Only drawback is that it’s way pricier than one would expect for a country that was bankrupt a few years ago.
📸
First pic: #Temple of Hephaestus, god of fire and smithing, in the Ancient Agora dates from 450BCE.
📸
Second pic: Ceiling fresco of JC from the #Church of the Holy Apostles, a gorgeous little Byzantine number from the 10th century. There are 8 windows that ring the central dome allowing light to still catch on fragments of remaining gold leaf. I imagine he fairly well glowed from that combo of light and material for centuries. 📸
Third pic: Hadrian’s Library. The #Roman Emperor built this impressive structure with 100 columns, alabaster walls, niches for books and scrolls, halls with painted ceilings, a central garden and a pool in 132CE. 📸
Fourth pic: 12 meter tall monument to and mausoleum of Roman Senator Philopappos, 114CE. Before being renamed after him, this hill was called Hill of the Muses as it was believed the 9 Muses lived here. Just the other side of the hilltop is the Pynx, the site where in 508BCE, the political concept of #democracy was born and adopted by Athenians. Speaking to 5,000 citizens of Athens seated on the stone terraces here, orators would debate and #political decisions would be made 10 times a year.
📸
Fifth pic: The BEST #gyro in Athens (gluten pill required).
📸
Sixth pic: One of MANY said friendly cats.
About the only reason to visit #Cairo is right here. I really *really* wanted to like the #city and #culture because of its amazing #history but nope, just can’t do it when faced with its ugly reality.
🔺
•
Everyone should put in 2 solid days seeing the sites (Day 1: #Giza, #Sphinx, Saqqara, Dashur, Memphis; Day 2: #Islamic and #Coptic areas) but then... get the hell out.😑 🔺
•
We were eager to shake the dust from our feet (not even metaphorical) so we hit up the airline lounge early to find *hours* old sunny side up eggs (soft cooked yolk had dried and cracked🤮) and fool so over-warmed and aged that it had a crust thicker than any cream brûlée, plastic wrapped sandwiches and muffins of all sorts (#gluten allergy means it’s just tray upon tray of #poison). 🔺
•
Ugh... without a doubt this is the anus of our 6 month round-the-world trip. I’m even a little torn over being this honest but seeing and speaking on only the positive things isn’t reality. “Love and light” is a bullshit cop out. When I have time to put the #blog together, I’ll be including the super cool stuff (what you can see in 2 days) and also the super uncool stuff...nonstop dust, rubbish, filth, rudeness, dead horses left to rot in the streets, harassment by hawkers and rape stares/commentary (despite being covered up), etc.
#Giza: City of Rubble. This was perhaps the most unexpected sight of the day (despite visiting 4 #cities, 6 main #pyramids, numerous lesser #ancient structures, being introduced to #koshari and Moses the Ornery Camel). If a road is not a legit highway, it’s packed dirt with piles of construction refuse and trash creating ‘curbs’ and marking its boundaries. The overall rubbish and sanitation situation here makes #Bali look like Siem Reap - saw 2 dead #horses being left to bloat and rot, one in a canal with people fishing next to it and the other just pushed to the side of a road, part of ‘curb’. And the housing boggles the mind. Buildings average 10-20 stories, are made of reinforced concrete vertical risers and poured concrete floors. You see the grey concrete supports every 10’ or so along the length of the walls and the rest is filled with red brick rubble held in place with a bare dab of cement at random corners. Light, sound, dust and pollution filter through the walls with minimal impediment. The interiors of the buildings - framing, drywall, water, electricity and glazing are only finished when someone buys/rents the space. Every window you see in this vid that’s not glazed, is unoccupied and unfinished (though, truth be told, we did see #goats on a second floor and on a rooftop). There are entire buildings with absolutely no one living in them, or with just 2-3 random units inhabited....and MORE are constantly being built! I can’t wrap my head around why these #death traps keep popping up when the existing, finished buildings are far from full or in decent repair. As of 2017, there were 4.7M “complete” vacant housing units and another 7.1M were unfinished due to lack of funding. Another source states that currently there are 13M units either under construction or finished but unoccupied, compared with 22.5M inhabited. This is a shocking misuse of funds and dreadful stewardship of resources - diverting help from the people who clearly need it in numerous, unaddressed ways.
