Ruins and cats

First close up of ruins was the temple of Olympian Zeus. You will note it looks wet and freezing. That jacket is mine. Lyn stole it on day 2 and I only saw it again to pack it.

The temple was begun by the Peisistratids but wasn’t finished till the Romans presumably found its unfinished state an offence to their tidy minds.

Lyn spotted the Athens Gate Hotel so we left a message there for Gae Callender letting her know where we were staying. Our shopping expedition in Athens was a culture shock. A street of butchers, a street of hardware shops and a real struggle to find a department store for Lyn to buy an extra umbrella, face stuff and, first priority, a hair dryer.

Lyn had a memorable discussion with a girl shop assistant. Lyn asked, in her best carefully researched Greek, if they had something. The girl tossed her head back and clicked her tongue. Lyn was affronted till I explained that this simply meant “No”. 

What amazed me was that they had only 3 hairdryer types – no choice.

That evening Gae and a friend invited us to dinner at a local restaurant. This was our first, and last, encounter with retsina. The food was a mixed bag and there seemed to be tension between Gae and her companion.

Kitten in restaurant - cats everywhere. Gae looked bushed and they gave us 1000 handy hints for Egypt.