Olympic Stadium, Guards & God's Restaurant

On the taxi ride to my hotel, I saw the Panathinaiko Stadium and was so stunned, I knew I had to go back and drink in the panoramic view by foot. It reminded me of the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Surrounded by a park and well to do homes, it is now a tourist draw and a relic of earlier athletic contests, before the high tech super stadiums, but steeped in a sense of history that no modern facility can rival.


A few blocks away is the home of the President of Greece, and since there were demonstrations during my time in Athens, the police and security for the area were heightened to the point of street closures around this entire area. The formal changing of the guards continued, but there were armed patrols keeping any tourists and or picture takers from getting too close.


I took these pictures using the zoom on my camera.


After all the hiking around town, I had to eat and what better place than a restaurant called "God's Restaurant"? Facing the new Acropolis Museum, this is a nice street side cafe which actually serves salads! Greeks call salad eaters "Grass Eaters" and I had not found any restaurant that specialized in this kind of food, so I had the God's Salad, which had delicious chunks of salami and fried cheese in a homemade dressing. I loved this salad because it was filling enough to be a meal and it was light enough not to make me feel like I had eaten too much. All for under $15 USD and a view of a pedestrian street facing the modern Museum.

If God had a restaurant, I'm sure this dish would have been on the menu.