athens, greece

The number one thing we wanted to make sure we did when we found out Wes had cancer was travel to Europe.  It is something both of us have always wanted to do.  It has always been our "one day we'll do that" goal.  After he got sick we decided to make "someday" into "today" and planned our trip to Europe.  With a lot of help from family taking care of our house and girls we spent a day traveling and arrived in Athens.  The fact that we caught each of our connections even with a Boston weather delay is a miracle.  So many things had to go right for us to make it, and magically it did.

On our way to our Mediterranean cruise we took a taxi through downtown Athens.  The city was crawling with people and apartments on top of apartments.  Millions of people live in this ancient city.  The roads are full of cars and pedestrians making it very tricky to navigate.  It was a bit of a dirty city, but I was completely fascinated by all the shops, restaurants, and people we drove by.

Our driver took us to the top of a rocky hill to see the acropolis of Athens.  

It was breathtaking to stand at the top and look out on all sides at the city of Athens, buildings and apartments as far as you can see.

We loved walking around the Parthenon.  Most of the historical sites we saw were undergoing some kind of restoration. I said this about most places we went, but it was truly breathtaking.  We had a wonderful afternoon exploring and marveling at the ancient architecture.  I couldn't even tell that I had barely slept in 24 hours.

After we left our driver took us to our cruise ship.  It was the perfect beginning to our trip and made me so much more excited than I thought I could be for the next two weeks of traveling.