Aegina

Today we ventured to another island for a day trip. The island of Aegina is about an hour and a half ferry ride from Athens' Piraeus port.  The weather was a little chilly today, but only a light jacket was necessary, which made for a great time on the island. We only went to a few sites, but some neat ones nonetheless. Also, we were still gone for over 13 hours.

Some ferry shots.

Aegina!

Our first stop was Zeus Hellanios, a sanctuary to Zeus.

There were two cisterns here. A small one (above) and a larger one (below). Now, goats drink from them.

The second stop was the Temple of Aphaia. The worship at this site dates back to around 1300 BCE.

Third, we made a stop at Paliachora. This used to be a village on the hill, but all that is left now are the churches from the villages. There were around 20 structures on a loop that took us roughly an hour to hike. When we finished our hike, there was a man by our bus selling pistachios out of the back of his motorcycles. Aegina is known for their pistachios, so we got some.

Our final stop was at Kolonna. Here there was a museum and an archaeological site, which contained a well-known column on a temple to Apollo.

We passed this on the way to the museum. I took a picture because the saying "move Big Ben to Syntagma" was written several times. Apparently, England has some of Greece's artifacts and refuses to return them, so I'm thinking this is a joke about moving something of England's to Greece.

If you didn't want to take a taxi, You could take a horse and buggy from the port to wherever you needed to go.