Once at the top of the limestone hill, my fever returns and my muscles are screaming at me. As impossible as it was to get out of the taxi on the way up the hill, was how it was to get in one on the way down and we end up walking through the never-ending twisted streets. When we finally reach a populated street with taxis, I decide to give the Acropolis a go. I do not last long at all, even for someone who hasn’t spent the past twenty four hours puking, the tourist infested ruins in the midday heat are a test of anyone’s stamina and patience. We grab a frozen lemonade after we have purchased our tickets, faithful that it will help us make it through the scorching hot day.
‘You can’t take this’ she says at the entrance,
I step back and rest my body against a piece of stone to slurp up the icy concoction
‘Do not sit on this’
I stand up and place my drink on the stone
‘Do not put things on…’
Jesus, help an ill woman out!
Drinks abandoned we head inside; wig worming our way through the streams of people. I have a good look at The Parthenon, the most significant building of classical Greece, it is magnificent and enough so for me to call it a day. I run for a taxi and cannot wait to rest my head against the window but am forced to consistently decline the taxi driver’s ‘helpful’ requests to take me on a taxi tour. When he shoves his guidebook into my hands, I have to put my foot down ‘ I am ill, I do not want a taxi tour, I want my bed before I am sick in your taxi’. That gets him to shut up.