After wandering around in the exposed heat of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, I needed to cool off. Thankfully, the National Gardens of Athens are directly opposite, so I stood under some trees there and fanned myself. In these gardens is also the Zappeion, a very nice Neoclassical building which is used for some official duties, especially to do with the Olympics. It was lovely and cool inside, as the marble and high ceilings kept the temperatures down, and there was a little garden that you could see through the field of columns.

I popped out on the other side of the park and walked down to the Academy of Athens then wandered around a bit more. It's such a lovely city, full of interesting nooks and crannies, graffiti and plants.

About 1pm, I decided I couldn't handle the heat anymore (I've obviously been living in London for too long!) and went back to my hotel to have a siesta/watch the Tour de France on TV. I emerged a few hours later when it was quite a bit cooler - it was delicious... just cool enough for walking around, but still warm, with cicadas singing. I was talked into going to this restaurant by a lovely old man spruiker - I don't usually let them get to me but I didn't really see a lot of options (one place I went to tried to tell me they had a very traditional spaghetti bolognese). It was pretty good food with a decent view over the Plaka so was rather enjoyable. I finished my evening early, before heading back to my hotel to pack. I had a 9am flight to Santorini to catch the next day!