running 58:34 [3]
shoes: Asics Trabuco
This run owed more to direction sense than map memory. I started out down through Plaka with the intention of going across the national gardens but they were closed because of the Special Olympics opening ceremony, so I had to go past Syntagma square (making a mental note not to come back that way because, although there wasn't much of a gathering yet, the presence of an effigy with its head in a noose didn't bode well). My destination was Likavitos, an incredibly steep hill which towers above the city with a church on top. I came up from the south, reached the top just on sunset, admired the view and headed down to the west, or so I thought. But in fact the streets go SW or NW, and I didn't want to go too far south towards the square, so I went sort of the other way and the first landmark I recognised, despite never having been there, was the subway station at Omonia.
As I had hoped, there was a clear view south to the Acropolis from there, but I ended up running through the crowded restaurant streets around its west side, to actually get back to the hotel. And then when I looked at the map to see where I had been, I realised it wasn't actually that far, because the map is 1:7500 (and has been the best twenty bucks I've spent in a while).