Καλησπέρα από την Αθήνα (Day 57 - GToE)

Translation: Good Evening from Athens

Okay, before I talk about my first day in Athens, I need to give you my overall review of Istanbul. I really enjoyed my time in Istanbul, but I could never live there...or in any Muslim country. Being woken up at the ass crack of dawn every day with the call to prayer would grate on my nerves. But I will say that the Turks are some of the nicest people (notable exceptions are the carpet salesmen). Well, actually the carpet salesmen are nice, but annoyingly persistent and you just want them to go away. I would recommend a visit to Turkey, but I seriously don't think anyone needs more than a couple of days there. 

Now, let's talk about Athens. It's been a wish of mine for many, many years to visit this city. You see, no other city has contributed more to the civilization of mankind than Athens. It is the birthplace of Socrates, Plato, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and many others. It is the place where humanism and democracy were born. The intellectual light that Athens created will always be alive and now I'm here. Score!  

I arrived in Athens fairly late last evening (9:00pm) and didn't get to my hotel until after 10:00pm. But I did luck out with my hotel/hostel. It's actually both. It's a hotel that has a few rooms set up as dorms. My four bed dorm room only has 1 person in it: me. Whether it stays that way during my entire stay, that remains to be seen. After a fairly good night's sleep, I woke, ate some breakfast and made my way to the metro to meet up with my Athens walking tour that I booked months ago. I've been on quite a number of walking tours over the past 2 months and this tour was the best by far. Guided by Greek native and fully-licensed guide, Artemis, I learned so much about Athens and Greece and the amazing history here. I thought I was fairly well versed in Greek history, but it still was an incredible learning experience.

The tour started in the Syntagma metro station. Whenever they excavate an area to put in a new metro station, the archaeologists invariably find ruins, so instead of removing the ruins and bringing them to a museum, they turn the metro station into a mini-museum. Genius! Then we walked over the the Parliament building in order to see the changing of the guards. Athens changing of the guard is on par with Arlington National Cemetery and not Buckingham Palace. These guards (known as evzones) keep watch 24/7/365 over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. At the top of each hour, they perform a series of synchronized movements which are fun to watch. Even more interesting are their uniforms which have a rich traditional history. 

Next we walked through the National Gardens, past the Zappeion conference center, to reach The Temple of Olympian Zeus, which is a humongous ruined temple that was dedicated to Zeus, king of the Olympian gods. "Construction began in the 6th century BC during the rule of the Athenian tyrants, who envisaged building the greatest temple in the ancient world, but it was not completed until the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD some 638 years after the project had begun. During the Roman periods it was renowned as the largest temple in Greece and housed one of the largest cult statues in the ancient world" (Wikipedia). This temple was actually twice the size of the Parthenon. Only 16 columns remain of the original 104, 15 standing and one lying on the ground where it fell during a storm in 1852. The statue has long since disappeared. This ruin is immense and beautiful. 

Next was a short bathroom/snack break, in which I had a little taste of the most delicious Greek yogurt with dark cherries. Okay, I know I raved about Chobani in a posting awhile back, but the Greek yogurt we have the U.S. is just not the real thing. If you want to truly taste the most delicious Greek yogurt, get on a plane!

We then headed toward the Acropolis. Okay, for those who don't know: The Acropolis is the hill where the most important Greek ruins are located. On that hill are the ruins of the Parthenon (the largest temple), the Temple of Athena Nike, the Propylaia, and the Erechtheion. The entire Acropolis complex was dedicated to the goddess Athena, who according to Greek legend, beat out Poseidon in becoming the patron god of this city. The legend states that Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, Athena created the olive tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. The Athenians, under their ruler Cecrops, accepted the olive tree and named the city after Athena.

As we began our climb up the hill, we made a few stops along the way. The first stop was the Theatre of Dionysus. This ancient open air theatre was used in festivals to celebrate the god Dionysus and seated 17,000 spectators. Some of the most famous playwrights of Ancient Greece had their plays performed here: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and others. At this moment, it is nearly completely unrestored which I think makes it more interesting. There are a couple of sections that for safety reason needed to restoration but otherwise it's in amazing shape for something that's been around since the sixth century B.C.

Next we viewed the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, another entertainment venue. While the Theatre was used for plays, the Odeon was strictly for musical entertainment. At one time, it had a roof which has since been lost to time. But a good portion of this site has been restored because it is still used as an entertainment venue today - during the summer months. With a capacity of 5,000 spectators, this venue has seen performances by Maria Callas, Frank Sinatra, Luciano Pavarotti, Yanni, Elton John, Andrea Bocelli, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Placido Domingo, and so many others. It's an amazing looking site and I'm kind of sad I've never seen a concert there.

Next, we moved up the hill to view the Propylaia, which is the entrance to the site, and the Temple of Athena Nike. Then we entered the site via the Propylaia and there it was...

The Parthenon! The structure known as the Parthenon is technically the third Parthenon. The current building was started in 447 BC and was completed in 438 BC. Do the math. That's a mere 9 years to build a massive structure and unlike other structures, the Parthenon was not built by slaves but only by Athenians. The Parthenon lasted intact until 26 September 1687 when it was partially destroyed. The Ottoman Turks were storing gunpowder in the building and the Venetians, in trying to overthrow the Turks, hit the building with a cannonball causing an explosion and destroying a good portion of the structure. Restoration of the Parthenon and other Acropolis structures began in 1972 and has been on-going ever since. The plan is not to restore it to its pre-1687 condition, but to make it structurally sound as Athens is prone to earthquakes which could damage the buildings further. Because of the on-going work, every photo I took (sadly) contains some sort of machinery or scaffolding. Oh well.

The Erechtheion is a temple that was created to honor both Athena and Poseidon, because the Greeks didn't want to piss off a Greek god so they honored Poseidon with a portion of this temple. This temple is probably most famous for the Porch of the Caryatids which has six draped female figures (caryatids) as supporting columns (see photo). I have seen many, many photos of these six statues. Under this porch is said to be the burial places of the mythical kings Cecrops and Erechtheus. It is also said that on the north side of the temple are the three strike marks of Poseidon's trident which flowed the salt water spring; in addition, the place where Athena's olive tree grew is behind the temple, if you believe those myths.

That completed the Acropolis portion of the tour. After heading back down the hill, the group then toured the magnificent Acropolis Museum. This new museum (which opened in 2009) holds all the artifacts from the Acropolis. The museum is the size of the Parthenon and lies on the ruins of Roman and early Byzantine Athens. The building is designed with glass floors so that visitors can see the ruins below grounds. The upper floor has the same layout of the Parthenon in order to showcase the temple's frieze and other items in the way that they were intended. The museum also has the original statues from the Porch of the Caryatids, which were moved indoors to protect them from the elements. The ones on the Acropolis are copies. Sadly, there is a large amount of items from the Parthenon in the British Museum in London. The Earl of Elgin pretty much stole a bunch of statues and portions of the frieze to decorate his mansion before selling them to the British Museum to pay off his debts (the Elgin Marbles). Greece has repeatedly tried to get these items back but to no avail.

After all of that, I headed over to the Plaka region to have a late lunch/early dinner, which was so yummy. I then walked around town for a little bit and went up to a rooftop location in order to take a photo of the Acropolis at night, before making my way back to my hotel. It was a very full and very exciting first day in Athens. The weather was so-so today; extremely overcast and a bit chilly on the hill. Tomorrow the weather is calling for rain all day, which is terrible as I have an afternoon tour planned for the Cape Sounion and the Temple of Poseidon. <grrr> Oh well, it cannot be helped.

All of my day 57 photos can be viewed on my GToE photo site.