Athens deserves a little bit of a historical rundown in order to understand its expansive history and ancient monuments. Before we left, the few guidebooks and websites we read described Athens as over-filled with concrete apartment complexes, unbearable traffic jams, and unrelenting clouds of smog known as nefos. While Andy and I did discover these issues in existence, along with extensive almost art-like graffiti everywhere, there was much more to Athens that we felt trumped any of these issues.
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| Much of the graffiti was political-themed and purposefully placed in certain parts of the city. This one was written outside a woman’s clothing store. |
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| Examples of some of the graffiti we saw. |
For starters, Athens had seen a mini transformation come along in the form of the 2000 Olympics, which forced the city to modernize and create a more user-friendly atmosphere for tourists and high density traffic. A great example of this was in 2000, Athens opened up their first metro. The fact that they have a population of 4.5 million and no metro or tube was surprising; the influx of tourists during the Olympics had obviously created enough public transportation issues that a metro of some kind became a necessity. There was a metro station outside the Hotel Grand Bretagne and it was consistantly used throughout the day and night.
The Olympics, along with the restructuring and updating of the Athens International Airport, also brought huge expansion of Athens suburbs with more neatly lined streets and better cared-for houses along with numerous small businesses and a rise in patronage to the local restaurants. The city also began re-paving streets and filling in potholes. Needless to say, Athens carried a lot of its old tunes with significant improvement and expansion that created a city easy to understand and fall in love with. Along with it came fiercely proud Athenians who did not let the recent economic crisis slow down their businesses or their culture. People were kind, hospitable, fun-loving, and welcoming.
Andy is our adventure planner – he does an excellent and thorough job planning our vacations. He has a great attention to detail and he always thinks of things I don’t. He had figured out that the key to seeing the Acropolis was to see it as early as possible in order to avoid the crowds. In order to do this early exploration of the Acropolis, we had to wake up at 6 a.m., an instruction I wasn’t too happy about following. But, I knew Andy had to be right as he usually is, so we woke up at 6 and trekked our way across downtown Athens, the Athens business district, the Plaka district, and made our way to the Acropolis which opened at 8 a.m.
We wove our way around complicated and colorful houses and businesses, up and down cobblestone streets getting closer and closer to the Acropolis. At one point an older Greek gentleman saw us standing near his house looking around and immediately gave us directions in broken English to the Acropolis. I’m sure he was used to lost, wayward tourists.
I will make a lot of comments about this in blog posts to come, but the heat was UNBEARABLE. I kept telling Andy I was going to die of heat stroke. We were sweating in every place on our body. It was insane. Our hike to the Acropolis ended in just that – insane sweat.
We finally got to the entrance to the Acropolis and paid for our tickets. Andy had it right – there was no one there and we had arrived right at 8 a.m. We had the area to ourselves, at least for awhile. We explored a bit at the base until about 8:30 when the tour buses started showing up. We ended up behind two massive tour groups, one German and one Chinese. We attempted to move around them and ran into a Greek military training.
After getting the surprise opportunity to view the training, we continued to make our way up to the Acropolis. The Acropolis is the ancient citadel that contains historical remains of several ancient Greek buildings. It was established by Pericles in the fifth century BC; what remains today are a total of 21 different buildings, statues, altars, and sanctuaries all in varying degrees of stress and reconstruction. The most famous and widely recognized structures are the Parthenon, the Propylaia, the Erechtheion, the Theater of Dionysus, Odeon of Herodes Atticus and the Temple of Athena Nike.
The Parthenon is, of course, the most famous of all the structures on the Acropolis. Its construction lasted from 447 BC to 432 BC during the rise of the Athenian Empire. It served primarily as a temple, dedicated to the Goddess Athena, whom Athens was named after. Over different periods of Greek occupation and war, it has served as a treasury, a Christian Church, a Mosque, and a storage unit for ammunition. It was severely damaged in1687 by a Venetian bombardment and remained largely destroyed and unkempt until 1975.
In 1975, the Greek government, which existed as an independent Greek state after achieving autonomy from the Ottoman Empire in 1822, established a Committee for the Conservation of the Monuments with a large-scale goal of restoring the Acropolis and all major buildings on it, including most importantly the Parthenon. Much to tourists’ annoyance (including numerous traveler reviewers of the Acropolis), this restoration is still on-going. As a result, this had led to scaffolding and other work-related paraphernalia sneaking their way uninvited into tourists pictures.
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| You can see the scaffolding on the right |
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| Interior scaffolding and construction equipment. |
The Erechtheum, just as beautiful, but not as famous as the Parthenon, sits to the side of the Parthenon tucked into the shadows. It served as a temple, built between 421 BC and 406 BC by the same sculptor who designed the Parthenon. Its purpose as a temple is debated amongst Greek historians, with some claiming it was designed to honor King Erectheus, a character in Homer’s Iliad, while others claim it was meant to be a replacement for another temple dedicated to Athena that was destroyed by the Persians. It sits on the slope of the Acropolis and contains a variety of rooms and areas including porches, altars, and balconies. The most famous of these areas are the Porch of the Caryatids and the Porch of the Maidens with columns designed to look like women.
The Theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus was an outdoor theater used for festivals to honor the God Dionysus, the God of the grape harvest, winemaking, wine, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theater (whoa).
Often confused with the Theater of Dionysys is the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, an ampetitheater built in 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. It served as an area to hold music concerts. It was restored in the 1950’s and is used today as a space for concerts and other performances including the Athens Festival. It has boasted many famous musicians including Maria Callas, Frank Sinatra, and Luciano Pavarotti. It is probably the most well-kept and least-damaged of all buildings on the Acropolis.
The Acropolis had a variety of other ancient buildings and fallen statutes/temples that had questionable identity. Despite the damaged look, you could feel the Greek history everywhere.
At the outermost point of the Acropolis stood a Greek flag and some beautiful views of Athens.
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| A gyro was soon to appear on the plate |
As I was eating my gyro and minding my own business I saw a small shadow move beneath the table. I looked down and saw this:
This irresistible face started the following conversation between Andy and myself:
Throughout the duration of the trip we ran into a lot of animals (again, stay tuned for the upcoming blog post), and I insisted that Andy name each one for me. This little kitty was named Katrina the Kitty. Katrina enjoyed her pork and strawberry ice cream, said thank you (seriously), got a few head scratches and sauntered off. One of the many animals that would melt my heart on this trip.
Stay tuned for the next post: Honeymoon Day 2 Part II.