Just a few orders of business to begin with before I tell
you all about what I learned today. It’s
mom’s birthday! (Everyone say: “Happy birthday, mom!” Great, thanks.) We didn’t do anything too crazy, but we had
lunch with Abi near her school and she got a delicious lemon pie with a candle
in the top. Yum! Also, happy Bastille Day from Golden Coast! This morning we noticed that there were all
sorts of French flags hanging around.
There is a huge French population staying at the hotel, so I’m sure they
appreciate it.
Another early morning.
Who’s surprised? No one? Well, I suppose I’ll skip the rigmarole of
getting downtown because you call could probably do it as well as we can by
now. Our tour today was only five and a
half hours. We got a driving tour of the
important sites in downtown Athens (including many sites that have already been
mentioned in the blog: Parliament, the National Library, etc.), got to stop for
10 minutes or so at the Panathenic Olympic Stadium (the first stadium used in
the modern Olympic games), walked up the Acropolis of Athens, and a visited the
new and delightful Acropolis Museum.
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| Panathenic Olympic Stadium |
I have already had the pleasure of visiting the Acropolis of
Athens before in July of 2011 on a cruise excursion, but that didn’t detract
from my enjoyment of the visit today. In
fact, we were all impressed by the improvements the Athenians have made on the
pathways (they were much more easily navigated) and the weather was
significantly better in the morning as compared to mid-afternoon. One thing that I didn’t realize is that the
Acropolis is not located on the highest hill in Athens, but the second
highest. This is because it is the only
hill with a water source, which was strategically important in making the area
defensible in the case of attack. A
little history lesson for you: The
Acropolis was settled in 3200 BCE. It
started as a small town, but eventually only the rich and important lived
there. With the rise of democracy in the
6th century BCE the Athenians declared the space to be sacred and
offered it up to the gods. The shrines
located on the top of the Acropolis were all built between 400 BCE to 400 CE.
The first sight to see while walking up the hill is the Odeon
of Herodes Atticus. This is a theatre
built in the 2nd century BCE for the use of musical performances
only, distinguishing it from an amphitheatre like the one in Epidaurus which is
for dramatic performances. If you turn to look down the hill it is possible to
see the Temple to Hephaestus, the god of blacksmiths and craftsmen, where the
Greek Agora (or market place) was also located.
This is the best preserved temple in Athens – it even has some of its
original roof intact. Finally, as you
climb you can see the rock, called Areios Pagos (“Ares Rock”), where the
Apostle Paul preached Christianity for the first time in Greece.
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| Odeon of Herodes Atticus |
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| Temple of Hephaestus and the Agora |
We finally made it up to the top of the Acropolis and got to
see the temples located there. First is
the Temple of Nike, the goddess of victory, where they erected a statue of Nike
without her wings in order to trap her in Athens (I don’t think that worked out
for them very well). Then there was the Erechtheion
with its porch held up by six intricate statues of maidens. The statues up on the Acropolis are replicas,
but we got to see the real statues in the museum later. There was also a fountain that where the
Athenians had rerouted the stream that has been running over the Acropolis for
thousands of years, so we got to take a sip of that. It was good and very refreshing, but it did
have a mineral flavor from running through the ground.
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| Erechtheion and the Porch of the Maidens |
Finally, of course, was the Parthenon. The Parthenon is dedicated to the goddess
Athena, who won the city of Athens from Poseidon in a contest. The two gods were fighting over the city at
the top of the Acropolis and Zeus came down to settle the argument. He decreed that each got would give the
Athenians a gift and they would choose which they liked better. Athena gifted the Athenians with an olive
tree and won the votes of all the women, while Poseidon gifted them with a
fresh water stream and won the votes of all the men. As it was, the women outnumbered the men, and
so Athena, the virgin goddess of wisdom and defensive warfare, became the
patron of the city and gave it her name.
However, since Poseidon’s gift was so important, the Athenians also paid
him a great deal of homage in the decoration of the Acropolis. The word Parthenon actually means the house
of the virgin.
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This is a miniature replica of what used to be over the columns of the Parthenon's entrance. It depicts the competition between Athena and Poseidon over the city of Athens
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Later in the afternoon we arrived at the new Acropolis
Museum. This was had not been built the
last time we were in Athens, and we were all very impressed with it. Most of the decorations and archaeological
finds from the Acropolis and surrounding areas are beautifully on display in the
museum. Unfortunately, you are not
allowed to take pictures of the majority of the displays. However, we were able to take pictures of the
maidens from the Erechtheion and on the third floor, where they had created a
to-scale, modernized replica of the Parthenon so that we could see how the
reliefs and sculptures would have been placed in ancient times. It was AMAZING. It was so cool to be able to walk around a
room and see reliefs tell the stories of the Trojan War and depict a parade in
the exact order they would have appeared.
I would highly recommend this museum to anyone who visits Athens. Below I have posted some of my favorite pictures
as well as captions so you understand what they are depicting.
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| The original maidens from the porch of the Erechtheion |
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| Demeter and Persephone - large scale replicas of the original statues over the entrance of the Parthenon. The originals are in England |
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| Dionysus and the horses from Helios' chariot - large scale replica of the original statue over the entrance of the Parthenon |
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| Men carrying jugs of water in parade to a celebration - original relief from inside the Parthenon |
The rest of the day was HOT.
We had a long walk to go have lunch with Abi near her campus for mom’s
birthday. After lunch we had hoped to see
her college, but apparently you had to have a guest pass or college ID to
enter, so we just gave her a hug and a kiss and said, “See you later!” She’ll be home in the first week or so of
August. Tomorrow we have our only
two-day excursion to Delphi and Meteora, so I won’t be able to post until
Friday. Then we fly home on
Saturday! This vacation has passed so
quickly already, but I am definitely missing my own bed, my boy, and even my turd
of a cat.
Amelia
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