The Greek Adventure – The History of Athens

My second day in Athens was one of the few days that I did not need to set an alarm. Nonetheless, I was woken by the garbage collectors at about 3:30am and only really dozed thereafter. I had a leisurely breakfast looking out at *that* view and then got my daypack organised and headed off to Syntagma Square to join my “Hop On Hop Off” bus tour. I had some time to kill so I had a Greek coffee in a local café. I’m finding this to be a very satisfying substitute for my preferred cappuccino, especially as cappuccino in Athens is roughly right, but no chocolate topping!

Hadrian's Arch

Roman Bath

The bus headed off on its route, largely back the way I had walked, and I had Hadrian’s Arch and the roman bath I’d discovered on the walk in explained to me. Apparently, Hadrian built his Arch as a gate in a city wall when he took over Athens as his capital. On one side, facing the old city, is the inscription: Here is the Old City of Athens, and on the other: Here is the City of Hadrian; or words to that effect. The roman bath was discovered when they were building a ventilation shaft for the Metro in the lead up to the 2004 Olympic Games. It is so well preserved that the site was made into an exhibition and the ventilation shaft was moved south.

One of the first bus stops was at the Acropolis. I had been trying to work out whether I should go there first or last. I decided when I got there that I should go there first. If the whole rest of the day was lost, at least I would have visited the most iconic place in Athens and somewhere I’ve wanted to visit since I was a child. I was not disappointed.

Acropolis entry staircase

The view over Athens from
the Acropolis entry stairs

The walk up to the main entrance offers some idea of the majesty of the place. Although the main entrance is not as it would have appeared in its heyday, because of time and different views about archaeological preservation over time, the entry is majestic and awe-inspiring. The view out across Athens from that entry is also awe-inspiring.

Restored temple of Nike
(Athena)

The entry itself is a colonnade arrangement, all from marble or marble-lined. Above the entry is a restored temple of Athena (Nike). The temple is lovely and the restoration is clear; newer material is white and uninscribed and all the original material is located exactly where it was in the original construction (apparently; frankly, I’m uncertain about how they make such decisions for some of the pieces). The entry corner with the Nike temple is well preserved and gives you a sense of what it might have been like when all ‘new’, although as the site developed over hundreds of years, it was probably never all ‘new’ at any one time.
I continue on up onto the top of the Acropolis rock to the huge Parthenon. The temple is undergoing more renovations/restoration. I read later that this is a program that is nearly forty years old and is at least partly correcting the enthusiastic but poorly-thought-out earlier restorations of the 19^th century. Unfortunately, this makes the temple slightly less photogenic, but nonetheless impressive. Indeed, seeing the scale of heavy-duty equipment being used to restore the thing reinforces how clever the ancients were to build the place the first time.

North Side		West End		South Side
From Northwest			From Southeast

Again the view out over Athens remains extraordinary. It is noticeable how low-rise Athens is. Given that it has this kind of monument in its centre, that is a good thing, as the Acropolis is frequently visible from streets of Athens and is not overlooked by anything.

There is also the Erechtheion temple, with the famous balcony with ‘virgin’ columns. This is actually a small and relatively nondescript building, but the history of the place and the famous balcony do make it interesting to visit.

The rest of the space on the top of the Acropolis used to be filled with various tributes and votives offered to gods usually to thank them for various successes. Indeed, many of them were tithes; either “the first income earned” or “one tenth of income”. None of these are in place on the rock any more, but many are preserved in the Acropolis Museum, more on which later.

In the absence of these votives, the rock has various piles of stone elements from different buildings, many of which are slowing being added into restoration activity. The top of the rock itself has never had paths cut through it (apart from the entry element), so you are walking around on top of a rough surface, the same surface that people have walked on for thousands of years.

Theatre, from Acropolis (entry)

I walked down from the Acropolis and tried to get down to the huge theatre that was prominent on the southern slope. After wandering around seeing some very interesting things on the Southern Slope, I discovered that getting to that theatre actually involved leaving the Acropolis site! So, that’s what I did. The large theatre has clearly been restored. (Indeed, I’ve since found out that they actually hold performances there regularly.) It, too, was undergoing some further restoration/renovation. This theatre is the most complete example I’ve seen, with the ‘stage’ area still in place, and huge! The theatres were wonderful, back in the day.

I then walked back to the bus stop and was collected in due course. I rode the bus, listening to the commentary and trying to work out how to optimise my time touring. The other key place I wanted to visit was the Acropolis Museum, which didn’t close until 8:00pm, so I put that last on the list, particularly as it was only 100m from my hotel.

Street trees are citrus in Athens!

The guard on the way to changing

Protest Graffiti
(I know what malakes means!)

A protest underway (Academy)

Eventually, I decided to get off at the stop outside the Academy, University, and Library, three gorgeous buildings that I’d seen from the bus as we left Athens to Delphi the day before. I was interested in the building, but also in the evidence of the struggles that are ongoing in Greece. The graffiti from recent protests was plain, and some of it in English. Protests were still going on, although none of the signs were in English for this one, so I have no idea what it was about.

The University

The Academy

The Library

Another protest

My plan was to check out the buildings but then walk through the streets of Athens and then finally find a place for lunch. As I started, I came across another protest. Again, no idea what it was about. Both protests seem to be dominated by women, too, although I don’t know if that means anything particularly.
The streets of Athens are labyrinthine, clearly reflecting its thousands of years of history. There is a range of stores, from simple grocers, or cafes, through to high fashion boutiques and jewellery stores. The streets are crowded, or at least busy, and because they are so narrow, parking is random and often on the sidewalk. I did come across an occasional tout or beggar; very occasionally. However, they are very polite and are easily dissuaded. They’d starve in Cairo!

Streets of Athens		Monastiriki Square

The lane in which I ate

I finally emerged in Monastriki Square, where it had been recommended that I might find somewhere nice to eat that was not too touristy. I picked a random lane leading off square and stopped at a café/restaurant offering Souvlaki. I figured I would at least have one thing on the menu I knew I would like. I sat outside and ended up ordering kebaps; literally, lamb kebabs served on pita with Greek yoghurt and roasted tomatoes. I am definitely in love with Greek tomatoes—SO tasty—and Greek yoghurt—smooth, not sweet but also not sour. The café turned out to be primarily a takeaway setup that was doing a roaring trade. It is no surprise given the beautiful, fresh food they were serving. The tables outside allowed me to watch the Athenians going about their lunchtime business. Two things of note to mention: there are small groups of children begging in the lanes, playing musical instruments (quite well, actually), but easily dissuaded; I think that they might be gypsies as they look more swarthy than the Greeks; and that here, too, everyone smokes. It appears that roll-your-own is the most favoured approach and that they all roll in a filter tip. A table of teenage girls sitting not far from me were all smoking cigarettes that they’d rolled for themselves, apparently trying to be cool. It reminded me of myself and friends when we were only a few years older.

After my excellent lunch, I started wandering around again and found Hadrian’s Library and the associated church. My ticket from the Acropolis allowed me entry here, so I had a look around. Unfortunately, there was little guidance about what I was looking at, even in the small brochure handed to me at the ticket office.

I went from Hadrian’s Library around to the Roman Agora. Again, my Acropolis ticket allowed me entry and I was told that they were closing in 30mins. I visited the rebuilt agora first and was amazed at what an extraordinary place it was. Rebuilt in recent times to reflect what was believe to be there in Roman times, it is a magnificent place where the ‘shops’ have been converted into a museum. I just loved being in this space and would love to see a shopping centre built along these lines at home.

Recognising that I had only a short time, I wandered off to look around the rest of the place. It contained a range of ruins as this place had been an agora (marketplace) through a long period of history, with other buildings like a tholos and temples rising over time. The last thing I discovered before being shooed out of the place was a beautiful temple set up on a promontory of rock. I guess that this has been at least partially restored because it is quite complete. (I’ll have to check. I can’t remember as I write this.)

I came out of the agora ‘park’ and walked down the promenade along its fence. Opposite it and with views across the agora to the Acropolis are innumerable swanky restaurants and cafes, and they were doing a good trade with a more upmarket crowd than the one I’d been surrounded by over lunch. This appeared to be where “the other half”, or more likely the 1% , of Athenians hung out at lunchtime. Still, lined against the fence facing these restaurants were African touts trying to sell tat.

The promenade turned into large pedestrian avenue that traversed the western side of the Acropolis. I decided to walk back to the Acropolis and on to the Acropolis Museum. It was a long walk, and mostly uphill, but I had all afternoon, so I just strolled along taking pictures of stuff that caught my eye.

In the fullness of time, I arrived at the entry to the Acropolis Museum. This is a modern building, only opened in the last six years or so and is a wonderful piece of modern architecture. Several parts of it are of particular note. The first, and possibly the most important, is that the whole museum is stood on poles to not disturb the archaeological ruins discovered on the site when construction commenced. These are quite important finds, apparently, and it is great to be able to walk over them on the purpose-built glass bridge to the museum.

The Museum itself is a beautiful building with gorgeous spaces for display of the antiquities found on the Acropolis. No pictures are allowed, as usual, but I’ve bought a book that contains pictures of many of the most wonderful things I saw there. The top level is further cleverness being oriented to match the Parthenon on the Acropolis (clearly visible from that level) and the replicas of the Parthenon’s friezes are laid out as if they were on the building. It’s a very clever way to display these items, even if they are copies because of the theft of the originals by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century.

The view that never gets old

I had a coffee and cake in the museum as it had been a long day with a lot of walking by that time. I then walked the surprisingly short distance back to my hotel, relaxed for a while, and then had dinner on the roof garden again! (Yeah, perhaps a bit boring, but I was loving the restaurant and its food. Why change?)