Greece - Athens

Athens is the capital of Greece, the city that Greeks love to hate - it's too expensive, too crowded, too noisy, too polluted.   Nearly 5 Million people live there - not to mention the 10 million cars and who knows how many tourists.  It's a big confusing jumble of motorcycles and organ grinders, sidewalk vendors and card games. Too true, but ...look again, there is history everywhere.

The Acropolis in Athens is one of the best known places in the world. The Parthenon and other main buildings on the Acropolis were built by Pericles in the fifth century BC as a monument to the cultural and political achievements of the inhabitants of Athens. The term acropolis means upper city and many of the city states of ancient Greece are built around an acropolis where the inhabitants can go as a place of refuge in times of invasion.

We entered the Acropolis through the Propylaia, the monumental 5th-century B.C. entrance.  Just above the Propylaia is the elegant little Temple of Athena Nike (Athena of Victory).  This temple was built in 424 B.C. and heavily restored in the 1930s. 

Nearby is the Erechtheion, which the Athenians honored as the tomb of a legendary king of Athens.  On one end of this structure, there is a large porch with columns, and on the south side, the famous "Porch of the Maidens", with six draped female figures (carytids) supporting columns.  Each of these figures is sculpted in a manner different from the rest and engineered in such a way that their slenderest part, the neck, is capable of supporting the weight of the porch roof while remaining graceful and feminine.

The Parthenon is dedicated to Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin, patron goddess of Athens) and it is the most important religious shrine atop the Acropolis.   The Parthenon appears lighter and more graceful than many ancient structures - this is because the architect was a magician of optical illusions and because the Venetians (in 1687) blew the entire roof off and much of the interior to smithereens. 

The Parthenon is thought to be the most perfect building built by the world's most advanced civilization - and even though it has been studied for centuries, nobody is sure how they did it. For example, the columns are stones placed on top of each other and you'd think that you could replace one piece of a column with any of the others. Not true. Each piece of the Parthenon is unique and fits together like the world's biggest (and heaviest) jigsaw puzzle.

The Parthenon is immense, but it took only nine years to complete.  Restoration work has been going on for 30 years and may go on for another 30.  Perhaps we'll come back then to check on progress....

Other sites in Athens (in no particular order):

The Archeological Park/Grand Promenade is a pedestrian walkway that goes past the most important of the city's ancient monuments.  The city laid out walkways stretching from Hadrian's Gate past the Acropolis to the Ancient Agora and beyond.  Athenians use the walkways for their evening stroll; we used it as a way to get around town without danger of being run down by a motorcycle.

The Ancient Agora was Athens' commercial and civic center, used for a wide range of political, educational, philosophical, theatrical and athletic purposes.  Today it is a jumble of ancient buildings, inscriptions and fragments of sculpture.  In its heyday, the Agora would be teeming with merchants, legislators and philosophers, including Socrates and his disciple Plato.  Barely visible is the stone pathway leading up to the Acropolis - this was the route of an annual pilgrimage to bring gifts to the Goddess Athena. 

Also in the agora area is the Temple of Hephaistos and Athena Ergane, a temple dedicated to the patron god of metal-working and the patron goddess of pottery and crafts.  This is the best-preserved Greek temple in the world, though it is much less well known than the Parthenon, Delphi and others in worse condition.  This shot show how the landscape is littered with ruins.

The agora also is home to the Stoa of Attalos, which was a gift to the city of Athens for the education that Attalos received there.  In the 1950's, this stoa was reconstructed and made into a museum using money donated by the Rockefeller family. 

Near the Stoa is the charming little 11th-century Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles, which was restored by American archeologists.

 

Panathenaiko Stadium, built in the 2nd century B.C., is the only major stadium in the world built entirely of white marble. In ancient times, it hosted the athletic portion of the Panathenic Games, in honor of the Goddess Athena.  The remnants of the ancient structure were excavated and refurbished for the revival of the Olympic Games held in 1870 and 1875. The stadium was refurbished a second time for the 1896 Olympics (the first game of the modern Olympics). 

Hadrian's Arch - The Roman emperor Hadrian built a number of monuments in Athens, including this enormous triumphal arch with its huge ornamental Corinthian columns.   This is the best-known Roman monument in Athens - many other Roman buildings and monuments lie unexcavated under modern city.   (Look hard and you can see the Acroplis in the distance.)

The Plaka is the oldest section of Athens; most of the streets have been closed to automobile traffic. It is an area of restaurants, tourist shops, and cafes, arguably the nicest neighborhood in central Athens.   If you sit in one of these cafes long enough you will see that everyone who comes to Greece walks down these streets, which seem to be a major crossroads of civilization.

The Greek Parliament is a handsome building at the head of Syntagma Square, which is the home of much of governmental Athens.  It was formerly the Royal Palace and it's the place to see the Changing of the Guard.  The soldiers who march in front of the parliament building and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier wear the evaone uniform (frilly white skirts and pom-pommed red shoes) of their ancestors who fought to gain Greece's freedom during the War of Independence (1821-28). 

The Roman Agora (Forum) was built by the Romans as an extension of the Greek agora.  Today it is a mélange of monuments from different eras, including a mosque built here after the Byzantine Empire was conquered.  It's a massive array of rocks and ruins - very hard to identify what's what , but it's clear that there were some massive structures in this area.

An interesting monument - that's largely intact - is the octagonal Tower of the Winds, with its relief sculptures of eight gods of the winds.  It was built by a 1st century B.C. astronomer as a combination sundial and water-powered clock. 

Near the Agora is Hadrian's Library, built by the Emperor in 132 A.D. to hold his "books" - rolls of papyrus.  Later on, three churches were built (sequentially) on the same site.  It's amazing that archeologists have been able to sort all this out - today it really looks like a mess!

Those Romans thought of everything - they even had public toilets.  Here are the remains of the Roman latrine.

Syntagma (Constitution) Square is the heart of Athens.  This is where to find major banks, fine hotels, and local citizens who have something to say....  anything from a man unhappy with Parliament to a group of young people staging a sit-in.

The Theater of Dionysus was built in the 4th-century B.C. to replace and enlarge an earlier theater in which the plays of great Athenian dramatists were performed.  The new theater seated some 17,000 spectators in 64 rows of seats.   (This view is from the Acropolis)

Closer to the base of the Acropolis is the Odeion of Herodes Atticus.  This music hall was built in the 2nd-century by Herodes Atticus, who funded a large number of monuments in Athens.  It was reconstructed in the 19th century.

Temple of Olympian Zeus - Hadrian built this massive temple - or rather, he finished the construction that began in the 6th-century B.C. and continued off and on for more than 700 years.  At 360 x 143 feet, this was one of the largest temples in the ancient world.  Inside, side by side, were statues of Zeus and Hadrian.

Here's another view of the same temple, this one taken from the Acropolis.  This shot gives a better idea of the enormous size of this structure.  Also visible is Hadrian's Arch.

Monastriaki Square (little monastery) is an old part of Athens nestled under the Acropolis.  The main street leading off here leads into a rabbit warren of tiny shops selling all manner of souvenirs and artifacts.  In one corner of the square is a relic of the Turkish occupation, a mosque (minus minaret) built in 1759.

Near the square is the Church of Saint Marina, which was built on top of an old temple of Zeus.  The pile of rocks on the foothill is actually a series of five stone-cut terraces that once held rooms, wells, cisterns, and altars from about the Sixth Century B.C.