The Acropolis sits on a hilltop in the middle of Athens and can be seen from most of the city. It is currently (maybe permanently?) under a reconstruction project. Needless to say, the entire site is quite something. You get to walk through the middle of the Propylaia passing right next to majestic marble columns. The Temple of Athena Nike and the Parthenon were covered in cranes and scaffolding but you still could get very close to appreciate their beauty. While the incredible statues of women that are used to hold up the Porch of the Caryatids are casts, they do have the originals in a museum. We had beat the crowds that began swarming up the hill as we were making our way back down. We found the Acropolis one of the most awesome things we have ever visited.
Next up was the Temple of Olympian Zeus which is just a short distance from the Acropolis, down the hill from the backside of the Parthenon. This temple is larger than the Parthenon but only fifteen of the original 104 columns remain. It must have been quite a sight back in the time since what is left is jaw-dropping. One of the columns has fallen over and you can see how it was comprised of discs of marble stacked one upon the other.
Nearby we stopped at The Panathenaic Stadium, the original stadium built in 1863 for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. You can walk onto the field and into the bleachers. It is a faithful replica of Herodes Atticus’s stadium built for the Panathenaic Games of 144AD. It still looks incredibly modern, in fact, the 2006 Olympic marathon race ended in the 70,000 person stadium.
Next up was a visit to the tallest hill in Athens, the Hill of Lycabettus, for a photo stop and to give us a perspective of the large size of Athens. It was then on to The Changing of The Guards at The Tomb of The Unknown Soldier. The guards’ uniforms are very interesting. The 400 pleats in their skirt represent the 400 years of slavery that Greece endured under the Turks. The 400 threads of their long black pony tail represent the tears the Greeks endured. It was an interesting show.
The Plaka is stone-paved, narrow street picturesque neighborhood full of gyros places and souvenir/antique shops. Jeff was able to score another horse and I got a lot of photos of the Roman Agora with its Tower of Winds and the Greek Agora with its Temple of Hephaestus. For lunch, Jeff and I sat in a café off one of the plazas eating gyros. Sublime! Later, I ran in to our friends from Napa Valley who were spending the day in Athens before continuing their vacation in Turkey.
Our last stop was The National Archaeological Museum. The entire collection had been buried underground during World War II to protect it from damage. While the museum reopened in 1946, it took almost another 60 years to bring the collection back to its original splendor. We wished we could have spent more time here understanding what we were seeing, but the marble floors were doing in our stamina, so we only spent an hour and headed back to the ship.
We hosted a sail-away party for twenty or so of our cruisecritic.com friends as we sailed away from Athens and headed to Rhodes, Greece. Loved Athens and can’t wait to come back.
Hello from Jeff
It is the first morning of our 2nd voyage As we said yesterday we thought we would be missing all of our new friends and alas we have been proven right, however what we didn’t realize at least not clearly that the tone and the rhythm of the ship would change
After over 3 weeks of knowing who would be up early for breakfast or for the gym who would choose to be ignored since they hadn’t taken the time to shower and do their makeup or who looked hung over and wanted to be alone ALL of that is now gone We knew it would be difficult to make such friends again for many reasons the most obvious being the lack of time to know one another, as I think we mentioned in voyage 1 we had a total of 18 sea days, we had the time to talk at length and discover if we might have enough in common to forge some sort of relationships
On voyages 2 and 3 we have a grand total of 6 sea days out of the 26, not nearly enough time to get to know someone and quite frankly who wants to waste the energy
No complaints just one of the new facts of life when you spend 50 days on a boat
We are both looking forward to spending more time in the Greek Islands
Athens was total wonderment We climbed the Acropolis We visited temples and the Olympic Stadium where it all began in 1896 The Modern Games We went to the top of the tallest point in Athens We visited the Plaka and discovered a few gems among the endless tourist stalls I am still amazed that right next door to a shop that sells plastic statues of Athena made in China is a antiquity gallery offering items that begin at 10,000 Euros
I will let Ron do the detail on our time in Athens, but we are both agreed another trip back to this city is in the cards
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