Athens glory

Day 14      Piraeus, Greece    Thursday, August 7, 2014

Our highlight was visiting the Acropolis. Athens is only a few miles from the port of Piraeus (sounds like Perez), and we spent our morning seeing the various ruins atop this ancient hill. After lunch, we drove east along the "Greek Riviera" to the Temple of Poseidon.

Here's a view of the front, or western end, of the Parthenon before we began our hike up. The Acropolis is actually a tall natural rock fortress, but they built these walls nonetheless. Notice that they were doing extensive restoration work to this end of the temple. Although we arrived fairly early in the morning, the crowds were thick and we herded up the only entrance, which are the stairs called the Propylaea.

Look at all the tourists coming up and going down! They had dozens of line monitors to keep order. We had just reached the top of the stairs and this is looking back through the Propylaea. Our tour guide was telling us stuff the entire time we ascended and we could hear him even though he was way ahead of us, because we had the little head sets. But I'm forgetting most of what he said. He was a very nationalistic and proud Greek, that much I remember. Just about everything he pointed out was a superlative -- it was the best or oldest or most beautiful. And the reason everything was the best was because Greeks are the best!

The Parthenon (this is the south side) was built during the Golden Age. A little history: In the 5th Century BC, Athens and Sparta led a coalition of Greek states that repelled the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon in 490  and at Salamis 10 years later. The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian Democracy, when Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece. Its cultural achievements laid the foundations of Western Civilization. This was the age of Hippocrates, Socrates, and Pericles. Athens embarked on an ambitious building program which included the buildings on the Acropolis.

I'm glad I got this nice photo of Janet at the east end of the Parthenon. How did it get so ruined, and lose its roof and so much of its grandeur? It remained intact until 1687, when Athens was occupied by the Ottomans who were at war with Venice. The Ottomans, unfortunately, stored their ammunition in the Parthenon. A bomb landed right in the gun powder and set off a huge explosion that blasted it to smithereens.

 Being up so high, we had good views of other sites. This one is the Temple of Zeus. When it was part of the Roman Empire, Athens was given the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools. Emperor Hadrian constructed a library, a gymnasium, an aqueduct which is still in use, several temples and sanctuaries, a bridge, and financed the completion of this Zeus Temple. 

This photo shows how close the Acropolis is to the sea, six miles to the west. I don't know what the structure is on the hilltop.

We also looked down on the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a theater from 161 AD and still used today for performances. It was originally covered with a wooden roof.

Farther along the southern side of the Acropolis was another, much older theater, the Theater of Dionysus from 4th century BC.

On the eastern end of the Acropolis, I thought it was funny to see all these old Ionic column tops just stacked up -- waiting to be used in reconstruction?

And this probable 6000-yr-old carved ridge from one of the temples was now just a tourist bench.

In the top left corner of the Eastern end of the Parthenon (the far end from where we entered), I took this close-up. The reclining figure represents Dionysos, god of wine. He is looking out from the pediment towards the corner and the chariot of Helios, god of the sun, rising at daybreak. This Dionysos is a reproduction, because the original was "stolen" and is in the British Museum.

The first of three photos I have of the Erechtheione, which turns out to make sense because it is three temples in one, with three different porches. This eastern part, in this photo, is dedicated to Athena, the patroness of Athens (the Parthenon is also dedicated to Athena).

The northern side is dedicated to Poseidon, also a patron of Athens (they said that Athena and Poseidon "competed" with each other for being the patron). The olive tree in the back right of the photo is very famous - the Sacred Olive Tree. The day after the Persians burned the Acropolis in 480 BC, this tree sprouted a new branch four feet long. Legend also says that this olive tree can be traced back to the tree originally planted here by Athena. Every invader cut it down and every time someone saved a sprig to be planted later. The most recent replanting was done by members of the American School in 1952 who saved it from what the Germans destroyed in 1942.

 This third part of the Erechtheion faces the south and is called the Porch of the Maidens (Caryatides). These six statues of women are considered masterpieces. The actual statues here are replicas, as you might expect. Five of them were transferred to the Athens Acropolis Museum as recently as 1979. The sixth Maiden (second from left of the four in the front) was stolen -- a true case of stealing by bribery -- in 1801 by Lord Elgin (he stole numerous other treasures from the Acropolis as well) to decorate his manor in Scotland. He sold it 15 years later to the British Museum, where it is has been ever since.

We thought the newer piece on this restored ledge looked like a Lego.

Looking down to the northwest foot of the Acropolis, I saw the Thesium, which is the most intact of all the known Greek Temples. It's older than the Parthenon, and overlooks the ruins of an ancient agora, or marketplace.

As we descended the steps of the Propylaea in the masses of people, I got this photo of the Temple of Athena Nike (Wingless Victory). You can see the ocean in the distance.

This is a better view of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, which holds 5000 spectators for its present-day concerts. We were almost down to the bottom of the hill and back to our bus.

The bus drove around the town a little bit to see some sights, but we never stopped. This photo is of the 1895 Olympic Stadium, where they also held the archery events of the 2004 Games.

 The Discus Thrower.

We had a Hadrian's Mausoleum in Rome, the Temple of Hadrian in Ephesus the day before, and now a Hadrian's Arch (or Gate) in Athens. An ancient roadway went under this gate.

Our buffet Greek lunch at a fancy hotel. Several tourist bus' worth. The food was actually excellent, in my opinion; it had the items I always love ordering at Greek restaurants. Before we arrived here for lunch, our bus did make one stop in the middle of nowhere so that we could shop for authentic Greek treasures. We guessed that the tour guide's sister owned the shop. We successfully resisted any urges to buy.

 After lunch our excursion took us 43 miles southeast along the coastline to see what the guide called "the Greek Riviera". The scenery was nice enough, but our destination was Cape Sounion, where we visited the Temple of Poseidon high on a promontory overlooking the sea.

Built in 440 BC, this temple to Poseidon is where mariners, and also entire cities or states, could offer a last sacrifice for protection from the mighty God of the Sea. In power, Poseidon was considered second only to Zeus.

This viewpoint of the temple shows how the cape juts out to the sea, and how the temple was very visible as sailors from Athens departed who could pray to Poseidon for protection.

Some of the sections of those columns don't look like they are stacked too straight. The original temple had 34 columns, and 15 remain. Speaking of columns, Lord Byron's name is carved into the base of one of them. He was there in 1811. Funny how last summer in Montreaux, Switzerland, we toured Chateau Chillon where Byron had carved his name on a column in the lower prison, and now he had carved his name here too.

I'll put in a few photos from along the coastline:

As we reached Piraeus, we passed by this attractive church:

It is Hagios St. Nickolas, built "recently" (for Greece) in 1900.

Our entertainment on ship that evening was a mix. We liked the Close-Up Magic with the guy whose theater show we had deliberately skipped a few days earlier. He amazed us with his slight of hand with all the cameras focused on him up close. We also like the Elton John tribute by Michael the pianist. But the show in the theater we actually left partway through. We just didn't like the singing and humor of Brenda Cochrane, who was famous for performing in the musical Chicago in London.

We looked forward to getting a rest the next day.