Greece always seemed like a dream place to go. A place I have always wanted to visit, and that's all Greg needed to know to plan our summer holiday for 2 weeks away from Finland.
Baklava here I come!!!
ummm baklava....drooling,ok back now from thinking about baklava.
In late June we headed out of HEL.No it's not what you're thinking!! HEL is the abbreviation for Helsinki's airport (but appropriately named don't you think) to AHN, Athen's National Airport.
3 days in Athens and the rest on islands Paros and Santorini
My Greek friend, Jimmy, told me not to even bother with Athens and Greg didn't really want to go either, but it is Athens a city that has been inhabited for over 7000 years, it has the Acropolis I had to go.
Although it had a prestigious past, the great city of Athens has declined with terrible urban planning of ugly buildings from the 1970's all around that are decaying and crumbling. At first glance, Athens seems entirely to be made up of ugly concrete buildings, lacking character and badly in need of a paint job.
Hey, maybe they like that really old worn-out look. :-)
But if you look beyond that, you will find little gems tucked in amongst the grey. I would probably recommend 1 day in Athens, 2 at the most though.
We stayed at the hotel Hilton and were upgraded again to Executive level, yeah baby!
They didn't offer as many treats as the one in Venice, but our hotel room had a great view of the Acropolis where we could see the Parthenon.
After dropping off our luggage and checking out our view we headed out for a late lunch.
Since we were starving, we stopped at the first place we saw...which happened to have pretty good food.
Yea!
The food was good, unlike my experience in Venice where almost every place we had something to eat was horrible.
Here in Greece almost every place we stopped at had wonderful delicious food.
A dog came by and looked at my food a little too long, Back off dog, I'm hot, tired, and hungry and might get you with my fork!"
Little did I know that this would be first of many encounters with the dogs of Athens.
They are everywhere! I mean everywhere and I have never seen dogs just lie about and not move at all! I was sad the first couple of times I saw them laying around because it was so hot outside, in the high 90's, and they didn't move. At first I thought they might be dead but Greg assured me they were just hot and taking it easy until the night time.
Speaking of HOT, it was so hot we decided to go back to our hotel for a little nap but then headed out after 7:00 pm to Panathinaiko (Panathenaic) Stadium, Kallimarmaron, i.e. the "beautifully marbled"
A stadium built out of white marble!
Even though in classical times the stadium had wooden seating, it was remade in marble in 329 BC!
Man that is old!
The stadium was refurbished a second time in 1895 for the 1896 Summer Olympics.
The next day we headed out to The Acropolis— The ancient "high city" of Athens, where ancient buildings from the Classical period of Ancient Greece can be found, including the most famous of which is the Parthenon.
The Acropolis has the following Ancient Buildings
* The Parthenon — The largest temple on the Acropolis, originally dedicated to the goddess of the city, Athena, later converted to a church and then a mosque. Built between 447 and 438 BC at the height of the Classical period.
* The Temple of Athena Nike — First temple on the Acropolis to be built in the Ionic style, and one of the few exemplars of an amphiprostyle temple in all of Greece: what made it truly unique was the unit by which it was planned, which turns out to be the Egyptian foot of 300 mm.
* The Erectheion — Dedicated to the worship of the two principal gods of Attica, Athena and Poseidon-Erechtheus.
* The Propylea — The ancient monumental gateway to the Acropolis.
It was another hot hot day, but I was enthralled by the thought of being amongst ancient architecture and thinking about the Greek mythology, togas and olive branches on people's heads
Greek writing on stone.
Isn't it nice to be able to read something written a few thousand years ago?
Odeon of Herodes Atticus, shows are still performed here today, as you can see the people setting up tables in the picture above.
The majestic entrance to the Acropolis -- Propylaia.
The Propylaia were built as a monumental entrance to the Acropolis rock. It is an impressive building that surrounds the natural entrance to the plateau.
Up the steps and around the corner was the Parthenon.
The Parthenon is a temple built for the Greek goddess Athena, back in the 5th century BC.
In the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin
Some studies of the Acropolis, including the Parthenon, conclude that many of its proportions approximate the golden ratio. The Parthenon's facade as well as elements of its facade and elsewhere can be circumscribed by golden rectangles.
Ok, so Greg was pretty bored and hot by this time and wanted to leave. So we started our descent downwards in the opposite direction to go down Areopagus Hill.
This is where Apostle Paul comes to Athens where he gives his speech in the Areopagus; in this speech, he tells Athenians that the "Unknown God" to whom they had a shrine is in fact known, as the God who had raised Jesus from the dead.
Hey, I have walked where Apostle Paul had once walked around 50 AD.
Next we came upon Ancient Agora. This was the place where social, commercial and religious activities concentrated. A center of public life in the time of Socrates and Plato. Every place you turned there seemed to be some old relic or statue, crumbling and losing its grandeur.
One unusual sight in Agora is the Church of the Holy Apostles.
This Byzantine Church is one of the oldest churches in the area, having been built in the 11th century, but it is so much younger than everything else that it simply looks out of place.
Next was the Stoa of Attalos.
A stoa is a covered walkway and this was reconstructed in 1950. I thought it was pretty impressive with all the marble and statues.
I was able to get pretty close to a statue and didn't think any thing of it, so I asked Greg to get close to one.
I had the perfect picture in mind, Greg's head and then a head of a Triton. BUT NO! Some lady guard screamed at us and messed up my photo mojo! grr!
Hello! were not touching it, or looked like hoodlums. I guess she was just PMSing. So when she wasn't looking I asked Greg to get in close but he wouldn't do it. Look at Greg, he seems a little scared in this picture. He seems to mind women who are going through PMS....oh well, it's probably best for Greg in the long run :-)
The Odeion of Agrippa was once a roofed concert hall with Corinthian columns around the central hall. These columns are the only remains of the Odeion.
A a little way up from the Odieon I could see another building on top of a hill, which turned out to be a temple, The Temple of Hephaestus and Athena Ergane.
From the 7th century until 1834, it served as the Greek Orthodox church of St. George Akamates. I think this would of been some church, with six columns on the short sides and thirteen columns along the longer north and south sides
Now back to our hotel to get out of the sun
The evening came and Greg was pooped, so I ventured out to the center of Athens to see the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Man this was a monster or had been at one point in time.
Originally there were 104 Corinthian columns of which only 15 remain standing. One of the columns actually blew down in a storm in 1852.
After this I was pooped and I went back to the hotel to take a nap and cool down until the sun set and the city was bright with lights
And so I will end this entry with this last picture, until I have time to blog about the Greek Island adventure we had after Athens.
