October 11, 2017 Day 10 Athens 1

October 11, 2017 Day 10 Tour of Athens’ antiquity and recent history

Got up early and went to breakfast at 7:00. This hotel has a fabulous breakfast buffet, one of the best I have experienced during our travels. Good hot eggs, lots of meats, fresh salmon fresh fruit, and wonderful hot chocolate. More good stuff than one could even sample.

Athens has a very interesting, and even unique history for a major city. Its origins are intermingled with methodology. Indeed, as the myth goes, Athena won the contest of being Athens’ namesake in a contest with Poseidon. After Kekrops, a Phoenician founded the city on a huge rock that became the Acropolis, the gods proclaimed that it should be named after the deity who could provide the greatest benefit for the lowly mortals, Poseidon, god of the sea struck a rock with his trident and a saltwater spring emerged. Athena, goddess of wisdom produced an olive tree, symbol of peace and prosperity (tell that to the Israelis and Palestinians). The gods gave the nod to Athena’s gift since it would produce food, oil and wood for the mortals and so to this day it appears that Athena dominates Athens’ mythology and its monuments.   

Athens rose to a powerful entity over 1000 years before Christ and then fell into dark ages. Yet it rose again, with the help of Sparta, to defeat the Persians in 490 BC, the western world’s greatest empire of the time and enjoy a Golden Age that saw it dominate the Greek city states and give rise to democracy and heights in drama and literature. Following endless wars with Sparta it fell into decline and was conquered by Phillip II of Macedonia in 338 BC. Alexander the Great favored Athens over the other Greek city states but after his death it picked the wrong side in Macedonia’s losing war against an ascendant Rome. (Who did not see that happening?) However, Rome’s conquest lead to another resurgence of Athens as it became the cultural guidepost for the expanding Roman empire. It was a major center of learning and philosophy and its emperors and elite lavished money on Athens, sent their children to school there and considered Greek language, drama and literature to be the cultural pinnacle. Even after the subdivision of the Roman empire into east and west, Athens fell under the jurisdiction of the former and continued to prosper until 529 when Emperor Justinian abruptly (I never heard the reason why, perhaps it was due to his many expansionist wars and the building of the gigantic St. Johns temple in Ephisises.) closed its schools and cut off cultural funding. That began a. long decline that was accelerated by attacks from European states intent on picking up chunks on the crumbling Byzantine Empire. However, in 1456 Athens was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and became a regional political and economic center as the Parthenon was converted into a mosque and the Acropolis became the home of the Turkish governor. By the 17^th century as the Ottoman’s fortunes declined, so did Athens’, and by the beginning of the 19^th century it was little more than a village, although it witnessed fierce fighting during the Greek War for Independence.  Initially Nafplio, a thriving Peloponnesian town, was the capital of the newly independent Greek state. However, after the elected President was assassinated, England, France and Russia, fearing chaos, stepped in and imposed a monarchy on Greece. Since none of them wanted the other to gain an upper hand, they selected 17-year-old Otto, the second son of the King of the province of Bavaria as the King of Greece. He did not speak Greek. Seeking to make his mark, Otto transferred the capital to Athens and brought in Bavarian architects to rebuild the city.  In the 20^th century Athens has seen several waves of immigrants starting with those Greeks evicted from Turkey flowing Greece’s disastrous attempt to implement the Great Idea, a revival of the old Hellenist empire under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne to the recent wave of third world immigrants. One third of all Greeks now live in the Athens metropolitan area.    

Acropolis/Parthenon

Our guide picked us up at 8:00 am at the hotel. We had a driver and a guide and were quickly driven to the Acropolis parking lot. (The guides were expensive, but got us around to the sites efficiently and had a wealth of knowledge.)  We walked up a series of zigzagging (better to slow down invaders) ramps and stairs and purchased a ticket for six sites. We got there before the crowds, but we dissipated that advantage by stopping too often to take pictures.

The Acropolis arguably represents the important ancient site in western civilization. With the Parthenon as its crown jewel, overlooking and standing sentinel over Athens, it reflects the arc of Athens and Greek development.  It was first inhabited around 4000 BC. and continued to be inhabited until 510BC when the Delphic oracle decreed that it should be the province of the gods. The humans were banished to the lands below the rock.  During the during the Mycenaean era, about 1500 BC, the first temples were built in honor of Athena. However, the reign of the gods was not long since the Persians burned the Acropolis to the ground, along with most of the rest of Athens prior to being defeated in the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC.  

However, that lead to the Acropolis’ Golden Age. Pericles, who introduced a measure of democracy to Athens, rebuilt Acropolis into a city of Temples in which priests and pilgrims worshipped. It has come to be regarded as the zenith of classical Greek achievement. As Athens declined in importance so di Acropolis. It was ravaged by foreign occupation, the worst blow of which was the shelling by the Venetians in 1687 who while attacking the Turks scored a direct hit on the Parthenon in which the Turks were storing gunpowder. The resulting explosions damaged most of the buildings.

We entered through the Beule Gate and then went through the monumental Propylaia, which has been reduced to a lot of columns. To the right was the Temple of Athena Nike (Athena as Victory). It is one of the best and painstakingly restored buildings. We walked along the grandly named Panathenaic Way past the foundations of missing statutes, one of which, the 9-meter-high Athena Promachos (champion), was carted off to Constantinople and was ultimately smashed to pieces by locals in 1204 who believed that it guided the Crusaders into the city.   

The we arrived at the granddaddy of them all, the Parthenon. It means virgin’s apartment and was dedicated to Athena. It was the largest Doric (lots of columns) temple built in Greece, exceeded in size only by the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus’s (of course that one has only one column standing). Many of the pieces of the Parthenon are in the nearby museum, but the biggest existing part, the Parthenon Marbles, is housed in the British Museum in London. I imagine that no British government is willing to agree to the Greeks demands that it be returned.

Next, we encountered the Erechtheion which is the real sanctuary in the Acropolis since it sits on the spot where Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and Athena produced the olive tree. The western side has an olive tree. It has 6 larger than life maiden columns which are plaster cats. All but one original is in the Acropolis Museum. The British Museum has the other one. By this time the place was getting crowded. We circled around to the entrance, but before we left we went off to the right, and viewed outside the walls of the Parthenon on its south slope the Theatre of Dionysos. It is a large theatre made of marble (Seats for the wealthy and VIPs,) and limestone, for the public, that could seat 17,000. Only 20 of its 64 tiers of seats remain.  On top of it is a small temple, Asclepion, named after Asclepius, who was the medicine man son of Apollo.  

Getting down the stairs back to the Beule Gate was done against a tide of people surging in. Our guide drove a path for us.

The car met us at the base of the stairs and we drove off to Syntama Square. In front of the Parliament Building (previously the royal palace) we witnessed the changing of the guard. This is a highly ritualistic ceremony in which the two guards are replaced on the hour. They move their legs as if they were horses and scrape their metal clad feet along the ground. Their uniforms are replicas of those worn during the War for Independence and feature, short kilts, leggings and shoes are topped off by little pompoms. This is done in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and listings of the many battles and wars fought by the Greeks. We got there before the crowds gathered and were told to stand behind a line. I stood on the line, but over time other visitors got in front of me, OVER the line, so I had to do some elbowing to get unobstructed pictures.

Next, we drove by,(the car was always ready and present when we were ready to depart) briefly exited the car for photos, but we could not go in, the Panathenaic Stadium. This was built in the 4^th century BC, and then rebuilt for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. It was also used in the 2004 Olympics. It had a narrow oval track that cannot be used for modern races.

Back in the car we headed off to the Temple of Zeus. This enormous structure took over 700 years to build and was not completed until the Roman Emperor Hadrian intervened in 131 AD. He got an arch located just off the Temple for his efforts. The Temple had 104 Corinthian columns, of which 15 remain, one fallen over.

Sometime prior to lunch we drove up Lykavittos Hill, ("Hill of Wolves") almost to the summit. The hill is the tallest point in Athens and rises out of a sea of concrete to offer a panoramic view of the city, the mountains, the harbor and some islands in the sea. We did not climb the short trail to the summit. Driving on the way down we were stopped when the taxi in front of us stopped. Its driver had spotted a turtle crossing the road and he not only stopped for it, he got out and carried the turtle across the road.

We then went to lunch, about 2:00. I do not remember the restaurant, but it was in the shadow of the Acropolis Museum, which after lunch was our final stop of the day. It is a new, modern building. Lots of statutes, many offerings to Athena, and pieces for the Acropolis.  The top floor has a Parthenon Gallery with a replica of the cella of the Temple.

By 6 we left the museum and were returned to our hotel. Pretty tired. After a rest we went out and walked to a restaurant for dinner. I cannot recall the details other than we had a lot to eat.