Acropolicious

We spent today in Athens enjoying the city. At 6 am, we all piled into the van in order to catch the 6:40 train from Corinth to Athens. Then we headed up to the Acropolis, which literally just means "city on a hill". The one in Athens is the most famous, with the Parthenon and whatnot. It was kind of surreal to actually be in a place that has been so well known throughout the world for so long. Since we arrived relatively early on a Sunday morning, there weren't a ton of other tourists there, which made the experience much nicer. Since the guides there are unionized, Jon wasn't allowed to give us the sort of tour he usually would there. Instead we headed out to have our own Acropolis experience. 

Temple to Athena Nike, the goddess of victory

The Erechthion with caryatid porch

The Parthenon (temple to Athena) 

Even though it was amazing and fascinating to be at the Acropolis, I almost preferred Acrocorinth because there were fewer people and more access to the monuments. After the Acropolis, we went down the mountain a bit to the Rock of Ares, which is where they supposedly held all of the murder trials in Ancient Athens.

Me on top of the Rock of Ares

Next, we went down from the mountain and into the Ancient marketplace of Athens which is called the Agora. Near the Agora is the Temple to Hephestus, the bronzeworking god. It's the only known temple that was dedicated to him. The temple is remarkably well-preserved, and has a lot of beautiful flora surrounding it, which makes it quite beautiful.

The temple to Hephestus

After all of that, it was time for some lunch. We ended up at this small cafe-type place where I got a spinach pie and a glorified juicebox. We did some quick shopping and then headed off to see the National museum...which we found to be closed after a subway ride and some misdirected wandering. We ended up going to see constitution square instead, which is the site of the Greek Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Capitol Building as well as a lot of the recent protests, which, luckily, weren't happening that day. After our failed attempt at the National Museum, we decided to give the new Acropolis museum a try instead. On the way, we stopped in a small shop and bought a few souvenirs from a very friendly Greek lady who told us she liked Americans because we are the most like Greeks, and fed us baclava which her mom supposedly made (although we were suspicious when we saw that it came from plastic packaging...). The new museum has a bit of an interesting backstory; it was basically built as a statement to the British, who have a good deal of the sculpture from the Parthenon. A few years ago, when the Greeks asked that the sculpture from the pediment be returned, the British Museum refused, claiming that the Greeks didn't have a sufficient space to keep it. In response, the Greeks spent a ton of money to build a beautiful new museum, only to have the British blow them off again. So it goes. Anyways, the museum was magnificent, and had several interesting displays such as the use of color in Greek sculpture, an often overlooked concept. I also appreciated that you could easily see the Acropolis from the museum, which gave the artifacts a better sense of context.

Some of the pediment sculpture in the new Acropolis museum (some are casts)

There were very few things to be critical about concerning the museum, they really did a good job. However I disliked the fact that the sculpture they had displayed faced the opposite direction from the windows looking out onto the Acropolis, so you couldn't see both at once. Also, what little technology they were using was not doing any good things for them. The only thing I saw was a little computer screen with the same information that was on the signs. And the one almost unforgivable thing I saw was this sign...in COMIC SANS OF ALL THINGS. I'm appalled that there is even a Greek version of comic sans. Appalled.

Museum sign in Greek Comic Sans...sigh

The entire group was pretty exhausted after all of this (except for Jon, who somehow never seems to get tired...), so we got back on the suburban rail and headed home to Loutro Elenis. By the time we got back it was around 8 pm, so we had been gone for about 14 hours or so. Everyone was happy to see that Anastasia had a delicious spaghetti-like dinner waiting for us with a lemony cake for dessert. It was a long, but rewarding day.