Athens

Capital City #18

We arrived in Athens having enjoyed a break from pushy salesmen and crowds of tourists. With our return to a more typical tourist destination, however, came the usual crowds of people seeking to sightsee and to sell. We ventured into at least three shops where everything was “50-60% off”! It was incredible. Such consistently incredible sales! We were hard sells, though, and resisted all the super deals so well we didn't buy a single souvenir. Bad tourists!

Our first tour of the city yielded some interesting sights, including the National Gardens, the Parliament building, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Hadrian's Arch and many policemen around the place. Seriously, Athens had the largest police presence we've encountered in our whole trip so far – including the US. There were multiple police buses around the place, as well as small groups of policepeople stationed at various points. We're not sure if it was for something special, or is a regular feature of Athenian life. Another unique aspect to Athens was the abundance of sleeping dogs around the place, generally in the sun, some of which looked pregnant. We let them lie.

 Hadrian's Arch

leftovers of the Temple of Olympian Zeus

We also saw part of the changing of the guard ceremony (we presume) at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which was a pretty great performance.

 On our second day, we visited the Acropolis, as you do, which contained the Parthenon and the Erechtheion. The Parthenon is being restored, it would seem – a task I imagine will take a while – so it joined the swelling ranks of famous European landmarks to have scaffolding around it (not all the way, though). It was definitely a big ol' fancy remains of a building. There also weren't too many other tourists there, which was nice. It's good to be in touristy places in the off-peak season.

A mostly scaffoldingless view of the Parthenon.

We made sure to explore the surrounding area quite thoroughly, and in doing so stumbled upon a couple of tortoises hanging out. That was unexpected!

 

one of the tortoises

We also saw the Theatre of Dionysos, as well as some formerly sacred caves. The Acropolis sits on the top of a rocky hill that has been enclosed in walls, so it looks like a fortress – it was used as a fortress until relatively recently, which makes sense given its commanding view over the city. The caves dedicated to various deities, or used in various rites were sometimes secret entrances into the Acropolis, useful if you're a besieging army, or a besieged populace.

looking down one side near the Acropolis

One of the views in the surrounding area - Theatre of Herodes Atticus.

We also managed to see Hephaiston's Temple in the Agora, an impressively intact structure given its old age, as well as the Areopagus, where Paul famously preached to the Athenians. It was basically a pile of rocks. We presume there was more to it in Paul's day.

 Hephaiston's Temple - so intact!

the Areopagus

The downside of visiting in an off-peak month is that the attractions close earlier. In the case of the ancient sites, this was at the ridiculous hour of 2.30 or 3 o'clock. So we ended up walking around some sights from the outside instead, which often worked fine, since you could see everything through the fence anyway. In this way we admired the Roman Agora, Hadrian's library and other ruins. Athens has lots of ruins all over the place, not just the famous ones; we'd just walk down a street and encounter a fenced-off section containing excavations, or see excavations at a metro station, discovered when they were building the metro line.

Hadrian's library (we think)

On the third day, we took a bus trip out to Cape Sounion, to see another temple – Poseidon's this time. It was an appropriate location for a sea god's temple. The temple itself was big and imposing. Perhaps we should have been more impressed by our fellow visitors, but we're not sure. We happened to time our visit with that of an Arabian-looking Muslim couple, along with a man in a suit. Another man in a suit was obviously an attendant, and another couple was showing the group round. The primary way we could tell they were important, though, was the 6-8 policepeople accompanying them like bodyguards. We made sure not to make any murderous-looking moves, so we were fine. We still don't know who they were, though. Saudi royalty? If so, we feel more important by virtue of our proximity to them. As it is, we only feel slightly more important in an uncertain way.

view from Cape Sounion

the star attraction

We managed to get dropped off near the Acropolis on our return journey, and dined at a nearby restaurant that night. We were served by the wryest waiter we've ever known. He asked us if we were going to be participating in the marathon that weekend. Indeed, the weekend we were in Athens, they were redoing the original marathon – from Marathon to Athens. We had decided not to participate in this particular event, and told the waiter so. We tipped him happily after the meal, grateful to have experienced reticence in the tourism sector for once. As for marathon runners, we saw some the day we left in Athens, running along not too far from our accommodation, with all the streets nearby closed to traffic.

That night we visited the Acropolis Museum. What were you doing on Friday night, November 7? We were at the museum late night. That's how we roll. We so down wit it. It was pretty rocking there, too. We saw many many statues of Athena, as well as the friezes that used to adorn the Parthenon and other buildings – what's left of them, anyway, which is still a fair amount, following multiple centuries and Lord Elgin's looting. ELGIIIIN! Naughty! Many of the statues were in remarkably good condition; some even had a bit of the original paint left on them. We learned this was due to the defeat and ensuing destruction of Athens by the Persians in about 480BC, whereupon the Athenians buried the surviving statues, preserving them in great condition for museum visitors a couple of millenia later!

We followed up our museum night with the National Archeological Museum the next day. This traced the history of all of Athens from prehistorical times up to about the end of the Roman period. It was fascinating to see the evolution in art style as we followed the statues through from several centuries BC to the inevitable Roman emperor busts in the first few centuries AD. Realism really came into its own in ancient hellenistic art. Most of the exhibits were statues, tombstones, steles and busts. I realized I'm used to a combination of sculpture and paintings in art museums we visit, and it seemed like something was missing at this museum – I was feeling the lack of traditional paintings. The ones that are preserved are, of course, on the vases and other pottery vessels. There was a big collection of these upstairs.

This is how you get down wit it in ancient Athens. The men are dancing with females, whom you can only just make out.

 the horse and his boy

 a theatrical mask

 two thumbs up! Another guy gambolling.

Poor Athena, not quite as attractive since she lost her nose, I imagine.

On our way back from the Archeological Museum we saw a street performance by a Korean tai kwon do group (we think). It was cool, and different from the typical busking we've seen. As we watched, we opined that this was something we would not see in New Zealand.

We finished our time in Athens by getting all the paganism out of our system with a visit to church! Like most of the others we've visited, John found it online, and saw they held to the 1689 Baptist Confession. We were so there – we're all down with proclaiming the Pope the antichrist (jks)! It turned out to be a pretty tiny church; John and I made up 1/4 of the total congregation size, though a few others joined the fellowship time afterwards. We sang the songs a cappella, and the pastor preached on Galatians 3:6-9. It was pretty great. It was nice to hear expositional preaching again, and he spoke on one of the key elements of the gospel: being declared righteous before God is only possible through faith in Jesus, rather than any works we can do. He pointed out this is what makes Christianity different from every other religion. Rather than us amassing so many righteous deeds to get ourselves declared righteous by God, an impossibility for sinners like us when standing before a perfect and holy God, God declares us righteous while we are actually yet sinful. The pastor cross-referenced a couple of passages to explain how the righteousness “counted to us” means that we are “considered as” righteous even when we're actually not. And the only way God can do this and still be just, punishing sin as it deserves, is for us to put our faith in Jesus and what He accomplished on the cross, when He bore our sins, guilt and punishment in our place. For a fuller picture of what the gospel is all about, read the Bible (maybe starting with John).

Back to our experience of the city – Athens is built quite literally on the ruins of former greatness, like an aged rock star going on tour one last time; no one wants to hear any of the new stuff, they're just there for the old hits they can sing along to, and to be part of the experience, to be able to say “I was there” along with thousands of others before. The ruins are just that – ruins, husks of buildings and monuments that hark back to the day when Athens was great. In one sense, once you've seen one marble pillar, you've seen them all, and every ruin that you visit after this is just a slightly different configuration of blocks and pillars, derelict and abandoned. In spite of that, those broken and vandalised structures still have some quality that defies objective aesthetics. That's why we were there of course, for the history. To look at the marble foundation slabs nestled in the dry grass, to climb up Mars Hill, wander through the Acropolis, and to be able to say “We were there.”

So were these people. A protest of some sort.