Life has returned to normal for us so we have been home for 7 days and life has been so busy….
So our thoughts before we return completely back to reality and even forget we had a holiday
Athens January 14-17
So where do I begin with this city???
How do I describe Athens?
How can I possibly comprehend into words what we have seen.
There is so much ancient history and to try and place it onto a timeline is virtually impossible.
But I shall try…
So here we go..
Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece and dominates the Attica region .It is one of the world’s oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning around 3,400 years. The first pre-historic settlements were constructed in 3000 BC around the hill of Acropolis. The legend says that the King of Athens, Theseus unified the ten tribes of early Athens into one kingdom (c. 1230 BC). This process of bringing together in one home – once upon time created the largest and wealthiest state on the Greek mainland, but it also created a larger class of people excluded from political life by the nobility. I guess that still exists everywhere today.
Athens is huge when seen from the sky but the part usually seen by the average tourist is the Acropolis, the adjacent Plaka and possibly the archaeological museum since, let’s admit tourists come to Greece for the ancient history and the islands….and Athens has both…although you have to get in a plane or a ferry to go to the island….hey we did that!!
So.. …
We arrived in Athens returning our hire car to the airport and hailed a yellow taxi to take us to our accommodation in downtown plaka. The Plaka is the old part of town and Marc had booked this hotel here for its advantageous position,..right in the middle.
The first thing I will say about Athens is their cars…lots of them, many lanes and many small roads….Our taxi drive into all sort of one way streets and narrowly squeezed the car between two cars parked either side of the moving vehicle, it drove onto wide streets and it backed down a one way street trying to find our accommodation….it did not matter if there were cars either side, or a bike on the pathway trying to get through,,,of course without a helmet on, he just drove…safely ..but I can honestly say I am glad that Marc parked the car at the airport…he would have been even more silver haired trying to get through this situation…..
We could not find lure hotel crammed in these tiny city streets and lanes…, and then I spotted it…and we made our way in the narrow streets with all our luggage to the venue.
From the little lane we stepped into luxury.An amazing greeting….the hotel was wonderful and the setting and the ambience of the place was oozing with warmth and welcome. We were upgraded for a small additional price to a suite and we took it…nothing like luxury on your last few days…well I thought so anyway.
The suite was perfect as I danced my way around the rooms…well in my foot condition,…danced…hobbled around the room.
(I must talk about our hotel….they are fantastic and the service was excellent…the best we have ever seen. We were treated to all sorts of things and they even remembered our names. And our wishes…I would recommend this venue highly!!)
But now….Off outside to explore the world of Athens.
We meandered and did our usual where we wandered up and down the alleyways and little streets….all the cobbled stones and irregular pathways…. we found blue roofs and white houses that had originally belonged to the stonemasons (that was my dream of seeing an island) and then we wandered into the Acropolis by accident. This was so huge and decided we would leave it.
We had the full day tomorrow.
And we did……and many other parts of history.
Trying to explain what we saw over the next few days in respect to history is very hard .. Greece has human history dating back as long as there have been Homo sapiens on the planet but when we think of Greece, most people think of the Parthenon and Classical Greek statuary of Athena, Zeus, Hermes, etc. (all dating from a early 5th century BC to a couple of centuries AD) and Athens has PLENTY of Classical Greek stuff. Randomly in the middle of the a small square will be the excavated remains of a ancient monument or of some ancient baths. Then of course, overarching all of Athens is the acropolis – visible from almost everywhere with its Parthenon standing out against the skyline. It is gradually gaining more structure as the archaeologists continue to piece together what they can to rebuild it as well as the other temples on the acropolis.it is an amazing place… Amazing structured..so hard to comprehend how they did it so many thousands of years ago.
So much of the old temples have been destroyed by either war, neglect or ignorance that they could never rebuild them. There are plenty of signs indicating that what was not destroyed in wars or just deteriorated over the centuries, there has plenty plenty of deliberate disregard for the importance of these buildings even if just for architectural reasons. We found walls where broken pieces of marble statuary or columns were just stuffed into the mortar to save the stone masons from searching for another rock. There is also the thievery of Lord Elgin who stole whole sections of the Parthenon and other temples and sold them to the British Museum (who do not appear to have returned them to the Greek state since its independence 150years ago).
Anyway, over the 2 1/2 days of wandering, we saw the acropolis, the ancient and ‘new’ agora, the library of Hadrian, the temple of Zeus , LOTS of ruins and all with pleasant weather and minimal tourists – why would anyone come here in summer? Plus, we saw the National Archaeological And the New Acropolis museums. We threw in the stadium that was rebuilt for the 1896 Olympics as it had appeared in 2AD complete with all the seating and steps being in marble – amazing to look …amazing marble !!! But we discovered at the end of the tunnel that originally provided access for the athletes, a museum describing a brief history of the modern day Olympics together with the posters and torches for all the games – this find was rather unexpected since there was nothing at the start of the tunnel to suggest there was anything interesting up there.of. Of course we did the obligatory photos of being on the podium and running through the tunnel into the entrance ……well after all we we are tourists!!!
Definitely a change from our earlier travels.
As one commentator asked us, how many castles have we been to? Well, we have decided that you can definitely see too many churches. Castles vary a lot more and so you can see more of those.
However, we were aware we could get saturated by ruins but the sheer size and incredible accuracy and detail of the stonemason artistry definitely has to be experienced up close to really appreciate it! Even though we saw so many…we did not get sick if them…each ine was different…We did not regret our time looking at the temples or ruins nor the museums of fine pottery, jewellery and other artefacts – amazing. Especially when you consider that these monumental structures were constructed up to 2500 years ago – metallurgy was still in its infancy but they could still joint large blocks of stone without mortar better then any stone masonry work we see these days.
The other artefacts of the ancients Greeks, the birth of the sciences and of social reform including democracy, you cannot see these but it was good that in the archaeological museum they also included what was happening culturally in the same time line as the artefacts – kept it in perspective.
Looking back on our travels in Greece, it is now really good that we included visits to Mycenaean ruins, Mystras and to Meteora…first. I do not thin
K I would have liked to have completed it any other way. These trips were at a glimpse into the period of the early Hellenic, Byzantine and ottoman times….it helped to piece things together. And to top it off with the climax in Athens…was great….. I also discovered the biblical cities that Paul wrote….and where they were…even to the rock that he ‘preached’ upon….all a significant part of our travels through history,..
Combining all that, with the timeline of where and how things happened in history related to Greece and Athens. Such an amazing amazing place!!!!!
I do not think that I can really say how I felt about Athens…so much history and how insignificant I felt and so small against this huge realm of history…….I definitely felt so miniature beside it all.
A great city…a great country ….a great history of our small world.
And now back to reality.
Back to our little world of Brunswick heads …so little, so small and so new compared to the history and age of what we have seen.
I have learnt so much about history, about people, about culture, about religion, about power and wars, about architecture, about humanity !!
All rolled into six weeks of learning…of application, of appreciation ,of grandeur…
And as Marc and I stepped off the plane after over 30 hours of travelling., tired and weary…after being together 24/7 for six whole weeks…..we still liked each other very much!!!
LIFE!!!