Day 1 - Blitz Day

We're home and the much-anticipated blog entries start now.
First one is the biggest, I'm afraid, because Day 1 was a very long day.

The neighbourhood we stayed in was called Plaka. It's an old part of Athens, houses built mostly of plaster walls and red tile roofs with windy pedestrian-only streets and nothing but souvenir shops and tourist-hungry tavernas. The first night was a bit uneventful, other than dodging 'round the excitement of protests at Syntagma Square, so waking up in the morning to orange trees and strange letters on everything was a whole different experience than Paris. It wasn't that much warmer than London, but it all came together to make us really feel like we were in a foreign country.

As a side note, our limited hostel experience has been good. This place was nice and our Japanese roommate was very considerate, if a bit antisocial.

We didn't want to waste any time. Armed with tourist maps and our Rick Steves' guidebook, we wandered through the stairs and steps in a beeline for the Acropolis. On the way we quite literally bumped into the Roman Forum; the centre of market and political life in the part of Athens' history you don't hear about in the history books: when it was just another Roman provincial town. Which was a couple hundred years of its history

First stop was the Areopagus. Climbing up the slippery damp stone steps to *the* Mars Hill was a cool experience; like we were walking in the very footsteps of St Paul. Not only did the Areopagus surprise us by being quite small and bumpy (probably worn by millions of tourist feet), but it also provided us an excellent view of all of this:

Eventually we descended from mars Hill to continue to summit to the main event: the Acropolis. When people hear about the Acropolis they often think about the Parthenon only, but the Acropolis is the whole hill: home also to the (forgive my spelling) Erechtheion, Propylaea, Temple of Athena Nike, and a couple more modern buildings, including also two ancient theatres and scores of other smaller buildings littering the sides and base of the hill.

This impressive (partially reconstructed) theatre was built by Herodes Atticus, a Roman. The back wall of the theatre is all original and the rest is a faithful reproduction. People call it the "Herodion" for short. It's actually still used for public performances, which is more than can be said for the slightly more famous Theatre of Dionysos.

I hadn't remembered that the Acropolis was big before the Golden Age of Athens or the Parthenon. Caves and tombs from the Mycenean era (think Homer, Odysseus and the Trojan horse) are all over the place.

Standing beside the entrance, the Temple of Athena Nike has been taken down and rebuilt twice in the last 100 years (hopefully it's done for a while). it used to have a statue of Athena inside (the goddess of wisdom, war, and Athens' patron deity) but with wings (Nike = Victory)

The main entrance to the Acropolis was the Propylaea, a mighty columned stair-entrance. The roof is gone now, but the temples and steps are still pretty impressive.

This is what the Areopagus looks like from the Propylaea. It's a big reddish granite rock. Not as big as the Acropolis but right close by, which is why it's been a traditional gathering place for the intellectual and religious elite of Athens.

The Parthenon is one of the most impressive busted and trashed buildings on Earth. The builders actually incorporated optical illusions into the geometry to make the lines look straighter, grander and give the subtle impression of significance. And my students tell me they'll never use math in their real life...

Most frieze carvings were removed or destroyed by raiders, Christians, Muslims, or Lord Elgin (villain of Athens, hero of the British Museum) not to mention that the roof was blown off by Venetian mortar teams using the temple as target practice in the 1600s (doesn't help that the Turks decided to keep their ammunition inside, either). Modern reconstruction work is being done slowly and painstakingly, though I wonder if it's likely to be finished in my life time.

The Acropolis gives you, I'd contend, a perfectly comprehensive view-tour of old and new Athens:

These pillars are what remains of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, started before Athenian democracy but not finished until the Greek-loving Roman emperor Hadrian found the site and said "Oh? You only need a massive amount of money? I got some of that." and finished it.

The Temple/Theatre of Dionysos. Beside being the god of wine, partying, and good times, Dionysos was the patron deity of the dramatic arts.

The whole complex is what remains of the Agora; mostly in ruins. The temple, though, is in surprisingly good shape: The Temple of Hephaistios, the god of the forge.

Hadrian's library: the hub of Athenian intellectual life in the Roman period.

Across the way from the Parthenon is, arguably, a more important building: the Erechtheion. This building, with its famous caryatid porch (the pillars are fully structurally functional statues of ladies, though these ones are copies; they brought the originals indoors and out of the acid rain of a modern city), was the more regular centre of daily religious activity on the Acropolis.

This shot is, admittedly, mostly for Paul. I think greeks have a different attitude to pets than we do. Namely that they should be shared. The Acropolis was swarming with random dogs. Some had collars and others looked kinda rough, but they were everywhere. It was hard to resist saying hello and petting them, but strange animals in strange countries are two big strikes in the strange disease ball game.

As we descended, we curved round and followed a path round the base towards the theatre of Dionysos. On our way we ran into all kinds of structures both sacred and mundane. This one was a bronze forgery.

Athens' ruins aren't just from the 400s BC. This is a Byzantine cistern

You know what my favourite part of the theatre was? You can sit there. I sat in the seats and let the historical presence of the place wash over me. I could almost see the robed and masked figures on the stage performing the latest Sophocles tragedy or a comedy by Aristophanes. And after crawling up and down the Acropolis, our feet were glad for the reprieve.

We didn't really feel finished and it was still early so we kept going. Not far from the SE corner of the Acropolis where we ended up was the temple of Olympian Zeus, and since our Acropolis ticket gave us free entry to this one, too, we scooted on over.

In its heyday this temple was much bigger than the Parthenon. But the distinctive Corinthian column capitals - very Roman - mark it as a very different building from the Parthenon with its Doric and Ionic ones. I tried, as I circled the massive field, to imagine the presence of the thing when all 104 columns were there. Scarcely more than a dozen remain today, but they seemed easily twice as high as the Parthenon.

 We nipped back to the hostel for a nap and a read over the hotter part of midday (not that it would have been uncomfortable. Hot in February is still only, like, 18 degrees in Athens)

And then, since we wanted to cram as much into our big first day as we could, we decided to head the main thoroughfare up to Parliament in the afternoon and take in modern Greece. I confess, a small desire to see all the hullaballoo of the previous night was lingering in there too, and broad daylight the next afternoon seemed as good a time as any to explore the after-riot.

 

This shot is my front page news photo. The cop bikes and busted wall tiles that were used as projectiles seem to have a lot of narrative.

 Syntagma Square cleans up pretty good, all things considered. There were a lot of dogs lying around but it was busy and bright and the only remnants of dissatisfaction were a couple people with signs near the subway entrance.

 Well, and graffiti. Lots of that. On everything. The defacement of this otherwise classy little statue made me sad.

 This MacDonalds, directly across the street from the square, had gotten its glass wall smashed in. People were still eating in there, though. Bada bum ba ba.

This fountain seemed to have the evidence of the last night's projectiles, the others, I suppose, having been swept away by cleanup teams. Scary. I wouldn't want to be a riot cop. And I really wouldn't want to be a Greek riot cop. You read the papers in London, they make it sound like Athenians do this every weekend.

 Drawing a straight line from the Parliament building through the square, you continue down a busy pedestrian-filled shopping district on Ermou Street.

There were a lot of homeless and a lot of street performers. But this; kids playing for money, this made me mad. I kept imagining a Fagin behind every one of them, like Robin Williams' character in August Rush.

It's funny what "international mega-corporations" looks like to certain people. M&S is a big department store chain in England - it's a lot like the Bay but with some groceries. It was kinda funny seeing one here.

This Foot Locker got pwned. The inside had been trashed, too. I wonder if the anti-interference rioters threw away or burned the shoes they stole, or if they're wearing the comfy hypocrisies right now.
Then again, when you're looting a shoe store, do you have time to try them on? How do you take off your old shoes to test them out with all the broken glass on the floor?

 This statue, Rick (the guidebook) told us, is of the main orthodox bishop of Athens who spoke out against the Nazi persecution of Jews and managed to save a significant number of Greek Jews from being deported to death camps. Good man.
Greek letters Quiz: The priest's name is ... Damaskinos!

If you look closely, this Byzantine chapel has been cobbled together with symbols and bricks of half a dozen different eras and traditions. The Byzantines got good at this; rebuilding churches from wreckage, but it makes for an amusing symbolic hodge podge every now and again.


The sun was starting to come down and our feet were worn enough after our huge first day that we felt we'd earned our dinner and bed. We hit a taverna next to the hostel for an earlyish dinner and relaxed the rest of the evening away in contented reading and dozing.