Since we are in Greece, it’s necessary to go into Athens. I can say now that I have been to Athens, seen the sights, and have taken photos to prove it. It was much like my trip to New Orleans this summer, I can say I have been there, but would I go back? Not necessarily. It’s a huge city as you will see from the photos and there were a million tourists there to fill it up.
We took a hydrofoil into the city. On our trip so far we have been avoiding these things because they are super fast and have the right of way. We decided to cheat on the Pipedream and board the “Fly Dolphin1” to get to town. It was a lot of fun. A bit expensive - €24 for one person round-trip, but like I said was a lot of fun. This is a photo of another one passing us on the water.
This is Ruben the rooster… someone had a fake rooster attached to their window sill so Dad and I decided to take advantage of that photo opportunity.
This was either a temple to Zeus or to the metal working gods, I am not sure which. Regardless I really liked the contrast. From the top of the Acropolis, you could see the entire city and wherever there was a patch of green from trees there was some sort of temple or monument.
I am not sure what theater this was. We didn’t have to pay to enter the Acropolis and came in from a back entrance, so the little Greek map I had didn’t help a whole lot. It was at the base of the Acropolis and was very well intact. How much is actually original or what was “restored” I don’t know.
This is the Propylaea – a structure that designed to install the proper reverence in worshipers as they crossed into the spiritual world of the Acropolis. As you can clearly see by the photo, there is a lot of excavation work going on right now. That was strike one of visiting the Acropolis. Something about being in a high spiritual, ancient place and having a double wide set up with scaffolding to disrupt your visions of what life was like.
This is the mob of tourists we were fighting. As you can see strike 2 for the site. I understand it’s one of those “must sees” in Greece, which is why we were there, but oh my there were so many people. And this isn’t even the busy/hot season. I mentioned how it reminded me of Disney and sure enough my Dad offered to take a photo of a past Disney cast member I knew – Susie the character captain. It’s a small world!
This is Dad and I being awesome tourists! We have some nice photos of us there too, but why be nice when we can look absolutely silly? It makes for a more interesting photo anyway. This is in front of the Parthenon by the way.
Dad and I looked so cool that Chuck and Judy wanted the same photo! We actually got separated up there and with all the people it got a bit scary that we wouldn’t reconnect, but sure enough we did and it worked out great for photo ops.
This was a photo taken from the base of the hill looking up at the Parthenon. Did you know?: it was built between 447 and 438 BC under Pericles’ rule and is dedicated to Athena. It has served many purposes including a temple to Athena, a Turkish mosque, and most importantly a place to store gunpowder in the 1600s. This was when it was bombed and the dent seen now was made. According to Fodor’s it also used to be brightly colored and described as a “painted lady” of the Acropolis.
The Acropolis Museum was amazing. It was built on top of an excavation site and you can see the entrance here that looks down upon the digging and dusting. The admission was a whopping €5 and even though we had to check our bags and cameras at the door, it will be one of those experiences I keep pictured in my mind. The incredibly modern building was a great juxtaposion to the ancient site.
One of the coolest things was throughout the museum, inside and out, there was a UV filtering plexiglass that gave museum patrons a look down at what was below and created a whole different type of exhibit. In addition to that are many sculptures, friezes, and iron figures taken from the Acropolis to create a very diverse collection that made the trip to Athens worthwhile for me.
When we were exiting the museum we saw a group of German teenagers and one of them was wearing this shirt. “Oedipus – The original mother fucker”. It was too good to pass up without a photo.
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