Athens, Greece

Wow, I'm finally to our final post on Greece. I'm so happy to be done, but also sad it's over. I still feel like I have so much to blog about this summer, so I have to get moving.

So on with Athens! After our beautiful drive through the country, we began approaching Athens. At this point was when my planning started to crumble. I've heard driving through this city is awful, crazy, even impossibly. Back to the advice from Trip Advisor-they advised NOT to drive in Athens. How I wished we listened to their advice?

Well before we get to the stressful part....there was an incredible moment that I will never forget. So we were following very vague directions to the city center, where our hotel is. As we started getting into the city, we began descending a hill. All of a sudden, a break in the city scene, right ahead of us is the Acropolis. Sitting on the Acropolis is the Parthenon.

Can you spot it? I took the photo a little after our jaw-dropping view, but I wanted to show you how high it stands, how you can see it from practically anywhere in the city. How it stands, royalty above this city.



We continued onto our hotel. Again, directions were impossible to get, and then to follow. However due to the die-hards that Tyler and I are, we continued on. Eventually after about an hour, probably over a 2-dozen u-turns, going around the block again due to one-ways EVERYWHERE, etc, we found our hotel. Odd thing, they called it the AirOtel Parthenon Hotel, However the sign on the front only said Hotel Parthenon. Well I had my suspicions that this could be the hotel, however the address wasn't right, and the name wasn't exactly right. Plus we were right by the Parthenon, so there were probably a lot of Parthenon Hotels with minor name variations, right? Due to the language barrier, they of course didn't see a problem changing the name. So Tyler finally parked a few blocks away, and I hiked it to the Hotel Parthenon to check and see if that was it. Yay! We found it. I went back to Tyler and we made it back through the TINY one way road to the front of our hotel. We had a lot of 'fun' trying to parallel park (needing a van to move for us, lol). We dropped our luggage, got directions to the car rental return, and left again for our second adventure on the streets of Athens.


The Airotel Parthenon Hotel (or Hotel Parthenon)

Long story short... (or I'll try), it took us quite a while to find Enterprise. It ended up being an hour later than we told them, still before they were supposed to close. Of course, they closed early. We finally worked it out to leave the car with the key under the mat-crazy in my opinion. Next challenge, find the metro. After walking a few deserted roads, at night, in Athens we found the Metro and made it back to our hotel. After a LONG stressful evening, we grabbed a crepe and walked around the Acropolis with this as our view:



I was so excited to get some sleep and wake up for an amazing day of Ancient Greek Ruins, Museums and the Plaka.

Our first stop on the way up to the Acropolis: The Theater of Herod Atticus. It was built by the Romans in 161 AD and is still used today for concerts, ballet, and performances. Sadly enough there weren't any shows that night.










*Views from the Acropolis

Below is the Theatre of Dionysius. It was the first stone theater and home to Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripedes, and Aristophanes. It was rebuilt around 342 BC by Lykourgos and then enlarged by the Romans to be used for gladiator fights.






I loved the statues


Take a look at that VIP seating-the throne type chairs carved from stone. They got the 'comfy' chairs.




View of Parthenon from the theater

This guy was great. He had a friend in this bird that was just sleeping at his feet. He picked him up, and placed him by this lady-which her reaction was funny. The bird didn't mind at all. He just hopped back down to his feet and went back to sleep. So funny.


Olives: EVERYWHERE. Yummy!


Beautiful old streets. Classical homes. Street Musicians. Chicken Soulvaki. Right next to the Acropolis.







Hadrian's Gate. A triumphal gate was built in 131 AD at the end of a street (now called Odos Adrianou) that led from the old city of Athens to Hadrian's addition.



The once beautiful entrance to the Temple of Olympian Zeus (The Olympieion)



The Olympieion is a large temple dedicated to Zeus Olympios. It was built by Hadrian between 124 and 132 AD. According to tradition, the establishment of a sanctuary on this site goes back to the early historic times of Athens.



This was so beautiful to see up close. Much closer than you could see the Parthenon. It was amazing, the pillars, the sculptures, everything.



Tyler wanted to have a photo where his hand was on top of the temple. I was mistaken and thought he meant the Parthenon. He meant the pillars. FAIL.





*View from the Acropolis

Tyler wanted to find the Ferrari store, so we decided to take a stroll through Athens. After walking through the Plaka, we grabbed coffee and pastries for the walk and continued on our way. Up to this point-all of the news about riots and unrest in Athens didn't come true at all. Until we heard the police on loud speakers, and crowds making a lot of noise. We were near the financial district, so we found out that there was some kind of riot going on. Lucky for us it was a little calmed down as we passed. We resisted the curiosity to go see what was going on-especially once we seen the Riot Police all suited up with shields, guns, and the like gear.


You can't really tell, this but this was part of the rioting crowds.

After H&M and Ferrari, we made our way through the streets of the Monastiraki Flea Market and on to Ancient Agora. Below is the Stoa of Attalos (the museum). It was built around 150 BC and restored in the 1950's.





Temple of Hephaistos. The temple, known as the "Theseion", is Doric, peripteral, with a pronaos and opisthodomos. It crowns the hill of Kolonos Agoraios and is the most prominent and better preserved monument of the Agora. The temple was dedicated to two gods, Hephaistos and Athena, whose bronze cult statues stood in the interior. The construction of the Hephaisteion started in 449 B.C.




*View from the Acropolis

Of course the highlight of our trip to Athens was the Parthenon. I really do not have words to describe this. Possibly unbelievable, jaw-dropping, surreal, unreal, etc. could work. It still doesn't do it justice. We really couldn't believe we were seeing this in real life. We loved every minute of it.



The Parthenon and other main buildings on the Acropolis were built by Pericles in the fifth century BC as a monument to the cultural and political achievements of the inhabitants of Athens. The building was designed by the architects Kallikrates and Iktinos as the home of the giant statue of Athena. It took 9 years to build and was completed in 438 BC. From a temple it became a church, a mosque and finally as a storage facility for Turkish gunpowder. In 1687 the Venetians bombarded it from below. A cannon ball hit the gun powder and blew it up.




*View from the Acropolis- Athens-the city of cement?








*Love the uneven column sections

In the 1750's travelers and Lord Elgin, the British Ambassador took sculptures from the Parthenon. We were able to see a lot of them in the museum. It is still amazing the talent and the history the pediments portrayed.







The Erecthion sits on the most sacred site of the Acropolis where Poseidon and Athena had their contest over who would be the Patron of the city. Poseidon thrust his trident into the rock and a spring burst forth, while Athena touched the ground with a spear and an olive tree grew. Athena was declared the victor and the great city of Athens was named for her while Poseidon was given a small village in Syros after it was discovered he had merely ruptured a water main. (not really).The building itself contains the porch of the maidens or Caryatids which are now copies, four of which have been placed in the Acropolis museum, hopefully to be reunited with a fifth taken from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin and put in the British Museum more than a century ago.








*I loved the roofs of the Plaka

That evening was our last in Greece. We splurged and went to a beautiful rooftop restaurant for Parthenon Views. It was quite fun when it started raining on us, but it was short and sweet.



I love this quote I found: "What would a visit to Athens be without going to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon? And still people ask me why the Parthenon is so important. Its because it was the most perfect building built by the world's most advanced civilization and even though we have been studying it for centuries we are still not sure how they did it." -Matt Barrett



How to close this wonderful, unimaginable, life long dream vacation? Not sure. All I know is all the photos and research couldn't have prepared us for this trip. It was an amazing two weeks. The best part-the 336 hours I spent with the love of my life. No work, no school, no cleaning, no responsibility, no anything. Just us. Plus, I learned to read a little Greek ;).