Day 13 Athens & the Parthenon

Our last day in Greece, boy did it go fast. This morning after breakfast we walked down to a streetcar station, and hopped onboard and rode 1 hour down to the city center. Not as bad as the Tokyo or Paris subway, but it did get a little crowded.

We hopped off in front of the Temple of Zeus, (seen left) which seems as if it used to be an amazingly huge structure, even bigger than the Parthenon. There is little of it that remains standing however, but we were only able to snap a few pics from a distance away.

Right next to the temple of Zeus is Hadrian’s (Roman Emperor) Arch, which is the remains of a Roman commemoration for his admiration of the Greek’s culture. I guess he was a Roman Emperor who was really fond of the Greeks and built a massive arch that used to lead under a main road that led into Athens.

From there we walked across down, hitting the Plaka district again. Theo showed us a few things, and we eventually ended up at a giant McDonalds (our rally point) where we had about 2-3 hours of free time.

We crossed over the Syntagma plaza to view the changing of the guard at the Greece parliament building, which is similar to the Buckingham palace type set up. Though they sort of dress silly, these guys really have a hard job, standing in the heat not moving, while tourists walk up and get their pictures taken with them. To a Greek solider, this job is a great honor, and every other hour the guard is changed.

We stopped briefly & checked out the Ancient Agora of Athens, (seen above) which used to be a massive complex that held the ancient Athenian government offices, such as courts and administration buildings. We weren’t able to get down inside of it, but it is out in the open and very easy to get some photos . The conquering Romans built a Forum close by.

Rentar then took us down into the subway station to view ancient ruins. I get the feeling that if you want to see a lot of Ancient Athens, it is best to go underground, where the strata of layers can easily be seen. When Athens was digging out its subway tunnels, like Rome, they kept hitting into ruin after ruin under the earth from 2000+ years ago. This is a good cheap way to see ancient Athens, as they have all sorts of artifacts and vases on display.

Next it was back to the Plaka (shopping) district. The joke is that each store seems to have the same stuff as the one before. I can’t tell you how many Spartan t-shirts, Parthenon snow globes, or Greek post cards I saw replicated from one store to the next, but it was pretty redundant. I got some T-shirts and small items for those loved ones back home and eventually we rallied back to McDonalds in time. Of course John took us to a great eating place, where the waiter even recognized him from his many past trips to Athens. Pretty good Gyros, although Meer told us that the steak ones were better tasting than the pork. The waiter then snaped a pic of us after lunch.

Our guide got us on the tour bus where we drove around Athens and looked out the window at Plato’s Academy, which had a lot of graffiti on the side of it. Theo makes mention that lots of Ethnic Albanians were invited to Greece as surplus labor back in the late 80’s and 90’s, and that many gypsies came with them who cause a lot of problems per the riots in Athens back in 2008.

After checking out the original Athens stadium (seen above) which held the first modern Olympic games of 1896, we hoped in a bus and went towards the Acropolis (city center) where the Parthenon lay on top of the hill awaiting us. Of course, we had to hit an approved EF momento/gift shop first, which was a bit annoying. Every time we hit one of these stores, it takes away 30-45 minutes of time we would have had otherwise to spend at the actual attraction. Later in the day, I was late getting back to the group, because I refused to rush my way through the Acropolis due to this waste of time gift shopping earlier spent.

Above can be seen a massive theater that sits at the base of the Acropolis. The climb up to the top was not all that steep. Ruth was advised not to make the trip countless times, but insisted on going up anyway. Saint Rentar was nice enough to spot her so if she were to fall or get dizzy, he would be there to assit her.

Here is a shot of the entrance buildings that lead up to the Parthenon area. This part was devised by Pericles after winning the Persian Wars. It is also called the Propylaea

Off to the side of the Parthenon is the famous "Porch of the Maidens", or Pillars of Caryatids which was originally built to honor some Athenian King I believe and is referred to as the Erectheum . Rumor has it the Turks used it as a harem as a way to insult the Greeks, but I can't confirm that. It can be seen below:

The Parthenon was built in 447 BC and not finished until 432 BC. It was since restored 2 major times in the past 200 years, once in the 1830’s and another in the 1930’s where they placed massive iron clamps in the shape of a capital "i" (seen lower left) into the rocks which over time rusted and expanded, cracking the marble and thus doing more damage than good. Currently they are working to restore these with Titanium clamps, which will not rust and are stronger than the old Iron ones. In certain places, the rocks were so badly damaged from the prior restorations that they have to replace entire blocks of pentellic marble which is why you will always see scaffolding no matter when you come to Athens. Since the 1980’s they have slowly been taking it down, keeping the original pieces, and restoring these friezes with true copies of the original as the acid rain and Athenian pollution have been taking their toll.

Of course the brilliance of the Acropolis is missed by 99% of the visitors. Many just see it as a bunch of rocks with a few remaining free standing pillars from an old long gone temple. What seems lost on many is the realization that this building was mathematically perfect in every measurement. The Greeks fully understood and honored the Golden Ratio/Divine proportion, which when it came time to build Athena her perfect temple was the main inspiration of the building. Pythagoras himself knew of the proportions of the human figure which had a tremendous effect on Greek art. Every part of their major buildings, down to the smallest detail of decoration, was constructed upon this 1.618 proportion. There is a really cool 4 minute video on this concept at the bottom of this web page.

There is an old Greek saying that there are no straight lines in the Parthenon. That is because had they built it perfectly straight it would have seemed crooked from a distance. The floor and stairs are built with the middle higher up than the ends. This makes an upside down “U” shape which can be clearly seen when standing in front of it. Also the pillars bulge in the middle and are thinner at the tops and bottom ends, which again gives the structure an optical illusion of being straight. The pillars themselves are made up of marble drums (see far right pillar) stacked almost like leggo blocks one on top of another, snapped into place by wodden pegs in the center of each disk.

(Left )Looking down from the heights of the Acropolis (Right) better view of Temple of Zeus below

Below the top of the mountain is the Theater of Dionysus, which was built in 325 BC. Eventually it fell into disrepair until Nero (who toured Greece and performed in most major theaters) paid to restore it. From what I've read, whatever you see of it today is mainly Roman influences. Apparently Nero before killing himself decided to tour all around Greece, forcing many of the locals to sit through his shows, under penalty of death for leaving in the middle of the act.

Caught the bus home, and had a few hours of free time. We went to a beach only a few blocks from the hotel. Wasn't as nice as Tolo, but it was fun getting a chance to swim in the Aegean one more time. After dinner, we had a massive Uno battle, where Team Alpha (teachers) went up against Team Bravo (students) and of course we kicked their buts. :-) Anyway, it was a nice way to end the journey before the hellish 26 hour trip home.

The tour was really amazing, and our kids seemed to have a good time. Stacie and I were pleased with the overall behavior and other than Ruth's accident, we really didn't have any big problems. I hope you have enjoyed reading my observations and storys about the trip. If you have any questions just e-mail me at cullster@comcast.net

Day 12 Epidaurus, Mycenae & Athens

Woke up this morning, opened the door to a perturbed Stacie, who looked like she was going to kill somebody. Per the previous blog post, Ruth, her roommate had slipped and fell shaving her legs while in the bathroom and cracked her head wide open. Rentar (a health teacher) took a quick look at the scalp and said stitches might be an afterthought as the wound had taken place over 4 hours ago, which is usually the limit for stiches. Ruth’s bleeding had come under control, but everyone agreed she needed to be taken to the hospital to be checked out. This meant that Theo & Stacie, the group leader had to accompany Ruth back to Nafpilo, while the rest of the group continued on with the tour.

Meer and I got our kids on the bus, and we continued towards the outdoor theater of Epidaurus As Theo wasn’t with us, I hopped up and read my tour book on what we were about to see, and told my Irish joke buying us time until we picked up today’s tour director, who was the best of the trip. She understood our situation, and took over Theo’s role of getting everyone off the bus, paid our tickets, herded us up the hill to the outdoor theater.

This outdoor theater of Epidaurus is one of the largest of the ancient world. Originally built in the 4^th century BC by the Greeks, the upper layer was added on by the Romans. Our guide explained to us that there was a massive earthquake in 400 AD that would later cover the hillside, and thus preserving it until uncovered in 1881. It can seat somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000+ and is still in use to this day. In fact the week after we leave, there is a massive Greek play festival, which shows only at night.

Another really cool thing about this place is the acoustics. Having been built 100 years after the Athens Parthenon, the Greeks knew how to use the Golden Ratio or Phi 1.618 , to create double parabolic design using two arcs that run the length and width of the Theater. These arcs intersect at the Golden mean at the center of the theater giving it unreal acoustic enhancements. This mathematical genius causes a prefect augmentation of sound to reflect, so that a person can drop a coin or sing a song and be heard from anywhere all over the seating area. A few kids volunteered to sing. Rhett sang Desperado (Eagles) followed by a trio who sang Amazing Grace, and finally Erica Hillwig and Lori Beck sang some selections from Phantom of the Opera. I was in the top row and heard them perfectly.

Here are some more shots of the theater which was pretty damn impressive.

~ Other notes:

~Tons of bees everywhere, in fact they became to really be a problem for some of the kids who purchased Coke or sweet drinks. Nobody got stung though.
~ The seats of the theater were made of Limestone, which looks like marble, but acoustically deadens crowd noise and low tones, as proved by a 2007 study done here by the University of Georgia. It conversely augments high pitches, such as the voices of the speakers which just goes to show the ancients knew what they were doing.
~the Outside retaining wall collapsed after the earth quake and was rebuilt to give the theater its original shape.
~Some of the benches are cracked or broken, which shows where tumbling debris from the earthquake dinged up the theater. (seen right) Other spots were completely replaced where the landslide may have caused too much damage.

On our way, we passed one of the oldest bridges in all of Greece, on the road back to town. The internet says the name of it is

Ponte miceneo- per Evangelos Gazis? It was taken outside the town of Aghios loannis on the road to Epidaraus.

After the Theater, we headed back to town to pick up Ruth, Stacie, and Theo. Ruth was now sporting a white fishnet stocking on her dome, and was under some heavy antibiotics. The Doctor ordered Ruth to take it easy and not to do anything physical for the next few days, which Ruth would later ignore. (More on that later)

Our bus stopped at one of the better restaurants in the area, according to our tour guide. Food was really good, as I had Beef stew and potatoes. One of the girls from Texas who was a trained nurse had to give Ruth her shot after lunch. Stacie was pretty upset about having to miss Epidaurus, and of course Meer didn’t hesitate to rub it in that it was his favorite part of the whole trip. (Which it wasn’t, but that was the running joke for the day.) In reality, the whole Ruth injury thing could have been a lot worse.

Our 2^nd stop after lunch was the ruins of Mycenae. Made famous by Homer’s Iliad, we pulled the bus over at King Agamemnon’s tomb, also known as the Treasury of Artreus, which is a massive burial mound with a vaulted ceiling known to the Greeks as a Tholos. Quite impressive actually, as the size of the stones and mound were rather huge. That said, it was not as impressive as New Grange(in Ireland) which is twice as old and many times larger, but of course I’m biased towards my Celtic ancestors. Still, these ruins pre-dated “Classical” Greece, so we are talking 1600 BC or so which is considered the early Bronze Age.

One famous site at Mycenae is the Lion’s Gate, which is considered one of the earliest European carvings in all of antiquity. Some believe this a religious symbolism of having a pillar in-between two feuding lions. The supposed symbollogy of the column (represents civilization) is keeping the Lions from tearing each other apart.

In 1874 amateur scholar/playboy Henrich Schliemann dug up the ruins at Mycenae and found various graves, skeletons, and funeral masks, which he (wrongly) attributed to Agamemnon. Of course the newspapers of the day over played this, which gave him even more fame and fortune. Unfortunately much of what he uncovered was not cared for properly and when some of it hit the open air, it didn’t last more than a few days.

No one is really sure what happened that Mycenae fell. Historians point to the arrival of the Dorians from the north as playing a role, while others blame the “sea people” who took down the Hittites and Middle Kingdom of Egypt. Nobody is really sure, but the place was destroyed in the ancient days and not by the Christians for a change. Of course Homer used this as the setting for Achilles being summoned by Agamemnon to fight against the Trojans to rescue his sister-in-law, Helen of Troy.

Whatever is fact or fiction, the view of Mycenae is simply staggering. Surrounded by a sea of Olive trees, it can easily be seen as to why this was a perfect place for a fortress, as you can see the ocean from the ruin’s heights.

Once done, we hopped a 3 hr bus ride to Athens, then sat in Athens traffic for an extra hour. On the way I would have liked to have stopped for 5 minutes to get out and view the Corinth Canal, but Theo missed the call and we were practically over it before he was able to look out the window and alert us to the fact that we had already crossed over it. Nobody was able to get out their cameras I don’t think, although it was listed on our itinerary to stop. I guess we just didn’t have the time? Later on my flight back to the States, our plane went high above it, so I’m throwing in this picture to show that I did in fact get to see the Corinth canal.

Took the bus to the Plaka district in downtown Athens, which is just below the Acropolis. Really cool atmosphere, lots of cool shops, souvenir type shops, and even got a few night shots of the Acropolis, but none of them turned out as you almost need to use a tripod when taking night shots. Grabbed another Yiro (Gyro) which they wanted 7.50 for sit-down, or 1.50 for take out, so we got them and sat on the curb instead. (no brainer)

Went back to the hotel, and hung out for a while before crashing for the night.