May 27: Athens

We arrived in Athens early the next morning. We had signed up for a tour that would take us to Athens’ famous acropolis and drive us around town a bit. The port where we docked was called Piraeus, and was about seven miles (or was in km?) from Athens. Right away, we noticed that Athens was extremely crowded and that the traffic was pretty crazy. Athens’ traffic and pollution problems are legendary, and it took us all of two seconds to understand why.

The acropolis (literally, “high city”) is on top of hill in the center of Athens. It was the site of many different temples, only two of which are still standing in any significant way: the Parthenon, a temple for the goddess Athena, and the Erechtheion, another temple. Another structure that is left is the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, an amphitheater that was built in the second century AD. It was refurbished in the 20th century and is still regularly used for performances. It would be interesting to see a concert or play in a place like that:



The Parthenon and Erechtheion were interesting to see, but by this time, I don’t think we were all that impressed by marble columns and statues any more. We’d seen lots of them in other places, and since those other places had more of their historical context and feel remaining, they were more interesting. Athens is fairly modernized, so the sights of the acropolis seem rather out of place. Regardless, their size (especially the Parthenon) was impressive.

Walking up into the acropolis:


The Temple of Hephaestus, in the Athenian Agora, below the Acropolis. This was as close as we got, unfortunately. I would like to have gotten a closer look, since it’s one of the few temples in Greece that still has its original roof and structure, relatively undamaged:


The Parthenon. Unfortunately, no one is allowed inside:






The back of the Parthenon:


The Erechtheion:


The Erechtheion’s Porch of the Maidens:




The acropolis provides excellent views of all sides of Athens. Too bad there’s not much to see:












The rest of our visit to Athens consisted of a visit to a small shop with handcrafted souvenirs and stuff, and a stop by the Olympic stadium where the first modern Olympic games and the 2004 Olympic games were held.





We saw some Greek soldiers dressed in traditional garb in front of a monument. Too bad I can’t remember what that monument was or why they were dressed that way:


Driving around town, we quickly realized that there wasn’t anything we could do in Athens that we couldn’t do in another city, or that we hadn’t done already. We were given the opportunity to leave the tour group and find our own way back to the ship, but decided not to bother, and just went back to the ship when we were done with our tour. Athens just wasn’t that interesting. In fact, it was my least favorite stop during the entire vacation. I’m glad we saw the acropolis and what it had to offer, but I wouldn’t go back to Athens. Every other place we visited in Greece was much nicer and more interesting. This would be our last day in Greece, and it’s unfortunate that we would go out with more of a whimper than a bang.