Day 19 Athens, Greece

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Today we hit the big smoke of Athens, I cant believe that it has been nearly 30 years since I first hauled myself up the steps of the Acropolis to see the 2,500 year old Parthenon (used as the treasury for the Delian League (around 438 BC), then as a temple to worship the goddess Athena (around 5 BC), the Christians then dedicated to the Virgin Mary by 7 AD before it changing again by mid 1500s to the Ottoman's who converted it to a Mosque and (kind of stupidly) a store for their ammunition, this was pretty much the end of the Parthenon after a bomb hit it around 1687, it wasn't until the 1800s that some of the remaining sculptures were preserved (or stolen depending on which side of history you read) and ended up being brought by the British Government, for safe keeping in the British Museum!!!!



To quite so much has changed in the past 30 years; the museum on the acropolis has been moved to the bottom of the hill and you can no longer walk between the columns of the actual Parthenon, with dedicated pathways now built up to and around the temple and replicas of the Elgin Sculptures are now in place in part of the restored section of the Parthenon. There was no lack of tourists and i was glad we were there early as it would have been hard to see much by lunchtime other than heads.(also the 15 years of living in Townsville helped cope with the heat - much better than Bradford to Athens in 1994!!)

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