Archeologists for a Day (A Very Hot Day)

So, to start...lets just say that today was a much better day than yesterday. We woke up to the sun shining and a new day of travels ahead of us. Last night we had decided to go to the Acropolis, so after an interesting breakfast experiment (we went to the bakery across the street and ordered two cheese pockets...yeah...they don't use cheddar...) we stopped off at the grocery store around the corner to get two yogurts. We drank them as we walked down the street in to the morning sun. The street that our hostel is on is located snugly in a residential section of athens. It reminds me a lot of Mexico, where the streets are always busy and very crowded!!! But we enjoyed our walk up to the Acropolis, because we felt like we were apart of the city, apart of the people. There were hardly any tourists on our walk to the ruins, and it made us enjoy the experience even more. We were lucky that we decided to go early in the day though, because even as we were walking to the Acropolis at 9am the sun was already getting hot. We ended up taking the back way into the ruins without knowing it, and for a while Jan and I thought that we were lost, but then another pack of tourists would swarm by and we knew that we were in the right-ish place. When we got to the gates we bought our tickets and slathered on the sunscreen. Our tickets got us into 6 attractions, and there is no date on them so the stuff that we didn't get to see today we are going to go back later and use the rest of our tickets. It cost us 12 Euros each to get in, but it was VERY worth it!!! Walking up to the Acropolis was one of the most amazing feelings ever. You start to see glimpses of it from way down the road but its not until you pass the gates do you see a full view of it. The Acropolis gates, the temple of Athena Nike and the Pantheon are all things that I spent 4 years learning about. Standing there among the ruins was incredible. But let me say that even for being "downseason" we were elbow to elbow with some of Europes finest as we climbed up and down and then around the ruins. There were some very interesting Greek women who managed to navigate the pathways on this mountain in stiletos. Jan and I were having a hard time because we kept slipping on the marble paths but these ladies made it up and down, cigaret in hand.

Ok, so more about the Acroplis itself. Our first sights were walking up staircases to the main gates, which are like a temple in itself because it uses those classic Greek Collumns. To the right there was the Temple of Athena Nike. Nike means victory, and the temple was the first built on the Acropolis. The Ancient Greeks used to worship there in hopes of fortuitous outcomes for wars etc. The gates were so stunning that I was completely blown away when we finally got through into the Acropolis. The biggest structure you see is the Pantheon, the building where all the Greek Gods were worshiped. It is undergoing reconstruction and was surrounded by scafolding. There were Archeaologists everywhere, but it was neat to see all of the progress and their plans for further reconstruction. As we walked around the Pantheon I told Jan all I knew of Greek architecture and stories of myths and legends. It helped add to the magic of the place! By the end of our cicrumnabulation of the Parthanon, we were drentched in sweat, the sun has arisen to its zienenth by then. I was so engrossed in our wanderings that i didn't really notice, Jan on the other had was getting alittle too hot. So as I pranced around the ruins - taking picture after picture - Jan moved from shady spot to shady spot. Around the other side of the Parthenon there is another building called the Erecthium. It is an unusual building as it's collumns are in the sahpe of women. It was just beautiful! It was such a gorgeous day and everything was just perfect. But by the end of that little expidition we were tired and out of water so we decided to climb down to the gate and eat lunch while we decided what to do next. It was a cool feeling as we sat and ate in 2000 year old ruins.

We then...after only getting a bit lost (there are no signs here ok!)...we finally made our way to the Theatre of Dionysus. WOW! is pretty much all I can say. They have only unearthed a quarter of it, and that is massive, but the original theatre sat a grand total of 15000 people. This was my favorite part of the scortching day...we actually got to sit in the seats of the theatre...stone seats from 2000 years ago! This theatre is where playwrites from the time of Plato and Socrates!!! It was amazing. We climbed all the way to the top, where they haven't excavated yet and looked down at this giant ampithatre to try and imagine what it would have looked like. It was pretty amazin, especially because the theatre of Dionysus was backed right up against the great walls of the Acropolis. What a sight!

On our way down that side of the mountain, Jan pointed our a set of ruins not too far off. The pillars were big enough to see from our vantage so we thought it was going to be something good. So we headed in that direction to see what it was. All the way there, every stone that we saw that was corndoned off, of set aside at the dig sights, we tried to guess what they might have been a part of. Archeologists for the day! It was a blast. The giant pillars turned out to be the Temple of Olympian Zeus. There wasn't much to see, of the original 104 pillars - each were 55.5 feet tall and 6.5 feet in diameter - only 13 remain standing. They were impressive and you could imagine the grandure of the building at it's height based on what remained.

This was our last stop for today because we were tired and hot. We found the nearest Metro and took it back to our stop. After a shower we are both feeling human again, but we wanted to share our fabulous day with you all before we went for our dinner adventure to the grocery store. Tomorrow looks promising too, as we are going to check out the Piraeus and if we have time the national archy museum.

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