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Published: April 24th 2006
Parthenon
I couldn't get the whole thing in the shotWe rented a car on Saturday called a Hyundai Getz!, and is considered to be mid-size. It's a little smaller than a Ford Focus. I think the only thing more challenging than trying to navigate through a strange foreign city where no one speaks English is a strange foreign city where no one speaks English and the signs are in a different alphabet altogether. By the end of Sunday I started to figure out what Athens looks like in the Greek alphabet, but other than that, we just kind of drive around until we get where we're going.
Saturday night was the Easter mass, when practically the entire county was in church (similar to midnight mass). We headed up to this tiny church on the top of Lycavattus Hill, which had excellent panoramic views of Athens. During mass, everything is a sort of chant in Greek which lasted about 30 minutes. Then the lights were all turned off to signify Christ's passing through the underworld, after which the church bells started ringing like crazy to celebrate the resurrection. Everyone brings a candle, and the priest lights his candle first, then all candles throughout the church are gradually lit. This church
is only large enough to fit about 50 people, but as we were leaving, we saw the hundreds of people standing outside with their lit candles, and the fireworks going off over Athens. The priest then came outside to announce "Christos Anesti" - Christ has risen! Very moving, several people were crying. As we drove back to the hotel, there were several people in the streets of Athens with the lit candles from other church services. All in all a very moving celebration of Easter.
Easter Sunday, and the city was completely shut down. No traffic, nothing was open (not even McDonald's - can you imagine?), and you could see the lamb being grilled for the Easter dinner. Since the city was closed, we decided to make the 3 hour trip to Delphi. The drive was very scenic, and gave us another view of Greece other than urban Athens. Lots of wildflowers along the roads that led into the mountains. We passed several small towns, which also looked pretty deserted. After driving through a town called Arahova (I think it is Greece's version of Aspen, a ritzy skiing town), we got to the ancient site of Delphi, which Greeks
Parthenon
Self portrait consider to be the center of the spiritual world. The center of the spiritual world was also closed on Easter. We took a few pictures of what we could get in to see, then dad waited in the car while I tried the back way into Delphi to see the Temple of Apollo. However, the only person working in Greece told me to come back tomorrow. Kind of a bummer, but worth it for the drive alone. After stopping at one of the few tavernas that were open for dinner, we headed back to Athens.
Monday, the Temple of Poseidon, then off to the islands on Tuesday!
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Ycats
non-member comment
Wow
These pictures are awesome!!!!