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Published: November 11th 2007
Grecian Parliamentary Guards
Note serious pompoms. Hardcore!Well I would. Sorry for the delay in the last one folks, finding a decent wireless connection has been a bit of a pain. As a reward though, you get two for the price of one. So you've all suffered through the last three entries of the longest blogs ever. I promise that this one is short, since it does only cover six days in Greece (not long enough, I might add!) and only three towns!
Lesson One: When Olympic Airlines says “You can't get e-tickets for this flight” they actually mean “You can get e-tickets for this flight.” I spent some time wandering around Ataturk airport looking for the mysterious Olympic desk (it's like the Loch Ness Monster I tell you what!) to pick up our paper tickets and it turns out that we could just go to check in and well...check in. Madness. However, we were well fed and not only did we leave on time, we arrived twenty minutes early! A pleasant end to our Eastern adventures and a good start for the journey West.
Athens has clearly benefited from holding the Olympics three years ago - our trip into and across the
The 1896 Olympic Stadium
Okay, so it's not the oldest one, but it's the next oldest one! city to our hostel was incredibly simple and easy, everything was well signposted and entirely in English! They do make it easy for us useless foreigners. As such, I have so far learned a sum total of no Greek. The Athens Backpackers (Top Greece tip - cheap, good and located right under the Acropolis, you cannot go wrong! If travelling as a couple, look into pensions as they may be cheaper, although the location here is hard to beat.) is located about two minutes walk from the metro, outstanding where packs are concerned. We arrived about lunch time and immediately set out for a bit of a walk around the surrounding neighbourhood. We wandered up towards Syntagma and found ourselves ambling through the wonderfully peaceful National Gardens only to find a random menagerie of bunnies, goats, terrapins and assorted fowl which was quite unexpected. The garden is odd, it's a bit like a small Central Park but with random bits of old Greece arbitrarily distributed in the clearings. We emerged on the other side on the street with the Presidential Palace on it and saw what amounts to the most bizarre dress uniform I have ever seen. Now I've seen
Theatre of Dionysus
at the foot of the Acropolis. Still in use, 2000+ years after it was built! photos of the Greek army of old but I didn't think it'd be that daft. Those shoes! Check out the piccies. We went around the border of the garden and looked around Syntagma for a bit before consulting the map and finding all manner of other things to look at back where we'd been. So we did an abrupt about face, went back through the National Garden and found ourselves as the foot of the original modern Olympic Stadium, built in Athens for the inaugural modern Olympics in 1896! It's really quite a stunning edifice and would still be very impressive full of people. It's quite a neat thing to see really. Just around the corner is the Temple of Olympian Zeus which isn't much more than a bunch of columns these days but still worth a look, along with the Arch of Adrianos built nearby. The temple was the largest in Greece and while construction began when Greece was still Greek, the temple wasn't finished until Hadrian stepped in around 130 A.D.! It's slightly unsettling to find these large and obvious bits of Greece just lying around in amongst the residential neighbourhoods.
So, day two. Much more busy
The Erechtheion
Note balcony. Yep, it's that balcony. Thieving Brits. than the first day, but still pretty quiet for us. We went up to the Acropolis and got the ber-ticket for all the Athenian monuments and wandered off for a long day of looking at columns. First stop was the Theatre of Dionysus on the south side of the Acropolis where we checked out the restoration efforts on the Temple of Aesculepius and the theatre itself. For a project that was supposed to be finished in 2006, it doesn't seem like it's remotely close to where it was supposed to be a year ago. Ah well. It was pretty cool to look up at one of the most famous classical monuments ever and I was in something of a hurry to climb up and see it before the hordes arrived. It was certainly a good thing we did, I tell you what. One enters the Acropolis through the Propylaeon, currently engulfed in scaffolding (like the rest of the monument!) trying to repair the shonky restoration jobs of the previous hundred years. It will certainly be a monumental entrance to the summit once it's finished. The adjacent Temple of Athena Nike is much the same, infuriatingly, but will be stunning when
Jen and I
and the Parthenon too! completely repaired. For anyone tempted to come to Greece to see this stuff, give it a few more years I reckon. When they've finished working on the Parthenon it should look like it did before the Turks accidentally blew it up in 1687. Well, provided the English return the Elgin Marbles as well, but that's never going to happen. On top of that, they're building a new Acropolis Museum, so that's closed as well. Anyway, on to the good stuff. First off, the Erechtheion (that's the one with the balcony!) is not scaffolded and still looks really really cool, especially the balcony. The Parthenon, despite it's scaffolding and cranes, was really as wonderful to see in person as I expected. The West Pediment is the one bit not covered up and it's really stunning. The few sculptures that remain make one long for the Poms to do the right thing and the little architectural details that made the Parthenon the groundbreaking building that it was (and still is) are really quite cool to see close up. So still chuffed, despite all the work going on!
We climbed up to the Areopagus, where the Athenian judiciary used to sit on
The Temple of Hephaestus
in the Agora. The most complete one we saw! the capital cases, and looked out over the city. (I've read Athens is polluted but I reckon it'd give LA a run for it's money!) No one really knows what the settlement looked like on top but it's clear that the site was occupied since the early Mycenean period as tombs from that period have been found up there. We wandered down the hill to the Greek Agora, which seems to have suffered an odd sort of benign neglect (with the exception of the Stoa of Attalos.....more later!) compared with the Parthenon. One can wander amongst the mostly ruined buildings where the Greeks conducted their day to day business and see where they really lived a great deal of their lives. The two highlights of the Agora are the Temple of Hephaestos and the Stoa of Attalos. The Temple is almost complete including it's roof (why couldn't the Turks have blown this one up, it's much smaller!) and the pediment sculptures depicting the labours of Hercules and Theseus on the west side and the war between the Lapiths and the Centaurs on the east side are still in quite good shape. I'm not sure why the English didn't steal these
Quality Greek artwork
Goatman on a donkey. What were they thinking? ones. I'm sure there's a reason. It's one of the best preserved Greek structures anywhere in the world and I really got quite a buzz out of seeing it, especially as I didn't even know it existed. At the other end of the Agora is the Stoa of Attalos, built by Attalos II, (obviously) the King of Pergamum. Actually, the one in the Agora was build by John D. Rockefeller, but Attalos built the first one. Jen and I have both thought that over the last couple of months we would have liked to see something like this built as it would have looked when it was new and it was a real thrill to see this one. It also contains a museum containing some of the finds from the Agora and there are some real gems, including some stunning Red and Black figure pottery, voting disks, ostracism potsherds and one of those famous comedic masks. My favourite item was a shield taken from the defeated Spartan army at Pylos in 483 B.C.
The next stop was Agora II, the Roman version. Built just before the turn of the millennium (11 B.C.) to make up for the fact that
Kouros
from the Keramaikos. I like this one.... inconsiderate Romans had come along and built lots of large buildings in the Greek Agora and there was no room for commerce anymore. There's not much left and it's pretty small, but it has a really neat little tower from the Roman baths that depicts the eight winds although the information panel made no effort to help the stupid distinguish which was which. At this point, we decided that lunch was in order and helpfully Athens has an excellent little chain of sandwich places, much like Pret or Eat in the UK but cheap and cheerful and this one was on the way to our next destination on the corner of Athinas and Ermou.
I have to mention Ermou, since it's the weirdest street we've probably ever been on. It seems to be a mix of hardware stores, builders merchants and really really trendy shops. It's almost like it's turning into Cuba Street, but it still has a long way to go. At the end of Ermou (or EPMOU in Greek) is the Keramaikos Cemetery. Classics graduates will probably remember the name with fear but it's a really stunning little site. The cemetery has been one of the most
I just couldn't resist....
who would bury a loved one with this? I ask you.... fruitful archaeological sites in Greece providing so much information on the daily life of Athenians though the grave goods and markers, as well as the pottery and domestic grave goods. The onsite museum houses much of the fantastic pottery, many examples of which are complete and that makes looking at them so much more fun! It also houses some of the most elaborate grave markers I've ever seen, including a damn near lifesize bull! It almost seemed like the Merry Cemetery (Romania, last entry. You remember!) in places where the carver had written things like “I held you in the sun while I lived, while it lived, now I hold you in death as it died” and other such....interesting sentiments. It also had lots of ostracism potsherds, mostly for Themistokles. He seems to have copped it in the end! It was a really lovely way to end the day.
Our last stop was the supermarket and Jen cooked our first meal in two months! It was only pasta but it was still really really good! Nice to have something simple that cost a whopping two euros! I tell you what. Day two in Greece reminded me so much of
Nafplion harbour
with the Venetian fortress in the background. my undergraduate classics as well as reminding us both of all the things we didn't get taught, or at least don't remember!
The next morning, we got up at stupid o'clock to head out for our little break in Nafplion by the sea. If you're ever tempted, don't freak out that the bus to the coach station is trotting off to the middle of nowhere. It is, but it's gets where it's supposed to go in the end! Anyway, famous for it's castles, Nafplion was fortified by the Venetians, of all people, in the early 1700s and they've left behind the Castles of the Palmides - three fortresses around the small touristy town that really make the landscape.
We booked into our little pension and little is the right word - I can only stand up in the parts of our room where the beams aren't exposed! Neither of us was feeling up to much so we wandered around the town looking for the supermarket and tourist office (found one and not the other until later!) and had a bite to eat on the waterfront, looking out over the fortress of Bourtzi in the harbour. Jen was knackered
Jen paddling in the Med
Not warm enough for swimming though thanks in no small part to our roommates in Athens and the bizarre habit of the cleaner who comes in to do the bathrooms between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning! So while she napped, I caught up on my blogging and a few other bits and pieces. I think we were both really in need of a break - a couple of days of not doing a whole heck of a lot, some time to gather our thoughts and generally relax. It's something we learned travelling in the USA - we're not cut out for constantly running and we're both of the opinion that our fortnight in Italy looks like it's going to be a whole heck of a lot of that!
So after a long long sleep in, we headed out at lunchtime, finally located the tourist office to find out about Mycenae (tomorrow!) and decided that we'd climb up to the Palmidi Fortress. This is the really big castle that sits on the huge outcropping of rock that looms over the old town of Nafplion. Now climbing steps in the heat of the day is nothing new to either of us intrepid walkers, but we discovered
how out of practice we were - climbing up to the Monastery at Petra was easy compared to the 999 steps to the Palmidi Fortress. The humidity here is a killer - we'd gotten used to the dry heat of the Middle East and 80% humidity is hard work....Anyway, built by the Venetians between 1711 and 1714 to defend the natural harbour at Nafplion, Palmidi is part of the complex that also includes the Argonafplia and the Bourtzi fortresses. Nafplion was one very well defended city! It's a really stunning castle and surprisingly big. We enjoyed a quiet wander around it's many bastions (these days named after great Greek heroes and St Andrew....) admiring the construction and mostly just looked out at the sea. It must have been a nightmare to build all that way up but it holds an incredible commanding view over the city and the whole of the Argolid. I imagine that on a truly clear day the view out to the Mediterranean would be stunning. Greece seems to be stricken with the same haze that we saw all through the Middle East and occasionally in England. Must a be a northern hemisphere thing! After wandering around
looking at the beautifully built castle and wondering what on Earth the point of it was we climbed back down the 999 steps and wandered off down to the beach. The most easily accessible beach at Nafplion is about 20 metres long and rocky! But it was nice to sit down by the sea and Jen went for a paddle in the Med. She said it wasn't unpleasant once you got used to it - like swimming in New Zealand! We spent the evening at a little taverna before going for a wee wander and looking at the town all lit up before retiring for another early night.
We caught the 10am bus out of Nafplion 40 minutes up the road to Mykines, better known to the world as Mycenae. Well, the guidebook said 40 minutes, but that probably wasn't on a Saturday. The bus goes through Argos there and back and makes the whole thing really a bit slower on a Saturday. Anyway! Suffice it to say that Mycenae is really worth the visit! It's not a huge site by any stretch of the imagination, but it has a fantastic little museum showing off the artefacts not in
Grave Circle A
Not that interesting, except that it contained.... the National Archaeological Museum (see below) as well as a well set out walk around the site with lots of explanations of what you're looking at. We visited the museum first and spent a good hour admiring Bronze Age pottery and metalwork, as well as a selection of tablets showing off Linear B, the writing of the Palace Cultures. There were also some replicas of the really good stuff from the Tomb of Atreus - that gold mask that Heinrich Schliemann attributed to Agamemnon for example. We both marvelled at the cyclopean masonry of the main wall (legend has it that Perseus himself enlisted the Cyclopes to build the wall, hence the name!) and the famous Lion Gate. It's a bit like going to the Pyramids really - it's a real buzz to be able to see these things up close and first hand! We saw the many dwellings of the citadel as well as the remains of the palace, sadly not the hearth as that was covered up for conservation. (why does this keep happening to us?) We also saw the Tholos tombs of Clytemnestra (in all probability not her!) and Agamemnon, the latter probably belongs in fact to
a bloke called Atreus and is now known as the “Treasury” (their quotation marks, not mine) of Atreus. The Tholos is a pretty impressive structure, rising like a beehive behind the cyclopean entranceway. It was quite a sight, and had some of the wackiest acoustics I've ever experienced!
The interesting thing I learned was a new theory behind the demise of the Palace Cultures of Greece and the Cyclades - I remember in Classics it being suggested that it was natural disasters, bad harvests and internal dissent that brought down the palaces but the museum here argued that as Phoenicia, Egypt and the Levant suffered under the assaults of the well named “Sea People” the trading networks the Palaces had established across the Eastern Mediterranean collapsed, taking their sophisticated societies with it! It bears some thinking about and no mistake!
So back to Athens and the insanity and our last day in Greece had to include a visit to the National Archaeological Museum. So that's what we did! Turns out that it's free on the first Sunday of the month too which is handy when your budget is as tight as ours. Sadly, they close early on free
It's that mask!
He's a pretty funny looking bloke! day too, so we had to motor around the museum, but we still had a chance to see some of the fabulous relics that Shliemann dug up from the Grave Circles at Mycenae, including the famous Mask of Agamemnon and a half dozen others, none as detailed or beautiful; some stunning blades and sword hilts that really showed off Mycenaean skill at working gold and electrum; and some of the amazing frescoes that decorated the walls at Tyrins, the gem being a Minoan inspired bull jumping one. We strolled through gallery after gallery of statues and some of the best of the grave markers from the Keramaikos Cemetery as well and got to see a couple of really famous works of art - a Kouros that is shown so often as an example of early Hellenistic Greek sculpture and the javelin thrower, thought to have been a statue of Poseidon or Zeus. (the latter is more likely apparently!) We did have a very good laugh at a German tourist who was given a severe telling-off by one of the museum attendants after he got his girlfriend to photograph him imitating a bronze thought to be of Paris holding a golden
The Javelin Thrower
or the lightening thrower. Or the trident thrower. Depends on your mood and if you like vengeful pagan gods or not. apple or Perseus holding up the head of Medusa. It was pretty funny....Some of the Classical Bronze work that is concealed at the back of the museum was really very impressive as well, the highlight of which was most definitely the Antikythera mechanism built some time around 300 B.C. And representing an amazing advance in technology - it's a geared device thought to have been used top track and predict the movements of heavenly bodies. They have one on display that has been reconstructed and frankly it's quite astonishing. They were geniuses, those Greeks.
So the next installment, ladies and gents, will be from Italia! We kick off the tour of the boot in Roma! It's actually pretty exciting to be going to the Eternal City and we're both really looking forward to it. So, in a couple of weeks you can all look forward to me gushing about art, art, art, churches, more columns and more art. Whee!
Arivaderci!
Talk soon,
Al and Jen
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Ronnie
non-member comment
!
thank god this one was a little shorter :) I read it in one sitting!