Our Greek Odyssey -- Athens

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What can you write about a city that has been written about by thousands of people for thousands of years?

Greece has been called ‘the cradle of Western Civilization’ and Athens was axis on which this cradle moved back and forth.

If Sparta was the brawn of Greece, the Athens was the brain. The flowering of Philosophy, Science, Arts, Literature, even sports that took place in Athens bore fruit in European civilization. Athens seeded all the intellectual progress of the Europe.

The Greek prominence was challenged by powerful enemies - Persians namely. The famous battles, both on land and sea, that have been fought for dominance - Marathon, Salamis, Plataea - in this region, brought the best Greek military talent to the fore. It is amazing that Athens’ able political leaders became equally adept naval commanders.

‘Democracy’ was Athens’ gift to the mankind.

There is a famous quote “A great civilization is not conquered from without unless it has destroyed itself from within” by Durant.

When you read about Peloponnesian wars, you remember this quote. Why every great civilization is cursed with internecine strife?

Alas! Nothing much, by way of monuments, is now left in Greece. The ‘seven wonders of the Ancient World’, of which two were in Greece namely ‘The Colossus of Rhodes’ and The statue of Olympian Zeus have vanished.

Fortunately, the ‘Parthenon’ is restored to a large extent. The work is still going on this temple. At least now, we get a fairly good idea of how the temple looked when it was original built.

I had wanted to visit this wonderful country for quite some time. It requires minimum 3 weeks if you want to see all the ‘sights’ on the mainland as well as the prominent Greek Islands.

We did not have 3 weeks. In fact, we had to somehow squeeze in a week in Greece between Avi’s various assignments.

So, we had to decide whether we should visit the Aegean Islands & Athens or the Mainland sights & Athens. We chose the former, because we had already seen some Greek ruins elsewhere, notably the Greek Theater at Plovdiv in Bulgaria.

The first day in Athens, we went to the Lycabettos Hill, the best spot to see Athens and the Parthenon from a vantage point.

The hill is fairly steep but I had read that there is a small cog-and-wheel railway that goes to the top. What I had not read is that the lower terminus of this railway itself is half way up the hill.

We reached the bottom of the steps which lead to the lower station of the funicular railway and looked up. We couldn’t see the top because the hill is covered in trees, and so we could not get any idea about how high the staircase is.

The air was redolent with a lovely fruity smell. The orange trees that line the staircase were in full bloom. Some were even bearing large, orange fruit.

Oh, the heady fragrance of orange blossoms!

We started climbing the steps with high spirits, which sagged as the steps went a long way up.
We asked the people and confirmed that those WERE the steps which would take us to the funicular. They all assured us that we had to climb only a few steps before we came to the funicular station.

Throughout the centuries the Greeks have learnt the art of making ambiguous statements that are half-truths, from their ‘Oracles’. Here too, they had advertised the railway as going to the top of the hill.

It does. However, what those Greeks had failed to mention is that it starts midway from up the hill. You have to climb half the hill to reach the station.

So we climbed the steps to the station huffing and puffing. I was cursing myself for being such a fool as to trust the Greeks. Wasn’t there a famous warning somewhere in Iliad about the Greeks? ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts’ or something like that?

I would like to add one more warning.

“Beware of Greeks who tell you that there is a funicular to the top of the hill and you have to climb only a few steps to reach it.’

Anyway, the railway is cute and once you reach the top, the view is breathtaking. The sea of white-washed houses with Parthenon hill jutting out of it like a majestic ship! It made our day.

We had supper at the café on the top. I would never forget the taste of that dish - deep-fried tortillas filled with Feta cheese, swimming in a generous dollop of honey and garnished with black onion seeds.

Wow! I am impressed with myself. I might develop into a cookbook-author yet. I mean I can write the descriptions of the dishes, NOT do the cooking.

The next day, in the morning, we went to Parthenon hill.

After the previous day’s experience, I was reconciled to the idea that I will have to climb the Parthenon hill. Imagine my pleasure when, at the foot of the hill, we came across a contraption, which would take us almost to the top of the Parthenon Hill. That contraption made frequent stops and we could hop on and hop off as we pleased.

Parthenon sightseeing was made much easier by that contraption.

Parthenon is impressive even as a ruin and yes, despite the scaffolding put up for restoration. The caryatids that are supporting a balcony of the ‘Erechtheion’ temple are not original. They are copies while the originals are in the Athens Museum. They are lovely all the same.

We saw the Parthenon to our heart’s content and then decided to take the tram to Piraeus from downtown. Our friend the ‘big Mac’ saw to it that we were well fed.

From in front of the Parliament building, we took the tram to Piraeus. We wanted to reconnoiter the port because we were to board the cruise ship from there the next day.

Contrary to our expectations, the tram journey was extremely tedious and it did not even go to the Piraeus port directly but stopped one station short. We had to take the metro for the next station, Piraeus.

It is a good thing that we did ‘case the joint’. The Piraeus port is huge and the cruise ships anchor at the farthest end.

Piraeus is full of Bangladeshi vendors selling cheap, trashy stuff by the roadside. How did they land here?

We checked out the place and took the metro to come back to the hotel.

The Athens Metro service was down that day, so we were asked to take the bus instead and had to walk a lot to reach our hotel.

The Athens Metro is comparatively new and it looks as though it is still not over its teething troubles.

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Photos

The Herodian
This is a Roman theater, NOT Greek. It was built by Herod Atticus in 161 AD. It is being restored. Notice the new steps on the right?

The Thession
Actually this is a temple of Hephaestus and Athena

The Temple of Olympian Zeus
The broken column is looking like an expertly chopped cucumber or radish.