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Published: November 11th 2010
Athenian Statued Column
One of the more noticeable columns in AthensJAC- Just another church
1* - worth a look
2* - Good Times
3* - Unmissable
+ - emphasis on the rating
We arrived in Athens tired, dehydrated, and hot.
The metro from the airport was a bit tricky they have no signage anywhere through the airport or train station to say where the metro is so despite very clear directions from the tourist info people we struggled to find it just like all the other tourists.
Our apartment in Athens turned out to be VAST. A big bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and balcony, we were very pleased and impressed. It was in a residential working class area of Athens and up the road (a very dirty looking road) from the metro. We soon discovered that this area was typical of Athens.
We got a late lunch at our local Gyros place which had two dozen men sitting at the outdoor tables drinking thousands of bottled beers, no women in sight. Nick scored a Baltika 5 beer, the beer that was impossible to find in Russia that he'd begun to fear didn't exist outside his imagination. He was very pleased.
All the Athenian
Alicia in the Square
Alicia in the pleasant Plaka area of Athens streets we walk seem to be shop fronts under low-rise office-type blocks. They're dirty and not terribly pleasant, we walked for ages to make little progress, it's not a great walking city it seems!
Our first sight seeing stop in Athens was the Athens National Archaeological museum. The focus of this museum was on 'prehistory' in this case the Mycenean civilisation of 1500-1000BC. The Myceneans had dominated all over Greece and had some stunning gold jewellery on show on the museum dug up from a grave circle we'll be visiting on a tour. The quality of artistic workmanship on the artifacts was amazingly high and we were very impressed by all the Mycenean stuff.
Our museum highlight was a bronze sculpture of a child on horseback - the kid and horse were life sized and amazingly well done, it was stunning. Also stunning was the appearance of a turtle wandering around amongst the statues in the garden; it was very random!
After the museum we took a long walk through the city to discover it some more and found the streets very busy but the shop-front under office block feel, and also the feel of poor, squalor
Marching Guards
The amusingly garbed ceremonial guards on the march in Athens remained all over. Nick has vowed to eat nothing but Gyros for Lunch in Greece so we duly found many nice and inexpensive ones throughout the city.
At the main city square (Syndagma) we watched Greek guards dressed in traditional costumes march around a bit. Their dress appeared to be influenced by their Turkish past and included shoes with huge warm pom-pom things on the end and older style rifles. They marched with ridiculously comically large steps and they looked much more for show than for 'business'.
Next we set out to the Acropolis museum where we learned a little context about the Athenian history and about the buildings on the Acropolis, and saw statues and facades that were originals taken down from the Parthenon and other temples. Nick felt rejuvenated to re-immerse himself in Athenian history after over 10 years off. I really enjoy Athenian history and reading about it and seeing it again re-awakened my interest and pleasure in the subject.
At the top of the Acropolis we walked about in the footsteps of history; on slippery original stone and recent splashes of concrete.
The Acropolis is primarily stunning for it's views over all of Athens
Athens and it's charms
The 'ahem' beauty of Athens sprawling below us. in all directions, it's a remarkable piece of geography to have such a sharp steep hill in the middle of the city. There were fine views around to the city which largely looked like modern, white, fairly cheap and nasty low-rise apartment/ office blocks. It's amazing how dull and uninteresting Athens city looks.
The area was quite large atop the hill, but Alicia found the Parthenon smaller and less complete than she'd imagined. It's still a fairly memorable and wonderful area.
For dinner we found a Greek 'Tapas' type place they arrived at the table with 18 different dishes and for a set fee we could pick 5 plus get drinks, bread, etc.
We picked 3 meat, one potato, and one calamari dish, the waiter was upset he couldn't trick us into taking a salad dish that would have cost them nothing but we weren't to be fooled! It wasn't too bad and very very filling.
In the Athens Keramikos cemetery one finds remnants of Athens from the 5th century BC. We saw one poignant headstone relief of a grandmother holding a grandchild indicating that was what she was doing in the afterlife now they'd both died... We
Pantheon
The Pantheon from it's best side atop the Athenian Acropolis also saw artificats from the mass graves from the Athens plague of 430-429BC during the Peloponesian war; a period of history Nick knows and was intrigued to see. Lastly we saw a turtle wandering in the grounds; which again entertained us, what is it with Turtles and Athens museum sights?!
In the grounds Nick foolishly ate a black olive fresh from tree; it was disgustingly, appallingly bitter, a total mistake!
Athens has a fairly flat terrain punctuated by a few very steep hills, we climbed the highest 'Lycabettus hill'. There were very fine views all around Athens; of the dull city, the interesting hills and broad ring of mountains, and down to the sea and the port of Piraeus. We then took a quick glance at the old Olympic stadium, built for the 1896 Olympics it was a large open air stadium with one end missing. I'm always pleased to see stuff about the Olympics and it's nice to see where the first modern games was held.
In the main city park to our astonishment and joy we found a pond with a hundred turtles! We marvelled at the turtle pond for a good 15 mins and watched them
Acropolis temples
A particularly smart looking remain on the Acropolis bask on the rocks and swim about in the water. We're not sure why we are seeing so many turtles in Athens but we think they're charming, cool, and we love them.
With our time in Athens over we commenced a 3 day coach tour of select sights around Greece.
Along our drive into the Greece country we saw over the bay of Salamis where the 'Battle of Salamis' was fought (where the Greeks punished Xerxes and the Persians), we couldn't see much but for some hilly peninsulas around the flat water bay, glad to see it though and felt historical.
There were many Olive trees everywhere which the guide explained are kept low to make harvesting easier, no automated/ machine harvest in Greece, they claim it leads to better olives and oil, 1 Litre of oil is made from 4-7kg of Olives. We also learned that eating olives must be cured for a month after harvesting to make them edible otherwise they're too bitter; NOW they tell me!!
Our bus took us to the Corinth canal a man-made canal that has been proposed since the Bcs; Julius Caesar and before him, but is finally a modern
Alicia in Athens
Alicia enjoying the warm Athenian autumn reality.
It's purpose is to reduce the amount of time it takes to get travel East-West (or vice versa) by sea by cutting out the need to sail around a big piece of Greece. It had dimensions of 80m high, 25m wide at water level and 8m deep water, over 6km long it was a very impressive cutting into the rocks and we enjoyed seeing it, unfortunately no boats when we were there.
Our tour's next stop was the Ancient Epidaurus theatre. The theatre was almost totally preserved as it had been grown over and was buried under dirt for over 1,000 years. Now fully uncovered all the stone stage, orchestra, and seating area is original and remarkable. The theatre held up to 14,000 and we found it great; some few students and people who fancied their oratory or voice where talking or signing on the stage for us too so we got to hear the fine natural acoustics.
The bus then took us to the Mycenean Acropolis a formally walled palace from before 1000BC. It had an impressive gate, wall area, and visible Archaeological dig in remarkable hilly, “Greece-looking” terrain. We saw the 'Grave Circles' where some of
Turtle!
One of a couple of turtles that randomly walk about in Athenian museums and sights! the finest items in the Athens National museum were found which added value for us since we'd just been there.
During our first overnight on the Greece tour we met an Aussie couple from Gosford (!) who both worked at Umina High School. We were amazed to meet people so close from home and had a beer with them and chatted away over dinner. Their eldest daughter went to the same high school as us 2 years ahead of Nick, and we were pleased to talk to people from the Central Coast.
Our next morning we were at the Olympia museum (2*) bright and early. Highlights of the fine museum included the 'Helmet of Militiades' a Greek style helmet that the victorious Athenian general of 'Battle of Marathon' fame had donated to the gods after his big win.
After the good museum which had plenty of other decent stuff we went out to the site of Olympia where the Ancient Olympics were held. Our two highlights were the 'altar' area near the temple of Hera where the “priestesses” light the modern Olympic flame every four years by reflecting the sun in a highly mirrored curved bowl to start
Turtle pond
This little pond in the Athenian national guardians has hundreds of adorable little turtles the torch. Secondly the 'stadium' where the Olympic foot races were run; it was just a flat expanse of dirt 183m long surrounded by gentle hills in the shape of a stadium. I had a go and after warming into the run ran the last 100m at full speed and clocked 27.6 seconds. Alicia had a run herself and brought in 34 seconds, not too shabby!
After Olympia we had a full afternoon driving, stopping only to see a small church that ended up having a stunning top-5 in the world quality painted interior; sadly we have no idea what it was called or where as it was an ad-hoc snack stop of the bus! After further driving that afternoon we entered the plains below Delphi which are the biggest Olive growing area in Greece. Immense olive groves stretched in all directions with steep mountains rising above the sea of green-grey olive trees. Delphi was on the steep mountain above the Olive plains and commanded fabulous views around the mountain range and olive filled valleys.
Nick was a bit surprised he'd always assumed the famous Delphic oracle lived on an Island near sea level, not up in the mountains!
Corinth Canal
Conceived in the 7th century BC and finally built in 1893, a very smart manmade canal. We grabbed some snacks in town including fresh Olive tapenade (which the Greeks called Pate and was very good) and beers and headed to have a sunset drink and snack with our central coast friends on their balcony. We enjoyed good company, snacks, and views over the amazing region then a decent dinner.
The next morning Delphi museum (2*) was a good one, similar to Olympia, The highlights were a giant sphinx statue that was formerly mounted on a tall column. Our guide told us the story of the temple of Apollo and how the Delphic Oracle had worked. Highlights of the story included how the prophecies were always so vague they could be interpreted either/or for a decision. Also that the Priests claimed Apollo went away for 3 months over Winter so they didn't have to work during this period! She also went through some history of the god Apollo. I was amused to see some of the other tourists, who I have no doubt were probably religious themselves smirking at the stories of the Greek gods; delicious irony I thought.
The temple of Apollo was just about levelled in ruins and very forgettable with no way
Epidaurus theatre
Alicia striking a pose in the impressively preserved Epidaurus theatre to see down to where the Oracle had been (inside and under the temple they said). We did see a theatre that could seat 5,000 and then up a long walk of the steep sight to the stadium which had stone seats and stands built; it was like the Olympia track but with much better viewing area for fans. The Delphi sight had fine views around the mountain area so although we didn't like the ruins as much as Olympia it wasn't a bad place to walk around.
The end of Delphi was the end of our Coach tour of Greece, a pretty good one all things considered that got us around to difficult locations and taught us a lot.
We returned to Athens or a quick overnight then the next morning got an early train to Meteora to go and see the amazing rock formations and perilously perched Monasteries. Wandering the train we came across a kids play area they'd set up in a long compartment filled with little crash mats and soft crash dummies, it's a brilliant idea having a kids play area on a long distance train I think, really cool. We arrived badly late
Grave situation
Looking down upon the grave circles of Mycenae where some of the best artifacts in the Athenian national museum are to be found around 2pm after 5 and ½ hours; such a long journey!!!
We were grumpy and concerned about our sight-seeing chances upon arrival in Kalambaka at Meteora and the skies were hugely greyed over and overcast with spitting rain drops.
At our hotel in Kastraki we asked our host who advised all buses for the day had been missed so we had to walk to see anything, we took a look at maps we'd got from TIC and lumbered off to explore as much as we could in dubious weather and limited time.
We didn't have a chance to get up to any of the Monasteries but through bloody minded determination we did walk a long way along the roads and made enough headway into the area to see some wonderful rock formations, and a few perched monasteries. Overall we did see a good range of amazing rocks and perched Monasteries in Meteora and were glad we went despite our obvious failure of planning to arrive so insanely late on the only day we had.
Next morning we headed back to Athens for a last wander around then an early evening flight out.
We really didn't feel too comfortable during our
Mycenae & Greece
Nick around the Mycenae acropolis, note the 'greekness' of the terrain time in Athens, the streets are not particularly clean, lots of under-employed people about, motor bikes riding unsafely to hit you and generally all the buildings are worn and weary looking, it's NOT a charming city to wander by any stretch.
We weren't sad to say goodbye to Greece which has many big highlights but sadly some big detriments; probably combining a Greek Island trip (which we've done before) with a mainland trip would average the whole journey out to be very good, but doing the Greek mainland alone on this journey we found to be good, but not as good as we hoped.
We had a decent flight to Istanbul excluding the perilous turbulence upon our arrival that made us contemplate our deaths, then we had a good professional transfer to the hotel where we'll meet our Turkey tour group and start out tour tomorrow.
Thus concludes our Greece entry
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Mum G
non-member comment
Greece blog
Agree Athens is uninspiring but you go there to see the Acropolis and the Nat. Arch. Museum really. Shame you didn't get down to Piraeus and out by day ferry to a couple of the close islands. Glad you liked your Greece tour If you've had done a 4 day one it would have included Meteora and saved all that time wasted getting there and disappointment at not seeing the monasteries properly.However a good blog - so glad you went there. Look forward to Turkey next. Meanwhile trust that you're loving Spain.XX Mum&Dad