Day 12 - Athens

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We got our wake up call at 6:30am to quickly get ready and get to have breakfast as we had to be ready to get off the ship when it docked at 7:15am. We met in the theatre for our call over the loud speaker to get off and we met Ali on the dock where she had gathered all our bags in one area.
We jumped on a bus to be taken to various destinations around the city; ours was to a tour company as there was about 9 of us doing a tour of Athens which Ali had organised for us. We got dropped there, very briefly said our goodbyes as we got off the bus and waited to be pointed in the right direction.
We were able to take our luggage on the coach which was handy as we all had our suitcases. From our Contiki doing the tour was Daniel, the four Canberra Girls (Lucy, Kaitlin, Cathy, Lee) and myself, Mary and Sharnez. The bus had many other people on it though and some of the group were Italian so the tour lady had to do the tour in both English and Italian which did become slightly irritating.
First stop on the tour was the Panathinaiko Stadium. The first modern Olympics hwere held in Kalimarmaro in 1896. In 329 AD, the beautiful and huge ancient stadium by Lykourgos was built. In 144 AD the Panathenaic Games were held here and the building was redone in white marble by the wealthy Herodes Atticus. The games were held in honour of Athena, hence the name "pan athena ikos" which can be loosely translated as "All the people of Athens".
It was later rebuilt once again for the gladiator games under the rule of Hadrius (76-138 AD). The stadium was then actually abandoned and the marble used for other buildings. The "Olympic Games" that were held in Athens in 1870 and 1875 were sponsered by a very rich businessman Evangelis Zappas. They were then called the Zappas Games. It was in 1895 that the stadium was actually fully restored by George Averoff in time for the first Modern Olympics on 5 April, 1896. The Stadium was equipped with 80,000 seats. In 1906 the stadium was once again host of the games and in 2004 the Olympic games were once again held here.
After the stadium we moved on to The Temple of Olympian Zeus. Also known as the Olympieion, it is a colossal ruined temple in the centre of Athensthat was dedicated to Zeus, king of the Olympian gods. Construction began in the 6th century BC during the rule of the Athenian tyrants, who envisaged building the greatest temple in the ancient world, but it was not completed until the reign of the Roman Emporer Hadrian in the 2nd century AD, some 638years after the project had begun.
On the way from The Temple of Olympian Zeus to our next stop The Acropolis, we drove past the Arch of Hadrian. By the time we reached the Acropolis the heat was almost unbearable; almost bordering that of the heat from Black Saturday. It probably wasn't quite that hot but standing on top the a hill with no shade, in that sun and with no water (as you weren't allowed to take it in) it certainly felt it. Unfortunately it made the experience of the Acropolis not as nice. We saw it all though but couldn't really take it all in as much.
First we walked past The Odeon of Herodes Atticus which is a stone theatre located on the south slope of the acropolic. It was building 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. It was originally a steep-sloped amphitheatre with a three story stone front wall and wooden roof and was used a a venue for music concerts with a capacity of 5,000. Some of it was restored in the 1950's . Since then it has been one of the main venues of the Athens Festival even featuring international artists including Pavoroti.
We then moved on through the Propylaea (the monumental gateway to the Acropolis) and up to The Parthenon at the top of the hill. This was built from 447 BC until 438 BC which was dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena whom the people of Athens Considered their protector. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the devlopment of the Doric order. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of Anciant Greece and of Athenian democracy and one of the world's greatest cultural moments. That is probably the reason it was covered in scafolding and is currently being restored. After that we moved round to The Temple of Athena Nike. Nike means "victory" in Greek, and Athena was worshipped in this form, as a goddess of wisdom on the Acropolis in Athens. Her temple was the earliest iconic temple on the Acropolis. And lastly we saw the Erechtheum. The temple as seen today was built between 421 and 407 BC. The statues on the side of it are copys as the originals are in the museum to protect them.
After the tour we parted ways with Sharnez as she was dropped at her hotel and us at ours. We did some hand washing and had a bit of a snooze before catching the metro four stops and meeting back up with Sharnez at Syntagma Square at just before 4:00pm. We decided we'd done enough sightseeing for one day and with the heat couldn't bare any more so we decided to get some lunch and do a spot of shopping. We headed back down the shopping strip getting very cheap items as most of the shops had between 50-70% off. We were here a few hours before catching the metro back to our hotel so Sharnex could go though our photos and get copys of the ones she wanted. We then had dinner on the rooftop of our hotel while the sunset. It was stunning, and the sunset last for ages. After it set we had a similar sight as when we stayed our second night in Athens with the Acropolis all lit up in the distance. We reminiced about our tour for hours before Sharnez decided to catch a cab back to her hotel.
Mary and I stayed in the lobby for a while as there was free wi-fi and also a free massage chair like those ones you see in the shopping centres. We each had our free massage before Mary went to bed andI stayed up doing my blogs and putting some photos up for every one to see. I went to be probably just after midnight.

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Comments

[Carl]

I bet Athens was so beautiful with all that architecture and history associated to it.