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| This is an idealized reconstruction of the Acropolis. A painting by L. von Klenze 1846 |
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| Maple's family lives most of the year in Athens but then spends summer on Alonissos. |
Because
our flight from Naples had been so early (M had found the concierge asleep on
one of the foyer couches when he went to order a taxi) we grabbed focaccia toasted
sandwiches and oregano flavoured chips for brekky at the airport. The taxi into
Athens cost €38 and nearly our lives – M was sure the driver had stopped
breathing at one stage – in between his patter about the suburbs we were
driving through he would take his foot off the accelerator and his head lolled
around.
We
got to the Herodian Hotel at the foot of the Acropolis far too early for our
room to be available but we were allowed to leave our luggage in storage so we
walked up to the Acropolis Museum and spent the morning there. (Family entry
was €10) We had all seen Elgin’s Marbles in the British museum but I didn’t
realise that Lord Elgin had his men actually chisel them off the Parthenon to
crate up and take back to England. Lord Byron(the disreputable poet, called him
a vandal.)Watching the footage of this cultural vandalism in the short film in
the museum made me feel quite ill. They had several models of what the Acropolis
would have looked like at its height of importance. Workmen were swarming all
over the real Parthenon from dawn till dusk – trying to get the restoration
completed. Of course the rhetoric for the restoration of the Acropolis plinths
from the British Museum was continuous.
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| Entrance to the Acropolis Museum. The walk way is glass over remains found on the site. Bottom foreground is a wishing well. |
Pericles was born in 495BCE and by
461BCE was the leader of the democratic faction and helped to consolidate the
fledgling Athenian democracy. EH was a general and built up Athens’ naval
empire until it was the greatest power of the period. This is a fragment of a
speech he gave at a funeral to give the people of Athens a reflection of who
they were and what they were fighting for: “We are seekers of beauty but avoid extravagance.
We admire learning but are unimpressed by pedantry. For us wealth is an aim for
its value when used, not as an empty boast. And the disgrace of poverty lies
not in the admission of it but more in the failure to avoid it in practice.” (from
Art as Therapy p210 de Botton, 2013)
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| Lots of renovations happening on the Acropolis. Bottom right: the Parthenon through our hotel window. |
The
Athena Nike temple was completed somewhere between 420 and 410BCE (100yrs before
Alexander the Great.) In the 17thC CE the Venetians attacked Athens
who had stored most of their ammunition in the Parthenon – of course it blew
up. The Ottoman Empire ruled Greece for a long time and gave Lord Elgin
permission to remove the marble sculptures. He had bought artists with him to
take molds and sketches but when a Turkish worker at the site told him they
were breaking down the marble at the site for lime he arranged for chisels. It
cost him £70 000 to get them all back to England. When he was strapped for cash
after a messy divorce the British government gave him £35000 for them – Napoleon
made a higher offer but was turned down.
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| The marbles on display were beautiful - the sense of movement that the sculptors had managed to create in solid stone was remarkable. |
We
saw many offering statues; daughters usually gave to Athena to make her ‘joyful’.
On their bases are recorded why they were given, what they were thankful
for. Some said their first job, others
simply a yearly tithe of their earnings, these little statues were made from
marble but were once brightly painted over.
Walking
through the museum was strange because we had just come from Italy and seen all
the Roman god statues. Did the Romans make anything up at all or just rename
and twist the story of all the Greek traditions? The Greek statues were so much more animated
than the Roman copies. The busts of the legendary leaders were remarkable too.
Greek
mythology has always been a bit of a mystery but the museum was full of the
goddess Athena so I came out a bit clearer about her status. She was born with
no mother but sprung – fully armoured from an axe wound in her father’s, Zeus,
head. She had different characteristics – wisdom, her emblem is the owl, - industry,
including agriculture and the arts – she won the right to be the city’s patron
in a competition with Poseidon because her gift was the Olive tree which
brought more wealth to the area than the sea and - victorious warrior and protector
of the home state, her name in this manifestation is Athena Nike, the Nike are
little angles that flutter around her and help her to victory. The swoosh logo
of the sports apparel company Nike looks a bit like a wing – the company says
that the name refers directly to Athena’s victorious in battle name.
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| Left: Alexander the Great Right: a Priest that may have done magical rituals with the sphere below. |
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| "On the sphere(oid) are presented the god Helios, a lion, a dragon and magical symbols. It was found buried near the Theater of Dionysos, which hosted duels and other similar contests. It has been suggested that the sphere was used in magic rituals to achieve victory in these contests. 200-300CE" |
Back
at the hotel our room was ready so we took our bags up and sorted out what the
girls were taking on to Alonissos that afternoon and what weighty Italian souvenirs
we would be taking back to Cambridge with us. We all could have sat on the edge
of the bed and stared out the window for hours as there was a perfect view up
to the Pantheon. Grumbling tummies made themselves heard so we went back to a
very busy restaurant parade that ran the length of the museum.
We
chose to sit down at a restaurant called ‘gods’ restaurant’. The owner/front of
house was a very charismatic guy who sold us far too much food but every bite
was delicious. We had a three course banquet for €92 that took us an hour to get
through. To make your mouth water I will record the dishes I remember – Athena cake
(baked feta coated in a sesame crust doused with honey), mozzarella croquettes,
large deep fried mushrooms with balsamic, on the owner’s recommendation the
farmers salad which was a huge platter with an outer circle of chopped spinach
leaves, grilled pickled grape leaves, capsicum strips all zigzagged with a
heavy creamy balsamic mayo and a big pile of a sweet tangy coleslaw in the centre. The Chef came out just as we were leaving and
I asked him what was in the dressing – olive oil, orange juice, honey and white
balsamic. Yum. So starters over we hit the mains – Petal and M had the juiciest,
flakiest lamb shanks ever, I had a fall apart beef and orzo pasta dish and
Willow had chicken kebab with a fabulous tzatziki. The owner came out with the
desert menu but we waved him away – too too full. Instead he bought out a
massive platter of fresh sliced watermelon with another balsamic creation and
mint drizzled over it. It was wonderful but we paid for it!
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| One of the many restaurants on the street running around the fence of the Acropolis Museum. Delicious! |
Up
the road a little was the Acropolis metro station – beautifully designed
interior. The girls got a €4 ticket each out to the airport and off they went.
Hours later we got a text saying they had safely made it to the island. I had
forgotten to remind them to always look left when crossing roads and to slather
sunscreen so was relieved that they remembered to text us.
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| The Acropolis Metro station - saying goodbye to the girls as they head off to the airport for their Greek Island adventure. |
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| Digging anywhere in Athens finds life from the ancient times. The whole of Syntagma Sq Metro station had the remains glassed in. |
At
the top of the Herodion Hotel was a garden restaurant. Even at 10pm neither of
us felt like eating after such a huge lunch but the view was spectacular. The waitress
seemed disinclined to let us order one desert between us and a coffee each, she
kept trying to move us to the bar – which of course had no view. In the end I
very politely pointed out that there were lots of empty tables, no patrons
waiting and we were guests at the hotel who just wanted a desert and a coffee
in view of the lit up Pantheon. After a discussion with the floor manager we
were at last allowed the privilege.
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| Left: from the Herodian rooftop restaurant at night. Right: from our room window in the morning. |
Athens
is often called the cradle of democracy. It took hundreds of years to get the
recipe right – with many tyrants and powerful family groups overturning it
until around 500BCE the concept stabilises and Cleisthenes becomes the Archon
(anarchy means to be without an archon). He cleverly redraws political boundaries
and brings in a law that state office can only be held for one year (ie 10
months in those days). The system muddled on with years of peace and success and
years of tumult until Phillip of Macedonia, Alexander the Great’s dad, and his barbarians
– which meant those who don’t speak Greek,
conquered Athens and united all of the Grecian states.
“When viewed in the context of its time
the Athenian democracy was an amazing achievement which introduced the concept
of equal rights and the notion of accountability by routinely investigating
officials and creating a system where no person or group could become too
powerful. The function of the government was to guarantee justice to the people
of Athens, a revolutionary idea at the time. The annual rotation of power, the
sharing of power and the fact that the people took part in the
decision-making achieved the purpose of breaking the hold that the
aristocrats had on Athenian society. Only male citizens were eligible to vote
but women were allowed to observe. Athenian democracy was a full time job. Only
people with a lot of leisure time on their hands could devote the energy to
this system, which brings us to the issue of slavery. Without slaves there
would not have been an Athenian democracy. Even a relatively poor Athenian
citizen could afford one slave to plough his fields or work in his shop while
he was debating laws in the assembly is what made a democracy
of the people (if you
define people as
free-Athenian-male-citizens). If only the rich had been able to afford the time
to go to the meetings then the laws would certainly be different, favouring the
rich instead of everyone.” Matt Barrett http://www.ahistoryofgreece.com/athens-democracy.htm
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| Democratic Athens knew how to keep in good with their neighbours. These were in the museum. Left: Athena (patron deity of Athens) and Hera (patron deity of Samos) shake hands. The Athenians are honouring and granting privileges to the people of Samos for standing by them in a battle against the Persians where they were victorious. Right: Honorary decree for Alketas, King of Molossoi for providing equestrian troops during a military expedition to Corcyra 373/2 BCE |
Waking
early the next morning I was able to watch the sun come up and turn the sky
above the Pantheon to indigo, cyanine, cerulean, cobalt (here the lights
shining up at the restored stonework popped off), ultramarine and finally the
azure that hangs until late afternoon. I was spellbound staring out the window
from my comfy bed and later was cross that I hadn’t taken lots of photos over
the 20 mins to get a strip of blues against the creamy columns.
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| Many people who watch the changing of the guards outside of Parliament house find it very hard not to laugh despite their respect for the soldiers. The pompoms on the shoes and long tassles on the hats wobble and flick with their dance like march. A very difficult job to do with a serious face in the heat of summer. |
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| These are the national gardens behind Parliament house. The shade was welcome to cut through to another bus stop and the tortoise a lovely surpise. |
I
had booked the room through booking.com and had reached ‘genius’ status – this meant
that with this room we were able to check out a 2pm rather than 10am. Our
flight was early evening so this suited us perfectly. We had a Greek breakfast
of feta cakes and Greek salad from a buffet that also offered all the Western Europe
comforts and waited out the front of the hotel for the hop on hop off bus to
come along. This gave us an excellent overview of an ancient city that we didn’t
have the time to make the most of. We stopped off at parliament house to grab a
photo with their guards and wandered through their botanical gardens to another
bus stop. The remains of the temple of Zeus were impressive. I wished we had
more time so we could have gone into the National Archaeological Museum and explored
the markets of brightly coloured winding streets off the main squares the bus
passed through.
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| Sights snapped from on top of the bus. Top: Panathinaikon Stadium Bottom Left: Hadrian's Arch - long way from his wall between Eng and Scotland! Bottom Right: Temple of the Olympian Zeus. |
The
maps given to us at the hotel and on the bus used a phonetic Latin alphabet. It
was quite disorienting to have the Greek alphabet on all the street signs and
posters – I experienced the panic of complete illiteracy for the first time on
our travels in Europe. (We obviously haven’t been to any Cyrillic countries
either!)
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| My photo off the bus was blurred so I have used this from https://www.expedia.com.au/Monastiraki-Flea-Market-Athens.d6173273.Attraction |
After
a quick stop in a souvenir store it was time to pack and taxi out to the
airport for the two hour flight back to Stansted. Athens was a place seeping of
so many layers of History, I would love to have a week or so to really explore.
Even though the news was full of protests and economic woe our short time was
filled with smiles and good manners all around. I need to find a recipe for
Athena cake – how did they get the seeds to stick to the feta?
