Before I tell you about what we did in Athens, let me tell you a bit about our hostel. At first it seemed okay because we stayed in a four person room and only had a roommate the first night, but then we discovered the second night that we had bed bugs. We only found two, then we tore apart the room and didn't find any more. When we arrived at the hotel leaving Athens we went through every article of clothing, every crevice of our bags, and basically everything we brought with us. Luckily, we didn't find anything. Ugh!!! One other thing about Greece that we didn't know was that you can't flush toilet paper down the toilet. The pipe system is too old to be able to handle it. So, when you go to the bathroom the toilet paper is thrown in a trash can, no matter what. Yuck! It felt really repulsive at first, but then you get used to it. And the Greeks don't give it a second thought!
Okay, moving on. We had read about things to do in Athens, as any good tourist should, and saw that one of the top recommended stops was to the National Archaeological Museum. This museum was really cool. It had different periods of archaeological findings along with historical information about what was happening in the world at the time that these figures/pots/jewelry were made. The pots and jewelry weren’t my favorite (leave the impressive jewelry up to the later Europeans) but the sculptures… wow.
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| Little Mariah, big statue. |
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| The detail in the hands in incredible! |
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| The Minotaur |
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| Quite the big mush. |
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| This is a broken statue of Zeus. |
When you think you know how big and impressive greek statues were, guess again. Some of them were life sized but some of them were HUGE! I added some pictures of Mariah next to the statue fragments to show you a size comparison. It was really amazing the amount of detail and thought that was put into these sculptures. I can’t imagine doing what they did today, let alone when they just had primitive tools. At the end, they had an exhibit about the Antikythera Mechanism. If you don't know what that is, it is a mysterious device that was found at the bottom of the Aegean Sea that is now known as the first personal computer. It calculated with extreme detail using cogs and wheels the position of the earth, sun, and moon and possibly four other planets. It also did much more. It is worth looking up if you haven’t seen it before on the History Channel. My geek senses were tingling! Other than a confusing layout (which would have been different if it wasn’t a Sunday on the off season and they had more employees working), this was definitely our favorite museum by far.
Next was the Acropolis Museum. We were really excited for this museum because it explains the Parthenon and the findings at the Acropolis. It was pretty similar to the other museum but had different statues. However, it stressed the fact that most statues were painted when they were new. This made us have a whole new appreciation for the statues and buildings. The painting and designs were so intricate and well thought out. Our favorite part about the museum was at the end it had a video that explained the history and destruction of the Parthenon. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the museum. Though I grabbed one before I was told to stop =)
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| A statue of drama masks that was situated around the Theater of Dionysus |
Unfortunately, the Acropolis (meaning a fortification on a hill) itself was closed so we put that off to the next day. We grabbed a quick dinner then went to the Temple of the Olympian Zeus. It was also closed but it was okay because we were like…. “this is it!?” I think that Disney had put this image in our heads of this big temple with the statue. The truth is that is is just eight columns standing and about four on the ground. We took pictures through the gates which was good enough.
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The Acropolis from the museum.
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| The Temple of the Olympian Zeus |
The next and final day we set out early to the Acropolis. What an amazing experience. It was quite the hike up the hill but it didn’t even feel like it because we were surrounded by history the whole way up! We passed the first theater ever, the Theater of Dionysus, the temple of Nike (yes, like the shoe) and Aphrodite as well as the Porch of the Maidens on the Erechtheion. The Porch of the Maidens was our favorite part. Six Maidens carved out of marble that were the supporting columns for the porch. Unbelievable. The buildings were massive. There were ruins everywhere as well as construction crews that are currently trying to piece things together and repair the buildings to a nearly-original state. It is very impressive. On top of that, you are at one of the highest points in Athens, so you can see for miles. It was truly beautiful.
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| The Theater of Dionysus, the world's first theater. Thank you ancient Greeks! |
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| The Porch of the Maidens |
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| The Parthenon |
We still had some time before check out so we went to the Ancient Agora (which our tickets to the Acropolis also covered). It wasn’t on a mountain but it was also incredible. The Stoa of Attalos is in the Agora (meaning a public open space). It is a huge, long building that was used for a shopping center in ancient times. It was torn down in 1952 and reconstructed from 1953-1956 thanks to the Rockefeller family’s contributions. The other building that we visited in the Agora is the best preserved building in Greece, the Temple of Hephaestus. There was greenery all around it and singing birds, which made for a truly incredible and memorable experience.
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| The Stoa of Attalos |
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| The Temple of Hephaestus |
We then went back for check out (Thank Zeus himself! Ugh!) and headed to the airport. Now, if you haven’t seen my most recent status. We got to the airport and our flight was cancelled! We were freaking out at first, but we just followed their instructions and by 5:30 we were in a five star hotel free of charge and free dinners! No words can describe our joy. Today, we are finally headed to Istanbul! Stay tuned.
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