We are spending one night (tonight) in Athens before heading on to our last destination before returning home. I had been to Athens once before when I traveled with my mom about 5 years ago; this was Rob’s first visit. Overall, given what we’ve seen on this journey, Athens is a welcomed breath of civility and civic pride. By that I mean, the cars all drive in their lanes and not only is there minimal trash around the city, we actually saw two…TWO…street cleaners while we were walking around. And not just a guy with a broom, the really noisy trucks that go slowly along the gutters.
After getting situated at our hotel, we caught a shuttle to Hadrian’s Arch and then walked towards the Acropolis (the big historic hill). Our first stop, though, was a relatively new museum. It opened in 2010 and it is the creatively named Acropolis Museum. It is built on an archeological site with glass floors that you can look through and see excavations that have occurred so far. Inside, there are bunches and bunches of artifacts collected from the Acropolis itself. Until this museum was built, the rarities were scattered all over the place in different museums. Some pieces remain off-site (apparently someday I need to visit the British Museum because all along this trip, reference has been made to items there). However, the majority are now in one location: this very impressive museum.
Also very cool is the top floor of the museum which has the to-scale footprint of the Parthenon (the biggest building on the big historic hill) and is oriented to replicate it exactly. Aluminum pillars are where marble ones are and the exterior hallway is to scale as well. All along the walls are either replicas of etched panels from the Parthenon or actual ones. Apparently the plan is to slowly move most of the actual Parthenon into the museum to keep it preserved. What will remain at the Acropolis will be a careful reproduction.
This scaled representation of the Parthenon really gave me a sense of how big the structure is, more so than actually visiting it from behind guardrails. Being able to walk down the exterior hallway allowed me a better sense of the power and reverence this temple to the Virgin Athena was supposed to impart. I was also struck by how pretty much every surface of the building was decorative in some way, whether simple columns that were designed in a tapered way to give the building more visual height, or the panels and pediments (top parts) with highly detailed figures of gods and activities. Truly one of the best museums I have ever been in.
From the museum, it was a short walk to the entrance to climb up to the Acropolis. We had hoped for a tour but instead just went on our own. Actually, even though we didn’t have the benefit of someone explaining all that we were seeing, I really enjoyed being able to spend as much time up there as we wanted to. We also totally accidentally visited the site between the morning and afternoon bus tour crunches, so we were able to easily and pretty quietly take all the photos we wanted.
Dedicated Woodhaven Ramblings readers might remember the shock and horror of my prior visit to the Acropolis when my beloved and much photographed Piglet was confiscated by some mean Greek ladies at the ticket gate (“NO DOLLS ALLOWED!”). I got him back at the end, but my panic distracted me from fully appreciating the historic site that day. Well, great news! Piglet made it into the Acropolis safely today! Whoo hoo! It was incredibly windy up there so we didn’t take any solo pictures of him for fear he would end up in Crete. But I’m so excited Piglet and Rob got to enjoy the iconic Greek site together!
Before heading down to the Plaka – the old marketplace that is now filled with refrigerator magnets, Grecian sandals, and tote bags that say “Greece” on them – we made one more stop. Just below the entrance to the Acropolis is a rock. A pretty sizable rock where at least a couple of classrooms of students could hang out. We walked to the top (stairs provided) and amongst the graffiti, I felt a sense of awe. This rock was the Aerogapus. It was the original place of philosophy, where people like Socrates and Plato hung out and discussed Great Thoughts. It was also where Paul from the Bible spoke about Christianity to the Athenians.
As I stood on that rock and looked up to the Acropolis, I found myself understanding and relating more to the rock than the temples above me. I understand the desire to discuss philosophical ideas whereas Greek gods are mostly like cool fairy tales to me. Standing on that rock, I felt more a sense of connection to my present-day history of thought and theology than I did on the Acropolis. All that from a rock. Pretty cool.
We ended the night sitting on the roof of our hotel, sipping wine, and watching the sunset over Athens and the Acropolis. We watched the lights of the Acropolis slowly blink on, illuminating it from below and within. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment that was pretty fantastic. This trip has been full of those. I continue to be overwhelmed by the blessings in my life.
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