Athens!

My turn! After several days in Barcelona, we went back to the airport (we took transit this time - lesson learned!) to head to Athens. After a few flights with Ryanair (nothing particularly bad about them, just VERY no-frills - no seatback magazines even!) we were pleasantly surprised with Aegean Air. The flight attendants passed us with delicious-smelling food, and we were wondering if we should have ordered, when we realized that every passenger got a multi-course, hot meal, with free drinks! Hurray! So if you're ever flying to/from Greece, we can recommend Aegean.

It's funny how excited we were for this meal. But it smelled delicious, and tasted much better than it looked.

Awesome rainbow effect as the final touch on a great flight

We took the subway into Athens from the airport - it was crazy to see the symbols we are used to using in math and science (like alpha, delta, sigma, etc) used as letters on signs. However, our AirBNB host gave wonderful directions and we were soon there. We had a one-bedroom apartment to ourselves, and they even had a little Christmas tree set up, which was a great touch. We went out for dinner and walked partway up the Acropolis for a wonderful view of the city.

The next day, we headed out to see the ancient sights of Athens. It's jarring to see these structures, thousands of years old, amongst the everyday hustle and bustle. Since you can see many of the major ruins from all over, I think it'll be easier to discuss each monument separately, so that's why the vantage points and times of day will vary.

The first ruin is the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It was started in the 6th century BC and wasn't finished until the 2nd century AD - and we thought Sagrada Familia in Barcelona was taking a long time! They were trying to build the largest and greatest temple in the world. While it was destroyed during the 3rd or 4th century AD and plenty of pieces were used to build elsewhere (which we are finding so common in Europe - from pieces of Hadrian's Wall to a church's cross being repurposed for a child's tombstone). One column was even reduced to powder to make mortar for a mosque! However some pieces are still standing. There is one column that looks like it just recently fell over, but it has been that was since a storm blew it down in the 1800s! These ancient builders sure knew their stuff. I can't imagine how strong that particular storm must have been to blow over a column that had survived so many years and so many insults.

No Justin, you didn't build that

Fallen column, with the Acropolis in the background

Next, and very close by, was Hadrian's Arch. This is the same Emperor Hadrian who ordered the construction of Hadrian's Wall near the England-Scotland border. He traveled to all corners of the Roman Empire in his time, ordering new buildings and temples and roads and aqueducts be built, so that he is known for vastly improving the infrastructure of these areas. He traveled as far North as the border of Scotland, extensively through Europe, south to Egypt and Libya, and as far east as Turkey. Not bad for someone who was only Emperor for 21 years!
When he was in Athens, this arch was built in his honour. The side that faces the Acropolis, and roughly the old city's borders, read "this is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus", where the side that faces the Temple of Olympic Zeus reads "This is the city of Hadrian, and not of Theseus". Someone isn't very good at sharing!

If you can read ancient Greek, you can check what I wrote above!

We then headed for the Acropolis, which is visible from pretty much everywhere, unless a building gets in your way. Acropolis means 'upper city' and refers to any settlement or buildings on an elevated area - but the Athenian one is the most famous in the world, which is why you can just call it the Acropolis without mentioning the city. It was both a place of worship and of entertainment, and of defence during different wars. There is a museum of sorts on the side of the Acropolis, with ruins from ancient theatres, churches, and archaelogical finds.

The Theatre of Dionysus, with a stage for plays, and throne seats in the centre. To the upper right of the picture is the wall of the Acropolis. How old would you say this is? I bet you didn't guess about twenty-six centuries! This was built around the 5th century BC and is probably the oldest theatre in the world (that we know of, at least).

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus. There are still open-air concerts and plays here to this day (weather permitting, unfortunately - none in December). Can you imagine seeing your favourite band here?

Outside of the Odeon

View from the top

We completely lucked out with our trip to the Acropolis - there was a picture-perfect blue sky with fluffy white clouds, and we were in between tour groups so there were maybe 30-50 people total up there. The winds were howling so hard that I had to crouch down to take a steady picture, but it was an easy trade-off! The Acropolis is under a major restoration (for the last 40 years) to repair damaged buildings. Some were dismantled and re-used to rebuild elsewhere, others were damaged by time and weather, but the worst of the damage occurred in the 17th century, when the city was under attack from Venetians. Someone had the bright idea to store explosives in the Parthenon, which was hit by a cannonball, and, well.....

So there were a lot of scaffolds in place, an a little rail line that allows movement of machinery and marble around the top. But either way it's pretty awe-inspiring. The other sore point is archaeological theft - people removing pieces of the buildings and moving them elsewhere. The Greeks are most unhappy about the British Museum which has all of the decorative friezes that used to hang on the outside of the Parthenon, depicting wars between men and centaurs, etc. (We may have seen these friezes at the British Museum in early September, oops). Instead of white marble, which is what we see today, apparently the buildings and sculptures were painted and had things like leather reins on the horses, iron spears and swords attached as well. You can see the holes in the marble where they used to be attached:

This is what my apartment walls look like after I move out.

So, on to the pictures that I was most excited about, in no particular order!
Here is the Parthenon:

We also got a spectacular view of the city from 360* - some pictures are used elsewhere in this post, but here are a few more:

This is a neighbourhood just under the Acropolis - the houses are all whitewashed and close together, with tons of plants, and apparently it's as close as you can get to the Greek Islands (like Santorini) without leaving the mainland

We also saw the Old Temple of Athena, build in honour of the city's namesake/patron goddress, with an olive tree outside (surely not the original, but a nice touch nonetheless).

And we were only able to see the Temple of Athena Nike, built in thanks for victory in a war (Nike means victory, not just shoes), after leaving the Acropolis - it is tiny and was badly damaged, so was completely dismantled and reconstructed in the early 2000's and covered by construction material.

This next picture is obviously not my photograph, but I love how it shows what the entrance to the Acropolis may have looked like in ancient times: Athena Nike is the tiny temple to the right of the picture, which the Parthenon is the large temple seen behind the wall upper right, and the huge statue of Athena that used to stand outside her main temple is seen to the left:

After the visit, we walked back down the hill and headed off to see more sights. However, because of its awesome real estate, we continued to see the Acropolis through the rest of our trip!

Sunset at the Panthenaic Stadium

Walking through a park

After dinner downtown

We saw many other neat sites, including the prison where Socrates supposedly committed suicide while incarcerated - it used to be much larger but the front wall has been removed:

There were also, without exaggeration, ruins and ancient buildings around every corner. Some were ruins, some have been retrofitted and are in use today. Here are a few favourites:

"Just excavating for transit and found this ruin. Ho-hum. Might as well put a roof over it and move our plans a few blocks west."

While not surprising given its age, Athens was not built with cars and parking in mind. The streets were narrow and the traffic was, quite honestly, the most dangerous I've seen in Europe. The locals are pretty blase about cramming their cars anywhere they will fit, danger or inconvenience to pedestrians be damned.

No joke, one of the more spacious parking lots we saw in the downtown core.

Here's a quick video of the everyday traffic we saw when getting coffee one morning.

Athens traffic

And this gentleman raised not one eyebrow from anyone but us on the street. Yes, that appears to be a propane tank and heater he's carrying.

On our second night in Athens, we continued our Christmas Market tradition. To be honest, this was the least impressive of any of the markets we had been to (England, Scotland, Belgium, Wales, Spain, and Greece) - there weren't many vendors or stalls set up. This was in Syntagma Square, right in front of their Parliament building.  We had a warm Turkish drink, saw their skating rink and lights, and walked around for a bit.

We finished the night with some ouzo at a really neat bar down the street from our AirBNB, where they make all of their own ouzo and store it on site.

Soon afterwards I started feeling unwell - at first Justin was worried I just couldn't hold my ouzo, but after I was violently ill all night and had fever and chills we figured I probably had a stomach flu. Unlikely to be food poisoning as we were sharing everything and Justin was fine. Bit of a bummer for the trip - I spent about 36 hours in bed, and had to take it easy the rest of the trip!

Once I was feeling better, our last major outing was to the Panthenaic Stadium. This was built around 500-300 BC entirely of marble (!) and renovated for the first modern Olympic games in Athens in 1896. It may be dated compared to some of the huge Olympic stadiums that are built these days, but given its age it was pretty stunning!

Goofing around with the podium

Listing the host cities of modern Olympics. You can see what I mean about the Greek symbols here!

Given the changing in spacing, does the Athens Olympic committee know something I don't?

Best seats in the house

Excuse me, I believe I am supposed to be sitting in 7-Gamma-22.

Two-headed statue on the field. The young beardless male looks towards the crowd, symbolizing the athletes striving for victory and recognition...

... while the older bearded man looks onto the field, remembering his days as an athlete and centre of attention

Walkway into the stadium (coming in at 3 o'clock in the next photo)

Can seat 40,000-80,000!

The last thing we saw in Athens, just before catching the subway back for our flight home, was the changing of the guard in front of Parliament. The usual 'guard doesn't move' rules apply here, but it's made up for during the parade by LOTS of movement - the ceremonial outfits have 400 pleats to symbolize 400 years they were occupied by the Ottoman empire, and the pom-pom toed shoes are apparently very heavy - making the synchronized movement even more impressive!

Once the new guards were in place, their pleats, socks, and hat were carefully arranged to be as neat as possible.

Final random photos from Athens:

Greek coffee (Justin was excited!)

This is the kind of street sign we couldn't figure out - lucky we weren't driving!

My souvenir t-shirt (bought sneakily by Justin while I was not well) - made me laugh! Won't be wearing it in public though! Our new travel map is in the background, with some strings ready to put up pictures from our next adventures!