Part Three: Athens

We wrapped our our tour of Southeast Europe by going to the cradle of civilization, Athens. Our original itinerary called for us to leave the boat on Friday morning, and we were to get a guided tour of the city on Saturday. However, the workers at the Acropolis were going on strike Saturday (presumably for the same reasons as the workers in Crete), so our tour company took us off the boat Friday and put us right on a bus so we wouldn't miss anything.

Picture 1: Jason at the Olympic Stadium
Picture 2: The Parthenon
Picture 3: The Theatre of Dionysus
Picture 4: Famous busts from Greek history
Picture 5: M.C. Escher museum

Day One: We left the boat, boarded the bus and our first stop was the Olympic Stadium from the first modern Games in 1896. This was a thrill for me, I hadn't been expecting this as a stop and it was amazing. It doesn't look much like a modern stadium as it's more oval than round. I doubt the track would even be certified today. But the stadium (which they used for the finish of the Olympic Marathons in 2004) still looks to be in pretty good shape.
We next went by the remains of the Temple of Olympian Zeus and up to the Acropolis. Although obviously I've seen pictures of the Parthenon before, I hadn't realised how high above the city it is. You can see it from almost anywhere in Athens. Anyway, we made our way up the hill and saw the magnificent structure, a monument to Athena. There was a lot of scaffolding around the Parthenon because of a massive cleanup project, but you could still see what an amazing building it is.
In the afternoon, after getting checked in to our hotel, we walked around some other historic sights (the Roman agora and the Ancient agora) and the base of the Acropolis. At the bottom of the hill is the Theatre of Dionysus, an open-air theatre that housed dramatic festivals in the heyday of ancient Greece, and was the site of the premiere for many of Sophocles' plays. Some of the theatre is roped off, but some of it is open to the public, so I had a seat and pretended I was watching the premiere of Antigone. It was pretty neat.
Saturday we rode a cable car to the top of the highest hill in Athens for the view, then went to the National Archaelogical Museum. As you might guess, an archaelogical museum in Greece had a lot to it. There were a ton of busts and statues, including a well-preserved one of Athena, and a lot of pottery and other artifacts. I learned a lot more about black-figure and red-figure pottery, and the development of each, than I ever thought I would.
Sunday morning we went looking for the city's flea market, but got distracted by a military band. It turned out it was part of an extremely elaborate changing of the guard ceremony in front of Greece's parliament. Contrasting the military precision was the hilarious inability of the police security to marshal the crowd into the correct spots. In fairness, this was also apparently a memorial for soldiers killed in the Greek war of Independence (I think), so it may not have been a weekly occurrence.
In the afternoon we hit a wonderful museum on M.C. Escher. It was very well laid out, had nice displays - and there was nobody else there. Very curious. It also had a room devoted to Victor Vasarely, the man who inspired the decorations in Prague's metro stations.
We also quite liked the food in Athens. We found a couple of great Greek restaurants, for pretty good prices. I didn't like ouzo very much, and Chelsey has a movie to prove it, but the food was excellent.
-Jason