Diary of a Traveling Kid: Athens: Fighting Gods and a Potty Trainer

When imagining Greece, most think of the white houses sitting on a hill overlooking the ocean and people relaxing on the beaches taking in the sun. Athens, though, is a city full of history and ruins. Exhausted from the trip, we took the first night to have a long dinner. That 4 hour dinner was a little longer than we anticipated but nonetheless very fun. Each night that restaurant had live music and this particular night we were joined on the outside terrace by 70 French seniors on tour. There was typical Grecian guitar playing, songs, and dance and we watched while enjoying our Grecian meal. A typical Grecian appetizer is a fried cheese honey pastry with black sesame seeds. One of the best things I’ve had in Europe yet. I was in dire need of vegetables or really something besides Italian carb filled pizza, so I opted for a salad. Lacking any green leaves, this salad was basically super fancy bruschetta complete with feta cheese. Quite tasty.

Brittany being my #1, my second best friend on the trip was named Steves, Rick Steves. He guided us through an engaging tour of Athens via kindle. So we started our adventure with Rick at the Acropolis. The Acropolis is known as one of the best fortresses to ever exist, with natural springs providing them with potable water. 100 foot cliffs gave protection with panoramic views of potential invaders. Athenians had hold of it until the Persions invaded in 480 BC. There was the Battle of Salamis when the Athenians thought all was lost. After evacuating the city and watching the Acropolis burn, they returned to beat the Persians in a naval battle. This win was iconic and money poured into Athens because all the other Grecian provinces wanted to be on good terms with the new leader in town. During its peak in 450 BC, Pericles used their new money to rebuild the Acropolis in honor of Athena.

View of Athens from the top of the Acropolis

Time to break it down:

Not many things built in the early AD’s (except for maybe this: Early 80's) are currently being used today, but the Greeks were some pretty good architects. The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is a musical performance hall (not to be mistaken as a theater), deriving its name from “ode” or the Greek word for song. It was built in 161 AD, seats 5000, and used to have a wooden roof (those don’t last 2000 years though….). Like many things, it was destroyed by their jealous enemies and not rebuilt until the 1950’s.

Odeon

Propylaea: It was the entrance to the greatest fortress in the world. A mini Parthenon, it housed a painting gallery and some VIPS of the city. The marble staircase led you through large columns and looking up you would see frescos of the night sky scattered with stars.

Propylaea. What better entrance to the Parthenon than a mini Parthenon?

Temple of Athena Nike: Built around 400 BC, it sits to the left of the Propylaea. It had the typical Grecian scroll top columns and was a temple built for the goddess Athena. With their fortress, the Athenians kept hold of their city for hundreds of years and that victory (nike) was attributed to the goddess. They also hoped this new temple would gain them victory over the Spartans in the ongoing Pelopenisian war. What better way to make sure the goddess stayed and helped them? Making her out of stone wasn’t good enough. They also broke off her wings so she couldn’t fly away. Hence, the new name, Temple of Wingless Athena.

Temple of Athena Nike

Monument of Agripa: Now it looks like a large gray pedestal but had many a statues on top of it throughout its time. Statues include the winner of the 178 BC Olympics, Cleopatra and her boyfriend Marc Antony who ruled Athens at the time, and some Roman general named Agripa.

Monument of Agripa. Gray pedestal on the left of the picture

Parthenon: What a beauty, as our other favorite Steve would say. RIP Crocodile Hunter. Standing at the highest point, it has survived thousands of years. This can be attributed to the innovative architectural ideas and quality materials. There are many optical illusions in the building, which also helped it structurally. The bottom floor of the Parthenon actually bows upward, giving it an appearance of harmonious streamline, and allowing it to drain rainwater. The columns tilted ever so slightly inward so it wouldn’t appear saggy, an ancient facelift of sorts, and allowed the building to withstand earthquakes. The columns at the four corners are slightly larger giving the illusion that they are the same size as the others. All the columns bulge in the middle, supposedly representing barrel chested men holding up the roof. Seemingly made of all right angles, the Parthenon actually contains none. The Parthenon is made from very durable materials, Panatellic marble rolled from a specific mountain 16 miles away. Interestingly, free men with salaries built it and only in 10 years! Considering the meticulous construction (the individually cut pieces fit together within 1 thousandth of an inch) it is thought to cost around 1 billion dollars in today’s dollars. Currently, the Parthenon is partially in ruins due to an “accidental” cannon fired from a nearby mountain as well as the greedy Lord Elgin, who wanted the carved reliefs for Britain.

Story goes that Athena and Poseidon fought for the spot of ruler of the city that is now called Athens. Poseidon sought to gain approval from the people by throwing his spear in the ground to bring them water. They apparently had selective palates and chose Athena, who gave them an olive tree.

Recreation of the west pediment of the Parthenon (in Nashville, TN in fact)

Throughout the years, the British have stolen quite a bit from other countries and territories. Their museums are full of artifacts from all across the globe. After nicely asking the British to please return much of the Acropolis that still remains in the British Museum, they declined. They claim that it is because Athens did not have a suitable building to preserve these ruins however a more probable reason is that they are worried the return will prompt other countries to reclaim their artifacts. Athens built a state-of-the-art museum and it is truly incredible. The Acropolis museum was built to entice their things back from London, but the stubborn British still refused.

Gorgeous Acropolis museum. The top part of the museum, made of all glass walls in order to see a panoramic view of Athens, is a representation of the Parthenon. It has the same dimensions and sits in the same direction as the real one a half a mile away. The artifacts inside sit in the exact spot as they would if it were the actual Parthenon.

The triangular sections (pediments) situated above each short side of the Parthenon used to portray two scenes. The first showed the birth of Athena. No huffing and puffing, contractions, or long hours in labor for the Gods. One day, Zeus had a headache and asked Hephaistos to fix it. Human medicine doesn’t apply to gods so she split his head open with ax and fully-grown Athena popped out. If only childbirth was that easy. The second pediment showed the previously mentioned contest between Athena and Poseidon for the city of Athens.

Recreation of the east pediment: The Birth of Athena

Erechtheion: One of my favorite sites on the ground: the temple with the lady pillars. The caryatids are clad in pleated robes with fruit baskets as hats. Some of the originals are in the museum and copies stand outside the Erechteion now. Near the porch there’s a real olive tree to represent the one Athena presented to the original Athenians. In fact, 100 million of these trees are scattered around Athens today. The Erectheion still holds the crack where Poseidon supposedly drove his spear into the ground to bring water in the contest for Athens against Athena. No hard feelings between Athena and Poseidon though. As BFFs, they each had a side of the Erectheion dedicated to them.

Lady pillars, more politically correct: Caryatids

The Greek flag is composed of blue and white stripes with a cross in the corner. The nine stripes represent the 9 syllables of the greek phrase that translates to "freedom or death." That phrase had a whole new meaning during WWII when the Nazis invaded. In 1941, two teenagers became iconic figures to the Nazi resistance. One night, they risked their lives to scale the Acropolis wall to return the Greek flag to the flagpole that the Nazis had replaced with their own flag.

Plaque dedicated to the two teenagers who risked their lives to show their resistance

The Acropolis covers 7 acres. They had many statues of Athena in the Acropolis including in the Temple of Athena, the Parthenon, and in the middle of the pathway next to the Parthenon. The one standing in the pathway was depicted as a warrior holding a spear that could be seen 30 miles away by ships coming into the harbor.

The typical dress for Athena was peplos, a large sacred dress given to Athena on her birthday. They were created each year by virgins and placed on the statue. Every four years, Athena got a bigger celebration, receiving a dress the size of a modern basketball court. The Temple of Athena Nike itself has been taken apart and reassembled three times: once by the Ottoman’s in the 17^th century, once by the Greeks in 1935 who did such a shoddy job it prompted the restoration happening now. With careful research, this new restoration should last for another 2500 years.

The Athena statue that used to be housed in the Parthenon was made of ivory and gold. Surrounding her was a pool that was not simply an aesthetic reflecting pool, it helped preserve the ivory and gold.

Restoration of the Acropolis is important to the survival of this historical site. Brittany’s friend from Georgia Tech was actually the first architect intern to work on the restoration of the Partheon.

When exploring around the small streets filled with markets it’s hard to imagine that you are in a small part of the large city of Athens. Looking from the top of the Acropolis however, you can get a better perception of how vast it actually is. The markets are filled with the famous Grecian eye, a symbol that negatively affects those who become envious of others. There’s also olive oil soap, jewelry in every price range, leather sandals, and cotton Grecian outfits. I have always loved walking through the markets even though I often just look without buying. I think it’s the energy that I like. They are small crowded streets filled with every type of person.

Acropolis museum: When beginning to build this museum, they discovered an ancient neighborhood below. Being a museum to preserve ruins, they couldn’t ethically knock them down. So they spent a considerable amount of money to build on top of them without destroying them. Throughout the museum, they have glass floors so visitors can look down and see those ancient ruins.

Walking through the first floor, you’ll see pots depicting marriage traditions of the time as well as the progression of statue style throughout the years. Originally, movement in statues was characterized by sculpting the figure with a straight back and one hand lifting her skirt.

When anti-Pagan Christians came around and started destroying things, Nike, the goddess of victory was one of the most preserved figure during this time. Why? Christians mistook her for an angel because of her wings.

The famous relief of Nike adjusting her sandal

We hear all the time about how we’ve been devastating the earth but it was plainly illustrated when we actually saw evidence of our pollution. The original Caryatids (lady pillars) have had more damage in the past 50 years than in the 2000 years previous. A special exhibition in the museum showed the cleaning restoration process involving lasers and other modern technology.

A laser is being used to remove the pollution that has collected over the years

Ancient agora: Some more ruins that would have just looked like some old stones if it hadn’t been for Rick Steves. Agora was the downtown of ancient Rome dating back to the 6^th century BC. Let’s take a minute and think about how old that is. 500 years before Jesus was around! Agora survived until 267 AD when barbarians demolished it. The Stoa of Attalos was reconstructed in 1950. It was surrounded by columns whose ridges didn’t start until 6 feet from to the floor to encourage philosophical thinkers to lean against them. Socrates was one of those loungers and was eventually jailed for his ideas.