So work brought me to Paris & Berlin. . .: A tour of Athens

My friend and I decided that for our travels this time we would go to Greece - our last trip together 4 years before was to the Baltics. Why you ask? - because it was monsoon season in Viet Nam.

Like most people that have never been to Greece we stopped in Athens on the way to the islands to get a little history and culture in. I have heard a lot of bad things about Athens but, in truth, I liked it. It's not somewhere I would spend weeks at a time but as a city it was easy to get around, felt comfortable and the people were nice - can't ask for much more!

We did two tours - a food one (next post) and a historical one. Both tours were thankfully earlier in the day because it was 40 bazillion degrees out which is also a common complaint.

On our tour of the city we hit all the major sites. Our tour guide, Stavros, was pretty hysterical - he was always deadpan but kept making jokes along the way in the same tone as he spoke. The tour starts in the metro station where you meet. You actually spend quite a bit of time there which at first seemed a bit bizarre but the station is set up like a mini-museum so in the end made sense.

Once outside we headed to the Old Parliament just in time to see the changing of the guards (and pick up some stray dogs who happily came along the entire way!).

Then you make your way to the city garden to see where some of the great thinkers came to ponder the meaning of life and where the Olympic decisions are made (ok, maybe I made this up but the building has something to do with the Olympics and I have forgotten because it's now February!).

Next up is the temple of Zeus - not sure exactly what I was expecting but given ruins I have seen in other places in the world I expected a little more than a few columns but I guess when things are that old (it was completed in 456 B.C.). It was the centre of the ancient city where people came to worship Zeus, the god of sky and thunder.

The view from Zeus

The gate which would have been the entrance to the city.

The tour ends at the Acropolis so that you can spend as much time as you like wandering around the site afterwards.

The first part of the tour is the temple of Dionysus, the god of wine and crazy dancing, had a temple.

As the Greek are known to have invented drama, there is usually an amphitheatre (or two). And here they are:

Beside the theatre, there used to be a large shopping plaza where people would gather before and after the shows. Possibly even grab a bite to eat during it.

There are some pretty great views of the city from Acropolis as it is on a hill.

And then we finally hit the top! And this is worth the visit.

The Parthenon completed in 432 BC is an architectural feat - it is said to be a perfect structure in which the angles and shapes of the pillars etc play to the eye so it looks perfectly straight from the ground. In 1687 the Ottoman Empire's ammunition was set off by a Venetian bombardment and then in the early 1800s the Earl of Elgin removed many of the existing statutes which were sold to the British Museum and are still there today.

The old temple of Athena was completed in 500 BC. Some of the statutes that surround the temple were removed and placed in a museum. We ended up going to the museum in the afternoon to get out of the heat for a while.