Greece Part III: the Acropolis and the Agora

Friday was my first full day in Athens and decided to get the biggest historical sights (the ancient Acropolis and the Agora) out of the way first to make sure that I got to see them. Because winter is the off-season for Greek tourism, most of the sights to see were only open from 8:30 am to 3 pm, so I had to wake up at 7am (which was like 6am France time). Thanks to having a student card for a school within the European Union, I got into all of the sights and museums for free.

To get up to the Acropolis, I had to walk a path that wound around the hill past some ruins.

The first thing I saw on the way up was the Theatre of Dionysus.

the view from ground level

the view from above the theatre

We learned about its structure and purpose when we studied the play Oedipus Rex in high school and I must admit I was a little disappointed. I expected a bit more grandeur (even though I knew there were only ruins). This theatre was a bit of a let-down compared to the Odeon of Herodes which I passed by later on.

The farther up I got on the hill, the better and better the view of the city got.

At the top, I had to walk through the entrance to the ancient city which was a columned building called the Propylaea. They let people walk right through this structure which is kind of cool considering how at most of the sights you couldn't get within 5 feet of the buildings, let alone walk through them.

the Propylaea

The most disappointing part of the Acropolis in general was all of the restoration that was going on and the obvious technologies added by the modern world. Compared to Delphi where everything seemed very natural (and except for a few slight restorations, almost untouched), the Acropolis had lights and power cords everywhere and the buildings had metal construction structures covering them.

After I walked through the Propylaea, I had a clear view of the Parthenon.

It was very large and impressive but like I said, under restoration. The Parthenon was the temple of worship for the goddess Athena who the Athenians thought of as their protector, hence the town's name.

On the other side of the Acropolis, there was the Erechtheion which was a cool building.

It had a porch with statues of women as the pillars called the Porch of the Caryatids. The women-pillars on the Erechtheion weren't the actual ones that were originally there; the original ones were moved to the Acropolis Museum so I saw them later.

According to Greek mythology, Athena and Poseidon competed for the patronage of this city and in the end Athena was victorious, but this Erechtheion was still built and dedicated to Poseidon.

On my way down from the Acropolis, I saw the Odeon of Herodes which, as I said, was a lot more impressive than the Theatre of Dionysus. I don't know what the Odeon was used for because I couldn't find a sign but it looked like something theatrical.

Further down from the Acropolis, I saw what looked like a large rock with stairs carved into it so I went over to check it out. It was called Areopagus Hill.

According to the sign, it was where some of the first teachings of Christianity (or something like that) happened in Greece. Anyway I really liked it, it seemed like a nice place to relax and hang out.

It had a nice view of the city and was cool and smooth to the touch, having been worn down by thousands of years of people walking all over it

After that, I relaxed and had lunch at the Monastiraki market (another gyro).

the tail end of the market where there were a lot less people

The market was kind of cool and had a huge variety of different things but it probably would have been cooler for someone who spoke Greek, otherwise it was mostly just overwhelming.

After lunch, I went to check out the Agora. The first thing I saw was the completely reconstructed Stoa of Attalos which served as a museum for some of the relics found there. That was kind of neat to see how they lived back then.

Then I mostly just wandered around. In the middle, there was a cute little church called Church of the Holy Apostles which was from the year (approximately) 1000. I went inside and it was nice and cool and had some interesting ceiling artwork.

The problem with ruins is that, after awhile, they all just kind of start to look like rocks on the ground and you don't appreciate them as much, which, I think, is what started to happen to me here. It was still kind of interesting though.

I actually liked the temple here a lot. It was the temple of Hephaistos and according to the sign, it's the most well preserved temple from Ancient Greece. If memory serves me correctly, Hephaistos was the blacksmith god and he was married to Aphrodite (this being what I learned from the disney channel show based off of the movie Hercules, see TV can teach kids useful stuff :-p ).

Anyway after the agora, I went to the Acropolis Museum which had a lot of stuff found from the Acropolis. It was really amazing to see the kinds of things that the Ancient Greeks could sculpt out of marble or weld out of copper. They didn't allow cameras in there so I don't have any pictures from it, but by that time I was completely exhausted from being on my feet all day so I didn't spend too long there before I hobbled home.