Trip Update #4: The Acroplis Hill, Giros, and Subways

[Josh Seamon]

 

Good evening everyone,

 

This morning we woke up to an excellent breakfast in the hotel. We left at around 8:45am on a bus tour of the city. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable as the bus wound through the city. We were on the bus for about 30 minutes before we arrived at the Acropolis. At the base of the hill we could see parts of the large columns and we quickly grew even more excited than we already were. Our tour guide took us up the hill and stopped a couple times for 10 minute lectures on what we were seeing. The most notable sight on the way up was the very large theater, the Odieum of Herodes Atticus. We got our tickets and climbed the rest of the way up to the Acropolis. On the steps of the first of the four temples we had a very informative lecture on the history of the temples and the reconstruction efforts. We also continued to brace ourselves against the WIND.

 

Apparently it was an abnormally windy day today. Even though it was really windy it's so much warmer here than what we're used to (around 40-50 today), that the wind wasn't really that much of a problem. After the lecture, we walked through the very large columns of the Propyla temple besides the temple of Nike (which has been under reconstruction for 30+ years!) and into the open plane. (A map of the area is online right here: http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/acropol.htm)

 

Out on the plane we got our first glimpse of the enormous Parthenon. What a sight to see! After seeing so many pictures of the temple, it was completely surreal to see the temple in person. After a fun group picture in front of the temple, the kids were set off for 45 minutes of free time. In addition to the wonderfully impressive temples, the view for the hill was STUNNING. We could see out over the entire city, from 360 degrees! At the back of the Parthenon is a small sculpture museum which the entire group loved. (They had a strange policy of not letting people take pictures of the objects in the museum with people in it -- taking pictures of everything was fine -- you just couldn't pose in the pictures as your friend took them. -- We're still trying to figure that policy out. ;) )

 

The Pandrossean -- the temple to Poseidon --  was equally impressive with it's elegant statue-columns. On the way out of the hill we stopped at a local crafts store that sold a range of items from custom necklaces to statues to posters and paintings. After the shop we got back on the bus and continued our tour through the city. We saw the stadium where the marathon ends as well as the presidential palace. While outside of the bus at the palace a kids tried eating some of a orange from one of the many orange trees on the street -- They aren't called sour oranges for nothing!

 

Next the bus dropped us off in the central square that we explored last night. We said good bye to our tour guide and Florence led us to a fantastic local sandwich shop for lunch. On the way to the shop Flo took us down into the brand new, SUPER CLEAN, Athens subway to see some of the artifacts on display that they found while building the subway.Next, at the sandwich shop, we had a balcony floor to ourselves and everyone filled up on Giros, salads, and kabobs. From the balcony we got to see into the kitchen area -- They must have been making 30 Giros every minute!

 

After lunch the kids were sent off for 4 hours of free time before dinner. I took a group of kids back to the hotel by subway to rest and the rest headed out to explore. I left the hotel an hour ago and ran into one group of girls who had an adventure finding shoe stores and asking for directions, and a group of boys who had just spent 45 minutes in a bead store learning about how Greek men love to twirl beads in really complex ways.

 

Dinner is coming up in a couple hours. Tomorrow 3/4 of the group is heading out to Delphi for the day while the rest of the group spends the day further exploring the city. On Monday we head out to Tolo and Olympia and then the day after we head out to Patras and our overnight ferry to Brindisi Italy.

 

Hope all is well back home!

 

 

- Mr. Seamon