Bob's World: Ancient Athens

As I walked out of the Athens Metro station, I looked up into the sky. The sky is blue and there were no clouds. The sun shined upon me and I realised that’s why it’s so bloody hot even in September! I was sweating profusely as I walked along the main square of Syntagma with my luggage, looking for our hotel. With this kind of hot weather, a cold shower would be excellent.

Leaving the hot weather aside, Athens is best described as part city, part archaeological site. Amongst the tall and modern buildings stands what was left of ancient Athens. The most majestic among the archaeological site is the Acropolis, where it stands on a hilltop and is visible to almost every part of the city.

There are many entrances to Acropolis and given the sheer size of it, I think it would take at least the entire day to go through the marble white monuments and temples. Part of the structures are still under restoration work. Since it is a tourist attraction site, we have to mingle along with other tourist. In fact there were so many tourists, the whole site was overcrowded and I was wondering if any of them would fall off the hill! And because there is just flow of people swarming to the hill top, there is little opportunity for me to stand and look at the structures.

Acropolis overflowed with tourist.

Once we reached to the top of the hill, there it stood, the magnificent Parthenon, a temple build to house statue of Athena.

Parthenon

Not too far away from Parthenon is the Erechtheion.

Erechtheion

Once we are done fighting with other tourist, trying to get the best photo shot of Acropolis, we went down hill towards the Ancient Agora. The Agora is Athen’s meeting place in ancient times with all the commercial, administrative, ~~orgies~~ and social activities taking place.

Agora... an open 'place of assembly' in ancient Athens

This is the Agora Museum where it housed all the artifacts and a toilet facility for those in need to take a pee.

The other end of the Agora stands the Temple of Hephaestus.

We move south of the Acropolis and cut across scores of tourist shops until we reach the other end of the road. There lie 16 remaining columns (out of total 104) of the Temple of Zeus.

Since we have not had enough of monuments and temples, we made our way out of Athens to the Temple of Poseidon. The view is great but the wind was really strong on the day of our visit. Sands were ride along the strong wind hitting our face.

Temple of Poseidon. Yes, I know. More buildings! What more do you expect of Athens?

What is a vacation if there is no shopping for tourist? The Athens flea market is located around Monastiraki Square with shops selling souvenirs to flock of tourists. Unlike some nasty opportunistic traders we encountered in other countries, traders in Athens are often gentlemen. We could browse through the goods in their shop and query about certain goods. If at the end of the day we have decided not to make the purchase, the shopkeeper would just smile. They will then take out their business card and leave it with us, just in case we change our mind.

Before we flew to Greece, Kay booked a concert which is to be held at Odeon of Herodes Atticus:-

Kay: Dear, I am going to book two tickets for a concert in Athens.

Bob: But I don’t speak or sing Greek.

Kay: It says here Mikis Theodorakis' orchestra

Bob: Hmmm… I don’t mind orchestra. As long as it is just instruments that’s ok. Least I don’t have to struggle to learn Greek language.

So, Kay booked two tickets for the price of €35+ per person.

The stage

When we arrive at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, I realized that there were score of singers (most likely famous people which we don’t know or appreciate) and orchestra seems to mean there will be people singing in Greek and not just instrumental.

We were the only Asian looking visitor to the concert. Everyone looked at us and gave us the disbelief-look. It was as if they were questioning whether we understand Greek.

Since we have already paid for the tickets, might as well just sit in. I think the concert was held in honour of Mikis Theodorakis the composer for all the songs. (Click here to know more of Mikis Theodorakis). Though I don’t understand Greek, some of the songs do sound nice. But then along came this old chap who sounded no different to an old man attempting to sing Shanghai Bund on a karaoke set during a Chinese wedding!

What can I say? Money well spent on something we don’t understand or appreciate. If there is any help to any of you readers, don’t be fooled by the word ‘orchestra’. Look for philharmonic instead if you want just instrumental music.