A Week In Athens

 We'd decided the Metro was our best option for getting to our accommodation close to Syntagma Square in the heart of Athens city. The half hour wait for the next train slightly tarnished that decision; we're used to trains every few minutes in European cities. It was however a lovely warm morning and the trip into town took us through some interesting, arid, olive tree-covered countryside before we disappeared underground for much of the 45 minute trip.

It was a five minute walk from the Metro to our apartment; too early to move in, but we had arranged to drop off our bags. Our landlord, Romanos, was there doing maintenance things. We had a quick orientation and then departed for a preliminary wander around the locality. And we caught our first glimpse of the highlight of the apartment: the Acropolis view - perfect to observe its changing moods, day and night!

Despite thirty hours on planes or in lounges we were both feeling surprisingly good, with none of the spaced out, jetlagged head.There is definitely an advantage to sitting closer to the front of the plane!!

Syntagma (Constitution) Square is city central, the place where the people gathered, in front of the king's palace to demand a different way to run the country. Their democracy was born just here. The palace that was, is now the Parliament.

The Ottoman Empire had been 400 years in charge here, until about 160 years ago. There was a bit of a dust up, and the Greeks prevailed so the Ottomans got the heave-ho. A king was initially elected/appointed, King Otto, not a Greek , but a 17 year old Bavarian Prince. They got tired of this arrangement fairly quickly, and changed it after 11 years.

Part of the charm of this place is the evidence of the existence of lots of older civilizations and settlements and there are many layers of ruins scattered around the city. These are in various states of excavation and restoration or abeyance. There has been a city here from around 1200 BC, with Byzantine, ancient Greek, Roman and then Ottoman influences.

Our walk took us past several small churches and chapels from around 1100 AD, and a relatively modern and larger cathedral. The cathedral is small in comparison to the grand edifices around the rest of Europe. 

We watched a small parade with a brass band, locals in traditional costume and an entourage of various dignitaries  as we enjoyed a frozen yoghurt confectionary. The parade was members of one of the island groups who threw in their lot with Greece 165 years ago. Our arrival day just happened to be National Independence Day. 

As we walked past the Parliament building we watched part of the Changing of the Guard ceremony. The soldiers, called the Eyvone Guard, wear multi-layered skirts and shoes with big pompoms, and their march is a very elaborate and solemn combination of goose-stepping, stamping and arm waving. The skirts have 400 pleats, that are supposed to remind everyone that the country was subjugated by the Turks for 400 years. 

Behind the Parliament are the National Gardens, a network of walkways, ponds and lovely cool temperatures with lots of families enjoying the environment.

We found a great delicatessen, Ergon, which also had a very popular casual dining area attached. As well as the Menu de Jour, you could choose your meat/fish/kebabs at the counter and have them prepared for you. We stocked up for a light meal, and headed back to the apartment, after checking out our gathering point for tomorrow's Greek food tour.

We managed to get to about 7 pm before succumbing to bed and sleep. It did mean an early wake up, 4 am next day, but we coped with that.

Adjacent to our deli there is also a very popular bakery. There always seems to be a long queue outside. We had determined that it opened at 7 00 am, so that is where our second day started. We walked the two minutes home and sat down to enjoy our feta cheese and sesame filo pastry and the cinammon twirl with coffee. Breakfast of Champions I think. 

Day One really of our Athen's experience was a walking food tour of the city, incorporating all styles and specialties of Greek cuisine, with, it turns out, very generous tastings of the same. The  tour was an Alternative Athens product, which seemed expensive at 69 Euro each. However it took three and a half hours from 10 30 am to 2 00 pm, and provided lashings of food. It was well worth the money!!  Our guide was Antigoni Dionisiadou, a young Athenian, who provided plenty of information on all of the dishes and much background on the city and its development. Our group was nine people, all Americans, apart from us. After seeing huge groups following a leader with sign yesterday this small group was a relief. It made it very easy to chat with the guide and to fit into some small shops.

Our first stop was a sweet one: baklava, all 40 layers of filo with honey and nuts. Very sweet - maybe good energy food for the  walk!  

We picked up bread from Pnyka Bakery, a family-owned business that has been providing bread for around 50 years. This is not your supermarket style long-keeping bread. It is fresh, no preservatives, eat me today stuff in true continental style. We didn't consume on the spot; we needed this for a later tasting experience.

The next stop was Greek coffee. This is a short expresso style served in a small cup. Our coffee was made in the traditional style. The coffee pot is immersed in sand for the heating process. Traditionally the coffee is taken without milk, but with sugar in small, medium (50% each of sugar and coffee) or large amounts and is served with all the grounds as well. I had mine with no sugar, as I wanted just the taste of the coffee. It is a change from my usual flat white, and I'll stick with my traditional approach on this one. Ann had the medium sugar style which tasted like a lightly bitter 80% cocoa chocolate.

At our next stop we sampled a Grapa-like product called tsipouro, hard goat and sheep milk cheese and three extra virgin olive oils (the only olive oil with no added components). Here we used the bread for our sampling.

Next stop featured the souvlaki roll. This contained  lamb, red onion, tomato, tzatziki sauce and chips in a toasted pita wrap. That was probably an adequate level of food for the day, but we were only half way through the tour. 

The next the tour took us through the meat, seafood and fruit and vegetable market. There was a great array of fish varieties available and all the prices looked very good, even when you doubled them to convert Euros to $NZ. We didn't do any purchasing as the apartment is pretty rudimentary for home cooking, like just a small frypan and a couple of pots. 

We headed to a restaurant not far from the markets for mezze;  a host of shared dishes. We tasted several styles of meatballs and sauce, hummus, anchovies, deep fried squid, Greek salad, stuffed capsicums, lentils, fried sausage, baked feta in olive oil, giant beans, eggplant and pepper mix and orzo. There was more of everything than we could eat.

More walking and then a final stop at a confectionary shop to sample the local makaron. Soft cake sandwiching a cream filling.

 In our walk we traversed several districts, some more grungy than others, some tree-lined and beautiful. Two things stood out in particular: very old buildings like chapels sandwiched among modern shops and once-grand buildings now derelict and covered in graffiti. The latter, as neoclassical turn of the century buildings, have historic places classification and can't be demolished. But the owners can't afford to renovate them. 

We independently decided that dinner would be a small bowl of breakfast cereal and strawberries, as wandered our replete way home. 

For Athens Day Two, we did an early walk around the Acropolis hill, to get our ducks lined up for our visits later in the day. The walk took us past Hadrian's Gate, and the massive columns of the ruin of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, taller by far than those of the Pantheon. It was apparently the largest temple in ancient Greece, but little remains!!

Then we walked on around the base of the granite/marble hill that is home to the Pantheon and the other ancient temples. Quite incredible to be looking up to this impressive massif which has been home to people's gods since around 1300 years BC. Our circumnavigation got us back home via a new bit of town, more ruins, many of which look to have had renovations/restorations started and then stalled.

We dropped in to our small local supermarket for supplies and were home in time for lunch. The afternoon provided the major activities for the day, the Acropolis Museum and the visit to the Acropolis itself.

Before we set out I went to track down a bank to get some cash. We hadn't seen one at all in our walks to date. Plenty of ATMs, but none of the real thing. I tend not to use random ATMs. Maybe I'm naive but I trust the institutions rather than random ATMs. I did find the bank, after a couple of tries at enlisting a bit of local help. Quite pleased when the Euros 200 I withdrew cost me just $3 NZ more than my currency conversion App indicated as the direct conversion rate. Happy for the bank to take 1.5 Euros for their service.

We were lucky to strike a very short queue to get into the Acropolis Museum. This is a very spacious, modern, light-filled multi-level building, and the displays and associated interpretive information were top notch.  There are gaps in some of the displays like the six Caryatids, of which there are only five in various states of disrepair. There is a space left for the missing 6th Caryatid, which happens currently to reside in the British Museum. 

As you enter the museum there is a large interpretive display relating to the English Lord Elgin and his locally perceived misdemeanours. He removed large numbers of artifacts from the Acropolis Hill, and shipped them back to Britain. This was justified by a letter of support from the occupying Ottoman sultan. Long and the short of it is, the locals are keen to see these artifacts returned to Greece, especially as they now have built this magnificent building to house them in. The museum is actually built over ancient Athenian ruins and glass pathways allow visitors to see them.

The museum displays are a mix of reconstructed, reassembled and just pieces of the ancient statues and friezes. The first floor has sculptures from a temple once on the Parthenon site but destroyed by the Persians. The sculptures were buried and only found in the 1800s. Hercules wrestling the sea monster Triton and the three-headed demon representing wind, air and fire caught the photographer's eye. It's amazing that these sculptures were made pre 500 BC.

The major deities represented in the museum are Athena and Poseidon. I'm unsure of the pair's relationship, but they did seem to do a lot of fighting, perhaps to establish just who held the upper hand with the Athenians. This contest was won by Athena who presented the city with an olive tree. The second section of the museum contains many statues gifted to her in thanks for her care. There was once  a 9 m high statue of Athena on the Acropolis hill which could be seen by sailors on ships out to sea. I gather the Ottomans took her from her pedestal and removed her to parts unknown. So Lord Elgin wasn't alone in his plundering of the assets, seems all of the occupiers had varying degrees of disregard for what they were seeing when they conquered the city and its inhabitants. This subjugation seems to have been a fairly popular pastime for the region.

The final level of the Museum is a replica of the actual Parthenon with the friezes around it. Considering the ravages of war, a misplaced cannon ball in 1687, acid rain and Elgin's 'raid' a lot seems to have survived. The frieze that used to run right around the Parthenon is quite fascinating with depictions of battles between man and beast in particular.

The Athenians built on the Acropolis hill from about 1200 BC. The Persians attacked the city in wars during the 490 BC and 480 BC periods and did some damage, but they got a reasonable hiding in the 480 BC stoush and didn't come back after that. The thing about that war was the Greeks had learned from the first war, and had built a substantial fleet of fighting ships which smashed the Persian fleet. Different people largely who are living in Persia now, but history seems to have repeated itself 2500 years later, another fleet from there annihilated in just the last few months.

 History has provided other long-term occupiers of this space: Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, Catalonians, Florentines and then the Ottomans for 400 years. All have left their mark, and many inflicted huge damage in the way they treated this religious space.

The Museum is an intriguing place to visit, particularly before you venture out onto the hill itself. If you've enjoyed a childhood reading about Melanion and the golden apples, the Trojan Horse, and Jason and the Golden Fleece, then you've got a smattering of knowledge about those times and how things actually looked, which is useful. It brings together the very interesting background and stories on all the deities and the also the wealthy citizens over the ages who spent their time and money building these immense commemorations to their gods.

The Acropolis hill itself is a story told best in pictures of views and ruins, it is just fantastic that it has survived even in the degraded format that remains. It is still a very impressive place to visit.

On the way up the hill there's a great view of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a Roman amphitheatre now restored and used for performances. 

 Sightseers walk up the Acropolis hill much as the ancient Greeks did and pass through a dramatic columned entranceway called the Propylaea. As you enter it there are the remnants of a temple to Athena. On the left is a grey column with no statue on the top which has housed a range of egos. Marc Anthony had a statue of himself and Cleopatra on it and, when they died, Agrippa replaced it with his image. It currently stands empty. 

Through the entry the Parthenon dominates, even though it is largely scaffolded as attempts are made to reinforce the columns (earlier repairs used iron clamps which are rusting away). The ground around is littered with remnants of columns and random marble pieces presenting a gigantic jigsaw challenge to restorers. 

Also on the hill is the equally sacred Erechtheion temple which houses the porch of the Caryatids and a temple to Poseidon. It is supposedly the site where Athena and Poseidon fought it out for naming rights of the city. The olive tree shows the winner! 

 

And finally there was the lookout with the flag of Greece which we see from our window. Our house is down there!

Our timed visit to the hill started at 5 00 pm so as we walked home on a very hot afternoon we had a cold drink and a meal at Platanos Taverna, not far from the ruins of the Roman Forum. Thirst quenching beer and kebabs certainly hit the spot!

 For Day three and Day four we did self-guided Rick Steve city walks, weve done his interesting city walks in quite a few European cities.

The first took us back through some of the areas we'd eaten our way through on our food tour but focussed us on more of the history of the city centre development and it's commercial and residential development.

We started at Monastiraki Square. The Psyrri district has a lot of both street art and grafitti. The street art was part of urban beautification for the Olympic Games in 2004. Street artists were paid to cover the harsh stone walls of the area. In the past it was home to craftsmen and small factories. The poet Lord Byron lived here back in 1810 and in his time the area was home to many of the revolutionaries fighting for independence. 

There are many trinket and souvenir shops in the area but the most eye catching OTT cafe in the area was the Little Kook cafe, a fairytale themed coffee and tea room. Apparently displays change with the seasons - what a job that must be!!

The bakery that makes much of the koulouri for the street trader stalls is here. This product is a sesame seed coated dough ring, a popular on the go snack, and another enticer for tourists.

We walked through Iroon, the Square of Heroes. Greek freedom fighters settled around this area in the 1830's. 

Rick Steve pointed us to a pastry snack called bougatsa, this is dough rolled super thin and then filled with custard and popped in the oven. A slice costs about 3 Euros, and is very tasty. It's warm unlike our custard square and with no icing. The thin pastry is less sweet and stodgy.

The walk then took us back for a closer look at the food markets and the specialty shops selling spices, dried meat and fruit in the street nearby. 

The market is less 'glamorous' than say Melbourne's Vic Market and some of the meat cuts were challenging!  We couldn't find shelled prawns to bring home for dinner, bit of a shame, but the apartment isn't well set for home cooking.

On our way home we passed plenty of hardware and clothing and jewellery shops, but we're early still into a long trip so aren't looking to accummulate clutter.

The second of the city walks gave us a look at the Greek Orthodox chuches, firstly the very old and very small ones, dating from the mid-1050's period when the European Orthodox Christian Churches split to become separate and pretty much national. That was the period of the Great Schism when the Catholic/Orthodox conglomerate of Christianity split up. Some of these old churches are constructed from remains of previous buildings and they still boast some striking carved blocks from the second century. 

Inside the worshippers stood for the most part (there was very little space)  and there was a screen the priest went behind to prepare for communion. There were quite a few priests in their distinctive black garb in the area, which also had the Archbishop's very grand home.

We viewed the bigger, more modern (1840's on) Cathedral. Intriguingly women were required to worship from the balconies until 1954 when they got the vote.  

Outside the church is a statue of  Archbishop Damaskinos.  It was erected by grateful Jews after he stood up for them against the Nazis in World War II. The Nazis threatened to put him in front of a firing squad, he argued that hanging was more appropriate for an Orthodox priest! He survived to be caretaker prime minister at the end of the war.

We then strolled through the retail district that supports the clergy and the chuches and provides the icons, prints and paintings for homes.

On then up the hill through Plaka's classy souvenir, clothing and leather shops and on to Anafiotika. Anafiotika is a small area that originally housed the workmen and their families who came in from the islands to rebuild around Athens after the War of Independence.

Their small houses are reminiscent of the style of building on the islands. The workmen built their own houses after their day's building work. Many reflect that they were constructed under a bit of time pressure. The well-made and finished ones are very cute.

The walk home took us past the Roman Forum again and the Tower of the Wind, reminding us of yet another conquest in Greek's past.

              Tomorrow is an early departure, taxi around 6 00 am to Piraeus and the fast ferry to Sifnos.