Athens, Day Two: Part II

 On the afternoon of our second day in Athens, with my head and neck still sore from the pummelling I took on my new Least Favourite Steel Coaster Of All Time, we headed back to the city centre for a bit more sightseeing. Since the hotel shuttle bus doesn’t run on weekends, we hopped an Uber taxi and off we went. I mentioned how crazy Athenian traffic is and a good reason for it is lane splitting is allowed here. That’s where scooters, motorcycles, and such are allowed to create their own lanes of traffic between the vehicles in the regular lanes. It’s just a reality here that a 4-lane road for cars is a 7-lane road for things on two wheels.

It’s unnerving enough when it happens at stoplights or in bumper-to-bumper traffic, but it also happens at high speeds on the highways. It can be terrifying until you get used to seeing it. Apparently, there aren’t helmet laws here, either. I saw a family with mom and dad both on a scooter with a young child wedged between them, zipping through traffic with no helmets.

Once we were dropped off at Syntagma Square, we did a quick look-see through the Polo store and then headed over to the Parliament building and watched the changing of the guards at the Monument to the Unknown Soldier.

Each guard, part of a special unit of the Greek military, stands his post for one hour, during which time they must remain absolutely motionless and without expression. This takes a month of training, including special exercises where they learn to keep their bodies and minds perfectly still. At the top of the hour, the two guards are relieved until their next shift, which will be several hours later. A guard normally serves three hour-long shifts every two days. The lengthy and elaborate steps of the ritual are performed in slow motion, so as not to upset the circulatory system after being motionless for so long. While the speed and exaggerated movements are necessary, it does look a bit odd at times.

We then headed into the National Gardens, which were surprisingly quiet, in spite of a very busy 4-lane road just steps away

We both appreciated a break from the hectic pace and noise of the city centre, even though we were technically still in it.

Right in the middle of the National Gardens is Zappeion Hall, which was built in the 1880s for the first modern Olympic Games and is not used as a conference centre.

The big draw, however, is the archeological site of the Temple of the Olympian Zeus. This temple was massive with huge Corinthian columns (side note: Corinthian columns are named after the Greek city Corinth, even though it’s believed they were first seen in Athens, but they’re most famous for buildings built by Romans in later years. Confusing!), a few of which still stand today.

The TotOZ (I’m not typing the whole thing out each time) has an interesting history. It was begun around 550 BCE and was abandoned and sat dormant from 510 BCE until 174 BCE, when the new ruler, King Antiochus IV Ephipanese, who fancied himself the human incarnation of Zeus, had an epiphany (see what I did there?) and ordered the temple finished, but with some changes in design. Instead of Doric limestone columns, there should be marble Corinthian columns instead. The temple was half-finished when work halted again at the death of the king. It would remain in that state for centuries until Roman Emperor Hadrian ponied up the money to have it finished, which it was around the year 131 CE (historians use BCE and CE now, rather than BC and AD, in case you were wondering). It didn’t last long, however, as it was pillaged and damaged during a barbarian invasion in 267 CE and never repaired. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, materials from the TotOZ were pillaged to construct other buildings in the area. Today, only 15 of the 104 columns are left. A gate built under Hadrian’s rule is also still standing, all of it under the watchful gaze of the Acropolis

The National Gardens were having an art exhibit of sorts during our visit called “See the Invisible” - you don some special glasses that superimpose digital modern art on top of the real-world things you’re looking at. That’s interesting, I suppose, but I think that technology is wasted a bit on simply putting up modern art pieces onto reality. I’d love to see them rework that idea so that when you look at some ancient ruins through the glasses, it would fill in the gaps and show you what the thing would’ve looked like back in the day. You’d still see the real thing, but it would add the missing bits, like this:

I’ll say this: history was one of my least-favourite subjects in school, surpassed only by Greek and Roman Mythology on my list of subjects I disliked. So nobody was more surprised than me when I felt a deep awe and reverence while walking around the ruins today. The eyes even got a bit misty at times, as the weight of history settled in and the realization that I was walking in the very spot that was trod by members of the ancient societies became overwhelming. We understand it all as mythology now, but the people of that time believed as fervently in their gods as the people of today believe in theirs, building elaborate temples and churches and such much like the ancients did, only with different designs and materials.

We made our way back to the shopping street after paying our respects to Zeus and headed back to the Marks and Spencer, where we each got a new belt and had an iced coffee on the top floor of the store, which happened to have a nice view of the Parthenon out the window.

Back at the hotel, we decided that we didn’t want to go back to the hotel restaurant and we didn’t want to walk in the dark to find another place, so I popped over to the little kiosk on the corner and picked up a ham/cheese sammich and some chips. It was actually pretty good.

Tomorrow, I’m hoping to see the Viking Cruise folks set up in the lobby to welcome us to the start of our official vacation with them. I hope they can get us booked on the Acropolis tour instead of the included tour, which we originally signed up for. Silly us, we both assumed that the included tour would include the Acropolis - I mean, how can you not? Also, it was a bit misleading, in that the thumbnail image for that tour IS the Acropolis.

I’m glad I re-read the full description, or we wouldn’t have known the Acropolis isn’t on that tour until it was too late. If they can’t book us on the Acropolis tour due to a sell-out, we’ll have to scramble to get there on our own before boarding the ship. Fun!

Not sure what we’ll be doing tomorrow just yet. Lots of wait and see…

On to the next day

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