Our second class day and final full day in Athens, we were up early again to meet our friends and grab breakfast by 8:00, so we could meet at our first site of the day at 8:30. Throwing a changeup into breakfast, we decided to get something different today...the frappes stayed the same but we decided to buy a sesame seed circular roll thingie and a sweetened version of the same thing from a street vendor. Both were quite delicious. We met the group at the Olympieion (aka the Temple of the Olympieion Zeus), a site which we were both excited to visit as we had missed out on it last time despite its close proximity to everything and its noteworthiness. The remains of the building are massive (its just a few columns) but the building itself must have been utterly gigantic. Also, part of the old Athenian walls were visible on the site and it was cool to see those. After about an hour on site, we departed and began a sort of walking tour of some smaller Athenian sights...passing by the Arch of Hadrian (a Roman addition to the city), the Monument to Lysikrates, a building termed the 'Pantheon' (though our professor objected to this name), the Roman agora, and the Tower of the Winds. By the time we reached the last of these it had gotten much hotter and about 45 minutes had gone by. Several of these were sites we didn't get to see last time either so it made the morning walk a bit more new and exciting than it might otherwise have been. We walked around the Roman agora a bit, finding some shade to sit and listen to talks in, before heading to Hadrian's Library (yet another nearby site that we hadn't yet been to--that was one of the better parts of this trip, that is visiting a number of places we didn't make it to last time). The library complex was massive and apparently also had been converted into city walls at some point. After 20 minutes or so at the remains of the library we began the hot walk to the Greek agora, retracing some of our steps from yesterday. We had visited this agora extensively the last time we were in Athens so there was nothing really new about it, though it was still cool and educational to see the agora's sites: including the Hephaisteon, the Monument to the Eponymous Heroes, and the recreated stoa. It was very very hot by the time we were in the agora so we spent a lot of time finding shade to sit in while we heard talks from classmates and professors. After about an hour in the hot sun, we were able to retreat to the shady confines of the recreated stoa on the edge of the site, where we heard another presentation and looked around at the artifacts. By this time everyone was a bit tired and hungry and our lunch break could not come soon enough. Most people went out to eat together but Allison and I chose the cheaper option of the take-away pork pita gyros we had yesterday, which we again took back to our hotel room.
After a shorter lunch break this time and a decision not to be late or get lost getting to our first after lunch site, we set off in the direction of the National Archaeological Museum via Syntagma Square so we could check the train and bus schedules for our much-too-soon departure tomorrow. This time upon coming to Syntagma Square we encountered a small protest in front of Parliament, though nothing unruly or all that large. We kept our distance and it was pretty intense to see for ourselves and remember the images of the previous week. From Syntagma (itself a 10-15 minute walk from our hotel) we had about a 30 minute walk to the Archaeological Museum (most people took the metro, but that's not how we do). We passed some major modern governmental and economic sites along the way and also saw some more smashed glass. The areas we walked through, though not making us feel uncomfortable, definitely made us glad we were staying where we were in Athens. Since we had given ourselves a huge head start to get to the Museum, we naturally got there way too early and had to wait around for 30-40 minutes for the rest of the group to show up. Luckily a few others arrived early too and there was a nice shady spot for us to sit around and wait and talk in. After everyone arrived we took a group walk to certain parts of the museum, hearing several more presentations. Following the last presentation, we were given free time to roam the museum (actually that was the official end of the class part of the trip). Though we had spent a lot of time at this museum the last time we were in Athens, there were a few new sections that we found very interesting (stuff from Santorini and stuff from Cyprus), and the old sections are really good too. We also took a lot of pictures of objects for future educational use (being the responsible people we are).
We also had a very funny experience at the museum. Here's the background: In our travels, people often ask where I'm from and I say "New York"... Then they say, "the city"... I say "no, upstate more"... They say "Oh, Buffalo" or something like that... And I have to explain that the state is actually quite sizable and there is a lot between New York City and Buffalo. So there's the background. In one of the rooms in the museum, a Greek tour guide who did no speak particularly good English asked us if we were British or American. We said we were American and so obviously his next question was "Where are you from?"... "I'm from New York, she's from Maine"... well, a good number of people don't know where Maine is, but everyone gets all excited about New York, so he says "the city?"... now this guy very clearly knows almost nothing about the geography of the United States, so I try to be as simple as possible and tell him "I live just north of New York City"... his next response is "Ithaca?" .... apparently even Greeks with no US geographical knowledge can pull this. I can only assume that he has heard of Ithaca because it is named after a Greek colony, but I just found this experience to be most entertaining.
Anyway, after our museum tour, we walked back to the hotel--quite a long walk--and took a little break before dinner. We tried to check in to our flight but this whole process ended in disaster as first we had to wait over an hour to use the hotel's only computer and when we tried to check in the computer got all funky and to make matters worse the printer didn't work so we tried printing boarding passes and failed. By this time it was after 8:30 and we were both hungry and so we decided to forget our annoyance by enjoying a final Greek dinner by ourselves at the Byzantino. One reason we went back there was because we love it there and another was that we had been offered free wine the next time we came back if we brought a card with us. So we did. And we also ate Greek salad, tzatziki and bread, and spanikotiropita. It was most enjoyable to just sit and eat our food slowly, enjoying Greek music which was playing in the background and just take in the sounds and sights of the Plaka at night (one of our favorite places!). Eventually we decided to head back, though we couldn't go to bed yet...we sat up on the roof terrace with some of our friends and just enjoyed being outside in our last night in Athens...it was 1:00 before we went to bed. The next morning we got up, had some breakfast and headed out.
Olympieion
Arch of Hadrian (above), Roman forum and Hadrianic Library (below), among other sites
The Greek agora
National Archaeological Museum and some of its contents
Oooh you took some really great pictures!
ReplyDeleteAnd that last night on the rooftop terrace was so great! :)