Dec. 14-18, 2012
Landed in Greece from Paris about 2 in the afternoon and caught the train into town. We had good instructions how to get to our apartment, and fortunately a little help from locals finding the exact building. The apartment we rented was about 3 blocks from the Parthenon and a perfect little apt. We couldn’t have been in a better location.
Acropolis, meaning “top of the hill” was visible from almost anywhere we walked during these 4 days. down at the base of the hill was where the original community was located, and about every 100-300 feet was another ‘ruin.’ It was amazing.
We met up with our cousins, cousin who lives in Athens. Was fun to walk around with Clarri, her husband Demetri and their 5 year old son, Antony. We had the most amazing meal with them at an outdoors cafe. I had ground lamb kabob with a yogurt sauce over it… incredible. There was plenty of food at the table and we enjoyed all the flavors of the area.
There are some positive things about traveling places in the off season. We got to the Parthenon to tour it about 9:30 a.m. and we were about the ONLY ones there. AMAZING. That is why we have pics of only us at the top, that would have never happened in June!
Some interesting information on the Parthenon, first off it was made for the Goddess Athena, and construction began in 447 BC and took over 15 years to build. It took over 16,500 pieces of marble to build it, the carvings/artwork were based on Greek Mythology, as well as the Greek/Amazon battle and the Trojan war. It is said that you could see this from 50 miles out on the ocean!
It took 13 columns for each side and 6 columns for each end. Each end is topped with the ‘frieze’
The ‘frieze” which is the decorative end caps for lack of a better explanation, is on each end. Each depicts a story of 115 blocks. There are 378 figures and of these 220 are animals, mostly horses. The east end frieze depicts the birth of Athena and the rising of the sun and setting of the moon. The west end frieze is the mostly horsemen and depicts the different rankings of each. It highlights the contest with to name the city and when Athena won it explains why the town is now called Athens.
We spent a lot of time each day walking around the base of the Acropolis. The “old town” area had stores, restaurants, and just great people watching. All and all we enjoyed the 4 days we spent in Athens. Any longer and we would have run out of things to do and any shorter and we would have missed out on some things.
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