Exploring the Land and Sea Around Athens, Greece

[2016-08-03: Venice to Athens, Greece]

Today we are going to fly to Athens, Greece. As we got on the plane, I thought “Well, we definitely didn’t spend enough time in Venice.”

We arrived at Athens with a new feeling of adventure. On our way to our hotel, we drove by many old ruins, an old arena, Hadrian’s library, Hadrian’s arch, and the most famous of them all, the Acropolis. Once arrived at our hotel, we decided to go the the Acropolis park to buy tickets for tomorrow. We got there just as the man closed the door. We decided to just walk around the park then. We found a big rock to climb on to see the Acropolis.

After some pictures, we had a great dinner at a seafood restaurant called Arcadia. It was much better than expected.

2016-08-04 Athens

Today we rushed out the door to the Acropolis to get a good spot in line for the tickets. We got our tickets and walked up. I had made a tour of the Acropolis for you to envision what it was like:

---

Walk up the old steps to the entrance of the Acropolis. Look to your right – The building closest to you is the Temple of Hygieia. Hygieia was the Goddess of cleanliness and healthiness. Notice these very simple columns – they are the oldest Greek style, Doric columns.

To the far right of you, overlooking the city is the Temple of Athena Hygieia, a temple for Athena. Athena was the Goddess that was believed to protect the city of Athens. I don’t know why Hygieia is in the name of an Athena Temple. Perhaps this may be how people distinguish this Athena temple from many other Athena Temples in the Acropolis. Notice the columns on this temple are different from the ones that were on the Temple of Hygieia. On top of the column has what looks like an overturned scroll. These columns were a kind called the Ionic Columns.

After the Temple of Athena Hygieia go to the building that is in the middle of it all. This building should be easily seen, for it is huge. Walk counter-clockwise to the other side of the Parthenon, as it is called. This side has the most history to it. See the holes on the triangular part of the roof, I think that these holes were for pins that held on statues, but over time, invaders took statues, Romans sacked the place a huge statue called Athena Parthenos and is made of chryselephantine (Ivory and Gold). Also, a cannonball was shot into the middle of the Parthenon. In the 11th century, the places was changed to a church! Sadly, as a result, very few statues remain.

There might be restoration going on and there might be scaffolding in some places, don’t always expect a clear view. The columns of this colossal building are also Doric. This building was a temple for Athena too, but was more for show than for functional. Something pretty cool about this building is that historians today still don’t know how these great Athenians built it.


After this go clockwise to a vantage point, look down below at the ruins, and look out at the city, see if you can see the sea from here.


After taking pictures at this vantage point, make your way over to a plaque directly in front of the Parthenon. Read it. Behind this plaque is the ruins of a Roman circular building. This building was built when the Romans conquered Athens.

After looking at the small ruins, go over to what looks like a pile of rocks. In these rocks, you can see small holes for wooden posts for the walls, this was the old Temple of Athena.

After this small site, go to the long ruins on the opposite side of the vantage point. This was the Sanctuary of Zeus, an open-air sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Polieus, also thought to be a protector of the city.


– You have finished the tour, go back to where you started and take the right lane, follow the path to the end.

---

The Parthenon really was big, we explored a little more, and went to the Ancient Agora, our Acropolis tickets included the Agora. We saw what’s left of a huge water clock and many ruins.

Ruin of a Water Clock

We also saw the temple of Hephaestus, the god of Metal works. this was the most complete Greek temple that exists today.

After the Agora, we walked into the Agora Museum, we saw many old statues, pieced together columns, and some models of the Acropolis at its highest and domed buildings. I also saw many clay figurines, pots of human bones, old ovens, grills, and beautiful glass perfume bottles. The perfume bottles were amazing since, Europe discovered glass during the Renaissance. This was a long time before that.

After the Ancient Agora, we walked home, but on our way we saw Hadrian’s library. The tickets we bought included the library, so we went there. Hadrian was a Roman emperor who loved Athens, so he built and promoted Athenian buildings. In fact, one side of a gate he built between Athens and a city addition, inscribed the words “This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus” on the other said “This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus”. Hadrian’s library was pretty disappointing there were a couple walls and columns.

In the grounds was also the Tower of Winds. It was very pretty and had a sculpture for every main compass heading (Where the wind came from) but that was pretty small.

---

2016-08-05 Athens

We had a hearty breakfast the hotel and set off for lunch. No, I’m just kidding, we walked to the local market to see (and eat) the local food. I made a summary of the market for a writing exercise:

---

I am in the local market of Athens. I can smell the aromas of freshly cooked seafood and the roasted nuts. As I walk through the market, I see clams, oysters, shrimp, crayfish, pig heads, half of lambs’ bodies, butchers cutting up the whole body of a cow, and fishermen hosing down their fresh catch. The place is full of the cries of the merchants yelling their discount prices in contest.

The smell of freshly cooked snacks make me hungry, but I want to leave, for the place is loud, rushed, and chaotic – like the start of a sailing race.

Yes, the food there was very good, but the merchants were very LOUD [Yeah, like THIS loud]. We did get some freshly roasted peanuts too. We got really salty peanuts and we got peanuts covered in sesame seeds and honey. The salty peanuts were very salty. So salty that you had to have 3 honey peanuts after just 1 salty peanut, to take away the salt taste.

After getting some groceries at the market we went directly home to eat. The lunch consisted of soft bacon, fresh bread, salted nuts, honey nuts, fresh olives, lemonade, and wine.

After the lunch we walked to the Acropolis Museum. We entered and immediately saw a hall full of ancient daily household objects, including jars, beads, sewing needles, mortar and stone, plus many other amazing things.

We walked to the next floor, and found saw before us a huge room full of all kinds of sculptures, busts (Sculpture of person chest and up), full statues, outlayed carvings , and many more styles. The most interesting thing that I learned in this room was the hairstyle back then, the women would have half of their hair in front, half of their hair in back, and had perfectly symmetrical hairs on both sides, this looked very Egyptian to me.

After looking around and sketching the Acropolis from the window we walked up to the final floor. This floor had the replicas of what the statues on the Parthenon of the Acropolis looked like. These were very cool, the Parthenon must have been impressive when the thing was finished. I could recognize many gods, all of them with their symbols of themselves.

We then walked to the room that held the actual parts of the Parthenon, I think that they were moved in here to be preserved and protected. They are so stunning that I felt as if I were at the most impressive ruins in the world.

The story that I liked the most that the statues told was the battle of Titanomachy. The Titanomachy was the battle between the older generation of gods, the Titans, and the newer generation of gods, the Olympians. The older generation of gods had a advantage. While the Olympians were human sized, the Titans were Giants. abut the Olympians had elemental powers, while the Titans only had their weapons. The Olympians won.

After the statues. We walked to a lego model of the Acropolis, I really like it.

After that we went home had dinner and went to bed.

---

2016-08-06 Athens

The wind hooted loudly, the sail flapped, I stood there, looking up. I was nervous, worried about the consequences, one wrong move, and we would be headed off course as soon as the sail was raised. I looked up at the top of the mast, controlling the boat according to the wind. There was noise and confusion, but they had to be ignored. The sail was finally raised, and I bared off from the wind, picking up speed as we went. We were sailing along the Athens coastline.

A few days ago, in our hotel room, I was told that we had the chance of renting a boat. I had my hopes up for the sail, my mom sent the confirmation and I was worried that it wouldn’t get through. It did! The day before yesterday, we had confirmed our deal. I was really excited. I had never sailed a big boat before.

Our host Demetris drove us to the port. He was very nice a seemed to know a large amount of sailing.

When we arrived, I was amazed at how fancy the boat was, there were a more than one cabins, and a few very handy gadgets. I was a bit freaked out. I wanted to sail the boat, but I didn’t know that the boat would be so big. The larger, the harder. We found our captain and set sail.

When we left the harbor we saw a mega yacht, that we later found out was in the top three sailing yachts in the world! It had sails as tall as a 7 story building, and the masts changed side to side based on the wind, you didn’t have to do anything.

After we motored out, the captain said “So you sail Jeremy?”

“Yeah . . ”

“Then take the wheel and sail!” Was the response.

I took the helm and started steering the motored boat. Soon we had to raise the sail, this was very scary, but was a good exercise to learn how to steer the boat. I had to keep the boat pointed in one direction, the wind. After sailing a while I realized that there were a couple things that were different when I was steering the boat:

1. The boat was very slow to respond to my steering
2. The wheel had to be turned back quickly or you would overturn
3. The boat felt like a big thing that took your commands to extreme

After a while though, I got used to these new adjustments and the boat felt just like home.

Once out in the open sea and it was really fun. The wind was great, it was blowing pretty hard. We were heeling (Titled) the whole time. The huge container ships that I thought would be hard to avoid weren’t, since they weren’t moving. It was like weaving through an ocean full of huge buoys.

After having a beautiful sail we arrived at a small island off the island off of the coast of Athens. The water was beautiful, I couldn’t believe how clear it was, you could see the bottom from aboard the boat.

We had two choices, to swim to shore or to take the dinghy. We decided to swim to shore. Our plan failed though. As soon as we got in the water, we had so much fun that we just stayed in the water near the boat.

As we swam around, we saw small fish, sea urchins covered in opened shells, and a kind of object that was like a sand dollar, but had two holes, and was wider and thicker than our California sand dollar. As we swam around I carried the mysterious object. I felt it start slipping out of my hand, so I tightened my grip, this object had ended up being very brittle and broke into pieces, sinking sadly to the bottom. We found many of those mysterious objects, but we didn’t get them because we knew that as soon as we packed them, they would have shattered too.

After the swim, I was happy the wind died down. We dried off quickly. We got out the row boat and rowed to the nearby island instead of the shore of the main island. I was a bit bored about the tiny island, we covered it in about a minute, the only thing that I was interested in was the bones of a mouse, a baby chick, and some mysterious leg bone. After that we rowed back to the boat to swim again!. I could see the fish chewing at the keel of the boat. I followed the anchor chain, until, I saw a small brown stingray, I didn’t see it until I was diving down, and it shot away, this scared the bones right out of me!

After that I got back up on the boat to have lunch. The lunch consisted of baked fish, potatoes, raw cheese and tomato, a loaf of biscotte bread, and some amazing cheese called Feta that was only made in Greece. I ate all the fish and some of the potatoes, before I couldn’t keep the secret that my stomach really hurt. We all slept and rested for 30 min. After the nap, I jumped in and played some more. After about an hour I dove down and was swimming underwater when something scared me out of my wits again – another stingray! I went up on the boat again to take a break. After that I went back into the water and followed the anchor line to the anchor. I took the risk and dove down to see how heavy it was. It was really heavy, I couldn’t lift it. I then jumped in some more, dried off and went home.

When we arrived I was really tired. We got up to just eat at the upstairs restaurant. With a view of the Acropolis light up, we had our quick dinner.

---

2016-08-07 Athens

Today we set out to see the Presidential Guards. On our way we saw Panathenaic Stadium where the 1st modern Olympic was held; and the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, which has only some of the huge columns left.

We continued walking to the government buildings. There, we saw the Presidential Guards. Their clothing was very loose. They have metal spikes on their shoes that they used to scrape the ground. Also on the shoes were black puff balls – almost like an elf. They marched back and forth, scraping their shoes, lifting and lowering their guns. They were very serious.

We looked for a local (non touristy) restaurant for lunch and found one near our hotel, called Smile Cafe. We had lunch there and found out they also had Greek doughnuts called loukoumades. Later we returned to the restaurant for loukoumades. They were like doughnut holes covered in honey and sugar. They tasted great!