Athens

 18 March 2024, Athens

Despite getting moving early, we hit a queue at the Acropolis Museum this morning, 10 minutes after opening time. It moved reasonably quickly, but the fact that there was a line-up that early was a portend of strife to come later in the day. The museum opened in 2009, replacing a small, totally inadequate museum on the Acropolis site. Large, uncluttered galleries with excellent descriptions in Greek and English, now provide a far more suitable environment for the display of the thousands of artefacts collected from the site.

Visiting the Acropolis itself is a breeze as the museum is right at the foot of the complex. We followed the growing crowds up the lower slopes heading to what we thought was the ticket booth, only to discover that we were, in fact, on the line for those with pre-purchased tickets. So off to the ticket booths we scuttled as the crowds grew and grew. It was a public holiday in Greece and the start of the college spring break in the US, but it is months off peak tourist season in Europe, so as we shuffled up the paths to the top of the site, we wondered what it will be like in July, when the temperature is likely to be in the 30s and the crowds peak. Even the annoying tour touts were out and about and as with their ilk all over the world, they have difficulty understanding the word “NO!”

Today it was a comfortable 19C and even with the crowds, there were still a few areas around the Parthenon where there was space to stop and enjoy the views.

Keeping with our history theme, we headed for the Archaeological Museum. Electing to walk the 2km, we stopped in a quiet street to eat our home-prepared sandwiches. We soon regretted being so organised because, just around the corner, we came to an extremely pleasant little neighbourhood with alfresco dining on terraces surrounded by colourful little houses. With bouzouki buskers playing in the background, it would have provided a perfect backing for a very pleasant lunch in the warm, early afternoon sunshine.   

The rest of our long walk was not through a similarly pleasant environment. There are still some parts of Athens that have not been able to benefit from the new strength of the economy. Closed up, shuttered businesses and graffiti covering every surface left us convinced that we would not venture through these areas at night. 

We only realised that we had visited the Archaeological Museum before when we recognised a few pieces, of the thousands on display. One such exhibit was the Philosopher’s Head, a particularly scary piece that, once studied up close, could easily become the source of many a nightmare. There is a very interesting back story to the Philosopher. He, along with hundreds of other important artefacts, was found on a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera by sponge divers in 1900. It is believed that the items retrieved from the wreck were looted by the Romans from Athens and were on their way back to Rome in 86 BC, before some tragedy sent the ship to the bottom of the sea.

Another oddity we discovered by chance was a funereal sculpture of a young man lying a top of a large sarcophagus. We noticed that there was something strange about his head. It was obviously reattached, but that isn't unusual in reconstructions. On reading the description, all was revealed. The original sculpture was the grave of a woman, but sometime after the original interment, the female body was removed and a young man placed in the same sarcophagus. The heads were exchanged. Job done!

19 March 2024,  Athens

This has been our fourth visit to Athens, Our first was in 1976, almost 50 years ago. Looking back on the Athens of that first visit, many of the things we came to see then have changed very little, naturally enough, because they have remained basically unchanged for many thousands of years. What has changed is the nature of the city itself. Athens is now a far more modern European city. No longer the poor cousin to London, Paris or Rome, the city has developed its own specifically Greek sophistication. People, particularly the women, are more formally and well-dressed than we travellers. People we have dealt with have been very pleasant and welcoming. The only exception was yesterday at the Archaeological Museum where the security and ticketing staff must have got up on the wrong side of the bed.

For our last day, we planned a tram trip down the coast, known locally as the Athens Riviera. It was a nice warm day, though a little cloudy and everything went swimmingly until we reached the terminal of the first tram T6, where we were to make a connection to the T7, for the run along the coast. We had our seniors single 90 minute tickets (.50 euro AUD$.80) and knew where to make the connection. All well and good, except the T7 line closed down a couple of weeks ago for repairs. 

On the theme of transport, Athens has a great public transport network that allows easy access to all important sights. There are two Metro lines, tram and bus routes, local rail and even trolley buses. The Airport is served by Metro and Local Rail. Sadly, the Airport Metro line is notorious for petty theft, so watch your gear. There are a range of transport cards that travellers can access, but we found it easy to just use ticket machines or, in our case, ticket offices at the station, which allowed us to buy seniors half price tickets for the princely sum of 0.50 Euro. Dealing with staff at the ticket offices is a breeze. They all speak English and are very helpful. The machines and the ticket offices both take credit cards.

Our last stop for the day was the Museum of Contemporary Art. Despite the fact that modern art is not really our “thing,” we almost always end up at these sorts of galleries, mostly just to giggle at what some people see as art. However, we often go away with memories and experiences that are as much part of the attraction as the “giggle" factor. Today was no exception. Yes, there was some truly weird stuff, like the matching “his and hers” guillotines. But what impressed the most was a short movie titled “Two Minutes to Midnight,” a well-crafted examination of what would happen if women ran a major world power through a potential nuclear war crisis.

Tomorrow we will use the Metro to get back to the Airport to pick up a hire car for a short road trip through the Peloponnesus. Last time we drove in Greece we were in a large motorhome. Hopefully, a very small car will be a lot easier to manage.