Excursion To Athens

Tuesday 16 June 2015. Thomson Majesty has travelled through the night, from Turkey on the eastern side of the Aegean back to Greece on the western side.

David and Jeannie are up early to catch the arrival of Thomson Majesty into the Greek port of Piraeus. Very early... On one of David's photos the clock on the poolside bar on Deck 10 reads 06:25 am. However we are right behind them. By about an hour and a bit...

We have a coffee in the Cafe Royale on Deck 10 forward and then go down for breakfast to our favourite spot in the Seven Seas restaurant. Halfway through breakfast a familiar face walks past our table.

"Pipit!" I say in surprise. Pipit was our waiter on the Thomson Destiny in 2011 and on the Thomson Spirit when we went to Norway in 2013. At first I thought he must have transferred over from the Spirit in Mykonos but it turned out he had joined the day before, being one of the group of crew members we had seen bringing their luggage on board in Kusadasi. Although not stationed by us, he made a point of coming to speak to us every day after this.

Fruit and vegetable carvings in the Seven Seas restaurant. By now the waiters are getting used to David grabbing his camera at all opportunities and eye him warily before approaching our table with loaded plates in case he shows signs of excitedly leaping up and backwards...

Breakfast over and he has changed tactics for today. Instead of photographing us on the gangway getting back on, he hairs down to the dockside as fast as possible and stops us on our way off the ship!

We have a full-day excursion today to Athens. I've decided not to climb up to the top of the Acropolis as I have a very nasty big toe, caused by a bit of toe nail cutting into it. I've had it most of the week but by now almost the entire toe is bright red and swollen and very very painful.

Luckily we have already been on the Acropolis in 2009 so this isn't as disappointing as it might have been. Especially when David and Jeannie come down later spitting about the guide. She had stopped her group in the middle of four other groups instead of going to a massive empty space nearby and there was no chance of hearing her. Plus at one point she had said to David, "Don't be taking photos - you need to watch your feet here..." Yes: that's why you visit the Acropolis - to spend your time looking at your feet... Totally the wrong thing to say to The Clicky-Monster...! He did ignore her of course and there will be some of his photos in a minute.

I can't sit or stand still for the entire morning so we wander down the road - well Fran wanders, I limp... This will lead in front of the Parthenon high up on the cliff and also in front of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus and the more ruinous Theatre of Dionysus.

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is still in use as a theatre, hosting opera and even rock events but it is hidden by the trees. Built in 167 A.D. it seats 5000 and was originally roofed with cedar timber. It may well be worth the entrance fee, but we decide to go farther down to the other theatre.

At the entrance to the Odeon is what looks like an old water cistern.

Unfortunately very little can be seen of the Theatre of Dionysus either. The slopes of the seating rows can be seen, but the small group of trees hides the few rows of remaining stonework. The origins of this theatre go back six or seven hundred years before the better preserved Odeon was built. It was commenced in the 5th or 6th century B.C. with early seating being wooden flats on terraces set into the hillside. It would have seated an audience of 17,000.

I swap to the telephoto lens to look between the trees and a small glimpse of the theatre's stone seating can be seen.

Road trains head up and down the hill from the entrance of the Acropolis. We don't know at the time but we are to return to the spot we reached in our walk in order to visit the Acropolis Museum after a sight-seeing ride through the city.

Meanwhile up on the hill, David and Jeannie have deserted the guide and here he sits on the wall behind the Parthenon with the hill on which Cliff Richard sang The Next Time in the film Summer Holiday over his left shoulder.

From his vantage point he has managed a much better view than mine of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus.

Not to mention the Theatre of Dionysus. (Sickening isn't it...)

The Parthenon. Empty in the middle because under Ottoman rule, the Turks stored their ammunition in the building and during an attack by Venice in 1687 it ignited, destroying much of the building and sculptures in the ensuing explosion.

In 1801-05 Lord Elgin, Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul, acquired some sculptures which were sold to the British Museum in 1816. The Greeks would like them back to display in their own museum - it is accepted that they can never be re-attached to the building. Whilst not favouring either side in an argument that has far more to do with how best to use them to raise awareness and knowledge of ancient Greek art and culture, I do have to say that 247 feet of frieze makes a bloody boring museum exhibit in an otherwise sparsely furnished room unless you are intensely interested in Greek history...

The Caryatids are female figures who act as supports for the porch of the Erechtheion. The temple dates from 421-406 B.C. and the caryatids in situ here are casts of the originals, five of which were removed to the Acropolis Museum in 1979. A sixth had been removed in 1801 by Lord Elgin and is now in the British Museum.

We had wandered the slope to the museum and back and looked in a few shops, had a granita (we would call it a slush drink) and dodged the busker who was playing Bob Dylan's Knocking On Heaven's Door, the song of choice for not-very-good guitarists... We also couldn't help raising our eyes to the sky as an English woman stopped one of the many tour guides and asked her what to do as she couldn't remember where she was supposed to wait for her bus and it was due to go in 15 minutes.

"If you wait here someone will come looking..." said the guide. Ten minutes later the woman realised the time and that the bus would have gone 45 minutes ago. She stopped another guide who, bless her, phoned and arranged for her own bus to take them to meet the one they should have got. Please note folks - even on holiday you should leave your brain switched on... Ah, our own party are back!

Hellenic Classics Index

A Weekend in London

From Shrewsbury I drove into central London where we would spend the weekend. Fran was already in the hotel, having struggled with late trains due to the horrendous weather that was spreading over Scotland and the Lake District.

Gill and Eddie had been down to Disneyland Paris for a couple of days and we met them at St Pancras station off the Eurostar train.

On Saturday we spent the morning in the British Museum.

I was keen to see the Elgin Marbles, having been to see the Parthenon in Athens earlier in the year. The row of sculptures here come from one of the great triangular pediments.

You can see here a copy of the horse's head in situ - it was coming out of the sea, pulling a chariot that is still beneath the waves. The next figure is Dionysus and to reconstruct any further figures the Greeks are shaping stone to reconstruct the pediment itself.

Lord Elgin had permission from the Turkish Ottomans to remove sculptures and he took around half of them. It has been much criticised since and the Greeks want them back and certainly the Parthenon would look much better with the sculptures in place. Set against this however is the fact that, at the time, it was reported that any marble that fell from the Parthenon, ancient sculpture or not, was being burned to produce lime for fresh building work. So if he had not taken the sculptures we can assume that some at least would not exist today.

Then we had a look at the Egyptian galleries with their mummified figures and sarcophagi. It's a bit spooky really. These are real dead people. Britain doesn't do death well - we are not allowed to look on death. When it happens in public the police immediately seal off areas, close roads, erect screens and keep us away. Even if it's a poor Celtic serf whose bones have been dug up after 1600 years.

And lastly, the magnificent bronze ceremonial Roman helmet, found at Ribchester in Lancashire where the Romans had a cavalry fort, Bremetennacum Veteranorum.

After lunch Eddie went off to watch Blackpool play Reading and we, inevitably, hit the West End shops. We met up again and enjoyed an excellent meal at The Mermaid's Tail on Leicester Square. And then somehow I pulled the muscle in the back of my leg as we were heading back to the hotel and by the time we got there I was in agony. Fran also had a massive bruise by the time we got there because as we walked (or hobbled in my case) through Russell Square Gardens I trod on a fallen branch, the other end of which whipped up and dug into her ankle.

But we soldiered on gamely and walked down to Covent Garden on Sunday morning where Eddie and I had a look round the London Transport Museum whilst the ladies indulged in yet more shopping!

The Athens Acropolis

Wednesday, 26 August 2009. We sail into Piraeus and head for the breakfast restaurant extremely early - our coach to Athens and the Acropolis sets off at 7:30am!!!

Mind you, it was worth it as we were only the second coach to arrive at the Acropolis. The photo shows the Propylaea - gateway to the Acropolis. We had climbed up roughly 200 steps and several ramps to get here and we were feeling thankful it wasn't in the midday heat!

The Parthenon. Already the crowds were starting to gather and we ducked out of the lengthy explanations from the guide in order to grab photos whilst there was a chance of finding room to move about. The Parthenon is a temple of the Greek goddess Athena whom the people of Athens considered their protector. It was built in the 5th century BC and is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece.

Freshly dressed stone lying waiting to be used in the restoration of the Parthenon. In the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After the Ottoman Turk conquest, it was converted into a mosque in the early 1460s, and it had a minaret built in it.

The Erechtheum, seen across the ruins of the fallen Temple to Athena. The temple as seen today was built between 421 and 407 BC. Its architect may have been Mnesicles, and it derived its name from a shrine dedicated to the legendary Greek hero Erichthonius. It may have been built in honour of the legendary King Erechtheus, who is said to have been buried nearby.

It has the famous "Porch of the Maidens", with six female figures supporting the porch roof. The figures are the caryatids and carry the weight of the porch and its roof on their necks.

The temple itself was dedicated to Athena Polias and Poseidon Erechtheus. Apparently there was a sacred snake of the temple, which lived in the foundations somewhere. The Athenians believed that its well-being was linked with the safety of the city. Consequently the pampered reptile was fed honey-cakes by the priestesses of Athena Polias and if it ever refused to eat the cakes this was seen as a disastrous omen.

Back to the Parthenon. On 26 September 1687 an Ottoman Turk ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures. In 1806, the Earl of Elgin removed some of the sculptures, with Ottoman Turk permission. These sculptures, are the Elgin Marbles or the Parthenon Marbles and reside in the British Museum in London.

The Theatre of Dionysus at the foot of the hill of the Acropolis was dedicated to the god of wine and fertility. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes have all appeared here - but not for a number of years...

The Acropolis makes a wonderful viewpoint over the city of Athens. This hill is the one that Cliff Richard sang "The Next Time" on in the film Summer Holiday.

I suspect Athens has grown a bit since the Acropolis was built!

In the distance are the remains of the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It took 650 years to build by which time Athens was under the rule of the Romans through Emperor Hadrian.

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is a stone theatre structure located on the south slope of the Acropolis. It was built in 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in remembrance of his wife, Aspasia Annia Regilla. It had a wooden roof, and was used as a venue for music concerts with a capacity of 5,000.

By the time we had seen all these sights the Acropolis was heaving with people to the extent that we had to push our way through people, particularly at the Propylaea and steps down from the gateway. Given that the steps are fairly steep and with no hand rails this made us a little wary to say the least!

We came to the bottom near the Odeon of Herodes Atticus which is seen from ground level here. The Parthenon peeps over the top of the Acropolis hill.

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