The Kindness of Strangers

Greece likes to ease you in to things.  On our arrival at the Athens airport, we had the fun experience of finding another way to get to our hotel with the metro on strike.  That involved a bus and then a taxi (which overcharged us - pah!), but wasn't horrible.  Today, it was the full whammy - complete abandonment.  More on that after the pictures.

We took a bus to the Sanctuary of Asclepius to see the sites, in particular, the Theater of Epidaurus:

This amphitheater is heralded as one of the best preserved from that era.  It's even back in use today.  Some work has been done on it, but not the extensive work that we've seen on other ancient structures. Paul also liked the sophisticated drainage system.  I decided it was important for me to stick my foot in one of the two drainage tunnels so that you can see how deep it was:

There's also a stadium that a sign says is used by local schools, which I think is awesome:

So, the abandonment.  The Saturday bus schedule is limited, so there's really only one bus for the return trip - at 6:15.  After exploring the ruins for many hours, we made our way to the bus stop by about 6:00.  We waited.  And waited.  And waited.  We met an art historian from San Francisco and chatted about the unreliability of the transportation system in Greece and elsewhere.  6:30 came and went.  Then 7:00.  The already empty parking lot emptied further as we tourists, now seven in total, began to grow anxious about the lack of a bus.  There was one tour bus waiting for its group, so members of our group noticed the bus driver talking on a cell phone and inquired as to whether we could use it to call the transportation folks to see if the city bus was coming.  The nice bus driver called for us (which is probably for the best, since none of us spoke Greek) and informed us that the transportation folks claimed our bus, which was clearly scheduled for 6:15, supposedly came and left at 6:00 (it did not - some of the others were waiting long before that).

At that point it became clear that our only real option was to see if we could get that tour bus to take us back - or at least to somewhere not quite so remote!  After some stumbling through language barriers, waiting for the "boss," (i.e. the person in charge of the tour group), and a smidge of anxiety, we found ourselves on a plush bus full of Austrian academics (both profs and students in archaeology  headed toward Tolo - a city about 10 km from Nafplio.  Two Germans in our group had talked to the bus driver about dropping us off at a crossroads on the way to Tolo where it would be about a 3-4 km walk to Nafplio (totally doable) or just taking us to Tolo where we could catch a bus to Nafplio (there were two more that evening, so it seemed probable).  However, when the turn came for the bus to head toward Tolo, it continued on to Nafplio and dropped us off right in town.  Then, no one, not the tour leader nor the bus driver, would accept any compensation for the inconvenience/additional passengers.  What a wonderful turn of events.  

As five of us were walking back to our hotels together and chatting, Paul suggested that we all get dinner together.  Everyone else agreed, so we had an entertaining dinner with a couple from Moscow (the wife was actually from Spain) and the art historian.  

All the Ruins in Athens

The Short Version
Since this is a ridiculously long post, here is the short version.  We visited a nice selection of ruins and ancient sites in Athens: the Panathenaic Stadium, the Acropolis, the Greek Agora, and the Temple of Olympian Zeus.  Feel free to just scroll through and look at the pictures in the rest of this post.  If you want more details, there's plenty of description to go along with each.

The Long Version

Panathenaic Stadium - by Kate

Unlike many of the cool things to do in Athens, the Panathenaic Stadium was actually open on Easter Sunday, so we spent quite a bit of time there.  They had a free audio tour (included in the admission price, I guess), which was definitely worth a listen.  Along with a wealth of fascinating information, we learned that they created special throne-like seats for the King and Queen:

You may also have noticed that this stadium appears to be particularly well preserved.  That's because it was rebuilt in the late 1800s in order to host the first modern Olympic games in 1896.  Here's a picture of what it might have looked like when the medals were awarded:

Oh, and bonus, when the lady who sold us our tickets asked what language we wanted our brochure in, she first guessed French - guess we must look classy.  Or, as Paul points out, if she guesses wrong in the other direction, she might have some pretty angry French folks on her hands.

The Acropolis: The Parthenon - by Paul

The Parthenon is worthy of its fame. It's truly an amazing site, both for its structure and history as well as its impressive location perched atop a huge hill in the heart of urban Athens.

A small part of Athens as seen from the Acropolis

The guide material focuses a lot on its age, early history, and restoration, but while we were there I kept wondering how and when it went from "building" to "ruin" in the middle of such a busy and populous area. Looking at the Parthenon alone, you might imagine it off in a desert, abandoned for a thousand years (ignore the fact that it's currently swimming in tourists, scaffolding,  and cranes).  In the context of the city, this doesn't make sense.

Wikipedia came to the rescue. I suspect it's not discussed much because the reality is sad and detracts from the image of an ancient building long in ruins. In fact it was in active use until 1687, when it was used as a gunpowder magazine in a fight between the Venetians and the Ottoman Turks.  It is speculated that the Turks hoped the Venetians wouldn't attack such an important building.  No dice.  Not exactly the romantic demise I had envisioned for the famous building. 

Of course by this point it had been fought over, looted, and re-purposed many times.

The Acropolis: Other Stuff - by Kate

Also worth mentioning is the famous Caryatid porch of the Erechtheion:

None of the Caryatids you see in the picture are the originals (five of them are housed in the Acropolis museum, which we did not  visit).  I found this to be rather frustrating about the ruins.  Sometimes it was completely obvious where they had patched the original work (the marble looked completely new, for example), and sometimes it was impossible to tell unless you read one of the many lengthy descriptions.

Temple of the Olympian Zeus - by Paul

Photo taken from the Acropolis

Only a cluster of columns remains for this temple, once the largest of its kind in all of Greece. Like the Parthenon, this building also has an interesting history. It was begun around 520 BC, and it took nearly 700 years to complete (most of that time not under active construction). Think about the number of human generations that is. Think about finishing a building today that was started 700 years ago. Even the Sagrada Familia pales in comparison. It was only in use for a "brief" time before it started being dismantled and reused for other construction projects.

Ancient Agora of Athens - by Kate

There were two really cool things about the Greek Agora.  One, it contains one of the best-preserved Greek temples: The Temple of Hephaestus:

It was still in use until 1834 as a Greek Orthodox church!

The second cool thing about the Agora was the museum.  It is housed in the gleaming Stoa of Attalos, which has been completely rebuilt as close to the original as possible, giving you some sense of what this fabulous city center must have looked like in ancient times: