Saturday 4th September

 

04/09/04 Day 63 (a day of freebies)

I succeeded in dozing off again this morning which I suppose counts as a lie-in. By the time we were out the door it was already hot - yet another crystal clear smoggy blue sky and hefty wind. Our route took us first to the stationary district to buy this diary, and eventually to a 'suitable' cafe for is breakfast. Eventually, because it took a while to 'please' Heather who insisted that Athens was cheaper than the price labels on the food seemed to suggest. But fed and watered we set off insearch of the Tourist Info centre. This part of the day is all a bit of a blur, which probably means we spent a lot of it shopping.

It was unfortunate that the E.O.T. was a building sight (good old lonely planet) so we rolled with plan B - to ask the numerous "may I help you" T-shirt wearing greeks the whereabouts of their main information office. They did not know.

Plan C was the complete disregarding of all previous plans (i.e. ones involving Greek participation) and to head straight for the Acropolis. It was assumed that, even in Athens, we would find a huge rocky mountain sticking 100 metres out above the city. Well, we almost did it manage that either.

After up-youing between the entrance, ticket office, entrance again, cloak room (or cloakroom) and back to the entrance we finally made it inside - much to our amazement completely free. For the rest of the day ISIC's became our pass to Athens.

As we climbed up between the scaffolding roofed entrance way (the Propylaia - Heather, fill in here) we had to impart great knowledge and understanding to Heather, who clearly was that wildly toothless Aussie girl. However, was, and said I sounded most intelligent.

The Acropolis and parthenon, so dis-appointing from below, were far, for more impressive from close up than the majority of the postcards and their differences from real life was partly denied on discovery that, as part of the re-work they are actually spraying entire chunks of the buildings. This fed on to some interesting speculation on the purpose and morally of restoration work, and helped take our minds off the scorching sun and dry, dusty wind.

After a very hot walk around the southern slopes (a couple of theatres and some more marble - some very cool rock chairs though) we descended from on high to go, via greedy's, to the Temple of Zeus. This is all very hazy so there was probably shopping here too.The temple was great: the huge bit of land and the huge 13 remaining pillars helped you imagine what how amazing it must have been.

By now our feet looked like we'd been on an archaeological dig all day, I was sunburnt, and our legs were killing - so, as you would expect, we went back to the busy, winding streets of the old town for some more shopping.

My vague memories of this painful time are too disturbing to recount here so I will jump straight to the nice old lady who sold us two grapefruit sized tomatoes and the very friendly guy who GAVE us 2 courgettes - (laughs!!)

Just before making it back to the hostel Heather had drink cravings so we indulged ourselves with an over priced 'not-oh-so-good chocolate-ice-blonde-thing.

The evening was spent chatting to the very friendly Americans, swapping stories, and discussing toilet facilities before finally catching dinner and going to bed.

Sometime during one of the shopping sessions Heather got so excited she walked into a lamppost.

Maybe I should expand upon the trapping by which seem to have eluded Brian. Athens has lots of nice shops unfortunately they are all rather expensive. There are also great patisseries and cake/characeries And even the souvenir shops aren't bad - the model-sized what we preferred was a particular favourite. To sum it up, a fortnight holiday in Athens when I win the lottery will well satisfy my shopping cravings.

I was anticipating a tremendous climb up the acropolis but it was relatively easy and the wind at the top met me perfect sight-seeing. Its a shame havin taken so much of the parthenon down and were just warned they are not going to put copies of the pediments back up. But as precedent was not Ancient tarnished. A walk through the AncientAgora found us a splendid marble toilet. These Greeks knew where important from... and we also saw a Roman Temple theatre of Dionysus and the Keramikos. The temple of the (there was Olympean Zeus is my favourite - to be honest I need to be 100 was careful 16850 the few remaining and huge - can't x20) imagine it from the pictures. Perhaps I theatre a little OTT (I wish someone would build of Herodes me a temple like that) <essentially Temple of Herodes/Atticus >

The very intact Roman Temple (in the Ancient Agora) is a miniature version of the huge very non-intact temple of Zeus, while the Parthenon stands somewhere inbetween (literally!). Complex questions of restoration practies aside, it is a sombre, dignified, inspiring monument - a superb juxtaposition to the sprawling mass of Athens surrounding it. Heather in a moment of enlightenment pointed out that the Parthenon epitomises the birth of sand sprawling mass. This led to an entirely new train of thought: It gets as though this great achievement of the ancient greek civilization stands above Athens with a sense of scorn and distaste, and shame, for what we have done to the how we have altered the direction of the ball that the Greeks started rolling. So. Which is why it has such a complicated 'feel' to it - pride and dignity, yet screw and almost guilt and the ever present sense of time winged in everywhere

I love it. We've been sitting up here for a couple of hours, waiting for the sun to set, watching the (antitonally) tourists take photos (some even on the roped off steps of the Parthenon, WHILE the attendant blew her whistle & shouted!) and already I feel at one with the very marble of its pillars!! It may all sound very stupid, but that's what it feels like.

With the passing of time my frightening inability to articulate myself has been overcome and the key Parthenonic adjective recalled. Forlorn and dignified is what it is. And I won't hear any discussion on the subject.