I never would have thought that in my life I would be standing at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Its one of those places I’ve always dreamed about and studied getting lost in all the stories of God’s and wars and, well, everything Greek.
We got to Piraeus early in the morning and were off the ship soon thereafter. We stepped off the ship and instantly got into fights with taxi cab drivers who wanted us to pay 170 euros….1 dollar is worth 1.7 euros….so they were asking for a shitload of money to take us to the acropolis. After all the fighting we were content with just going back to the ship, until we ran into some passangers from the cruise. They told us about the metro train that takes you right to the base of the acropolis in Athens for .70 euros. DONE
We walked around the harbor to the metro station and took that bitch all the way into Athens. Its dropped us off in the middle of a flea market that had fresh fruits (the biggest juiciest strawberries EVER) anyways, they had really fun shopping where later in the day, on our way home, I bought a really cool swimsuit…cause I need one. OK, FOCUS. After buying some water and exchanging money we began our trek to the acropolis.
Basically we just followed these winding zig zagging streets up to the acropolis. Like through peoples houses and apartments. Once we paid to go to the acropolis we took a wrong turn and ended up walking around the ENTIRE base of the acropolis. Its laden with all kinds of ancient springs and shrines and churches to different gods and goddesses. All the while looking up towards the giant stone walls of the top. It was all a little surreal, you kinda imagine yourself as an ancient greek walking up to the temples to pay respects or whatever you Athena and Zeus or whoever. As we turned the southern corner we ran smack into the Theatre of Diaphones. Its one of those theatres you always read about carved into the side of a hill. There were special seats or pedastals for the heads of the house or important officials on the end of each row. There were special throne type seats in the front and along the sides of the front for high priests and senator types. It was so cool to see where theatre came from and you suddenly learn what it means to project to the audience cause you look like a little speck on stage with no mic.
Ok, lets get to the main event. We get to the top, turn the corner and BAM, there she is, SCAFFOLDING. Scaffolding EVERYWHERE. I maybe saw a column? But definitely scaffolding. The first thing you see, the entrance of the acropolis, is the Temple of Athena Nike. I instantly though of shoes. You walk through the giant pillars and scaffolding to the top of the top and the first thing you see is the massive giant infamous Parthenon. Its kinda off the the right of the hill and like Nike, is covered my scaffolding. ALSO, I forgot to mention, everybody up there was slipping and falling because the ground is solid red marble. Shiny, slippery reddish marble. Definitely wasn’t expecting that. In fact, everything I saw that day was marble, walls, streets, stairs, benches, columns, EVERYTHING. Kinda makes me wanna have some marble in my house. But yeah, we took some pics in front of the Parthenon, apparently disrespected the country with our poses(you only allowed to stand in front of it, no poses)(so I guess my pitch damn near killed them), and moved onwards around the Parthenon. There’s another temple across the street from the Parthenon but I didn’t’get its name. it had a lot of cool women statues though, wish I would have gotten the name. Actually I heard its name on the tv but I’ve since forgotten
That’s all though. So many temples and people and so much marble. We headed back down to the metro, hopped on and walked home. Sigh, Athens, you were great
We got to Piraeus early in the morning and were off the ship soon thereafter. We stepped off the ship and instantly got into fights with taxi cab drivers who wanted us to pay 170 euros….1 dollar is worth 1.7 euros….so they were asking for a shitload of money to take us to the acropolis. After all the fighting we were content with just going back to the ship, until we ran into some passangers from the cruise. They told us about the metro train that takes you right to the base of the acropolis in Athens for .70 euros. DONE
We walked around the harbor to the metro station and took that bitch all the way into Athens. Its dropped us off in the middle of a flea market that had fresh fruits (the biggest juiciest strawberries EVER) anyways, they had really fun shopping where later in the day, on our way home, I bought a really cool swimsuit…cause I need one. OK, FOCUS. After buying some water and exchanging money we began our trek to the acropolis.
Basically we just followed these winding zig zagging streets up to the acropolis. Like through peoples houses and apartments. Once we paid to go to the acropolis we took a wrong turn and ended up walking around the ENTIRE base of the acropolis. Its laden with all kinds of ancient springs and shrines and churches to different gods and goddesses. All the while looking up towards the giant stone walls of the top. It was all a little surreal, you kinda imagine yourself as an ancient greek walking up to the temples to pay respects or whatever you Athena and Zeus or whoever. As we turned the southern corner we ran smack into the Theatre of Diaphones. Its one of those theatres you always read about carved into the side of a hill. There were special seats or pedastals for the heads of the house or important officials on the end of each row. There were special throne type seats in the front and along the sides of the front for high priests and senator types. It was so cool to see where theatre came from and you suddenly learn what it means to project to the audience cause you look like a little speck on stage with no mic.
Ok, lets get to the main event. We get to the top, turn the corner and BAM, there she is, SCAFFOLDING. Scaffolding EVERYWHERE. I maybe saw a column? But definitely scaffolding. The first thing you see, the entrance of the acropolis, is the Temple of Athena Nike. I instantly though of shoes. You walk through the giant pillars and scaffolding to the top of the top and the first thing you see is the massive giant infamous Parthenon. Its kinda off the the right of the hill and like Nike, is covered my scaffolding. ALSO, I forgot to mention, everybody up there was slipping and falling because the ground is solid red marble. Shiny, slippery reddish marble. Definitely wasn’t expecting that. In fact, everything I saw that day was marble, walls, streets, stairs, benches, columns, EVERYTHING. Kinda makes me wanna have some marble in my house. But yeah, we took some pics in front of the Parthenon, apparently disrespected the country with our poses(you only allowed to stand in front of it, no poses)(so I guess my pitch damn near killed them), and moved onwards around the Parthenon. There’s another temple across the street from the Parthenon but I didn’t’get its name. it had a lot of cool women statues though, wish I would have gotten the name. Actually I heard its name on the tv but I’ve since forgotten
That’s all though. So many temples and people and so much marble. We headed back down to the metro, hopped on and walked home. Sigh, Athens, you were great
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