The Acropolis

This morning, after a buffet breakfast, we went out to catch our tour bus. First the bus took us to the first modern Olympic games arena.


The arena was based on the arena in the panathenaic games. The panathenaic games were like the Olympic games except only Athenians were allowed to participate and it was on during a festival honoring the "patron saint" of Athens, Athena. Also the arena was made in the same area the original was.

Next we were driven around the city to look at some of the more important sights and pieces of history. We stopped on the hour to watch the Greek changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier in front of Parliament. We thought the changing was better than the one in London and the uniforms were cooler too, fluffy shoes and a long tassel hat. Later we learned that to make the guards appear more like statues they are only allowed to blink 20 times in the hour, that's once every 3 minutes. Also to be chosen as a guard you have to have certain physical attributes such as being over 6 foot tall and with particular "Greek" looks. The style of marching they do is very unusual and quite difficult.




We disembarked the bus once again at the statue of the minister for art and culture. We learned that she was once an actress. She was filming a movie which was a modern reenactment of a Greek tragedy. The male lead was playing the director of the British museum. They asked to film a scene in the room in the British Museum that was filled with marble from the Parthenon but were denied permission. The female lead then said "what my marble". Since then she and many other people have tried to bring back the marble to Greece.

We then walked to the Acropolis museum. The museum displays the pottery, statues, and numerous other exhibitions from the Acropolis. Some favorites were the colourings used to colour the marble (even though they are bleached white now they used to be very colourful with the paint protected by regular recoating with bees wax), the miniature representing Athena's birth, the ruins of old Athens that you could see through the glass floor and the display of relief carvings.




There is a story behind the carvings. In ancient times the art work was always on the outside of Greek temples as the faithful were not allowed inside. Since the opening of the Acropolis museum they have continued to remove the art work from the exterior of the Parthenon and replace it exactly in the museum to protect it. You can see the Parthenon from the museum as a reference. Unfortunately of the 460 pieces of art work, 266 are in the British museum. As you can see in the photo below, the discoloured piece is real while the white panels are plaster copies of those in the British museum,



We remembered seeing the reals ones in the British museum. We thought when we saw these they had no importance or meaning to us but here we saw them and understood what they symbolised and thought "how cool!" We told the guide that there is still hope and referred to the Tasmanian aboriginal artifacts that were given back to the aboriginal community.

Next we went up to the Acropolis. The hill was not too steep but the ground
was very slippery in places as it was marble. The Parthenon was really cool. The guide told us all about the Golden Ration and how the Parthenon has 100 features based on this (whereas most temples only have 10). For example, she told us that if the columns were extended 1.6 km they would meet and form a triangle.



We walked around and looked at the other buildings on or visible from the Acropolis.


Temple of Poseidon.



A Roman Theatre



Temple of Nike



The Temple of Zeus



The Agora

Today was very interesting. Our guide was very good. We learnt a lot about the Greeks and their culture as well as their history, mythology, art and architecture.

Luke

Location:Athens