I had read about the Sunday morning Athens flea market, and I wanted to go. It was on the other side of the Acropolis from our hotel, so it was a bit of a walk, but not a bad one. I saw on the map that we really just needed to follow the curve of the Acropolis, and we'd find it. So, we did. The plan was to see the flea market, get a cache in Anafiotika (an Athens neighborhood) on the way back towards our hotel, see the Acropolis Museum, and hit the Acropolis. The hotel told us they had a walking tour of the Acropolis on Monday, which we thought would be fun, but we wanted to see it today, just in case something happened and the tour doesn't happen tomorrow.
(The original plan had been that today would be the day to go to an island, which is what Max wanted to do for his birthday, but it ended up being the only day the Acropolis museum was open, so we couldn't make it to the island. Come to think of it, it might have been difficult with the elections today, anyway)
As we were walking to the flea market, we realized we were in Anafiotika. I thought we may as well see if we were near the cache. The Jeeps said it was .23 miles behind us. We could just get it on the way back. We got to the flea market, and were confronted with a huge jumble of stuff. Some of it looked like any old flea market, with blankets and folding tables piled with junk. Some of it was pretty cool junk, though. Old typewriters, movie cameras, lamps, ceramic things, old cameras and cell phones, just about anything you could need to decorate your junk antique shop.
I saw a platter I liked. I thought I would be willing to spend a couple of euro on it. When I picked it up, it was really heavy. Brass, I think. I asked the guy how much. He said 30 euro. I said no that you. He asked how much I would spend. I said 10. He said no. I put it down and walked away. Apparently he was yelling progressively smaller prices at me, but I didn't hear him. I did hear when he got down to 10, though. I said OK, gave him the 10, and happily took my platter. I'm awesome.
The best parts were the stores that were filled to the brim with stuff. There's no better way to describe it than stuff. Some of them had carts filled with stuff out front.
You could barely even maneuver through these shops. and you weren't allowed to touch anything. How could you see what you wanted? We were looking for pretty glass bottles for Em, who wants to make a Night Circus bedroom when we get home, but we were out of luck. I saw a couple of the beautiful glass perfume bottles I love so much, but the guy wanted 10 euro each. No thanks.
I'm glad we had our fancy thief-proof bags that we bought for Morocco, because we were groped by pickpockets several times each.
We walked back towards our hotel and the Acropolis Museum. When we got back to Anafiotika, I turned on the Jeeps so we could find the cache. It wouldn't find satellites. Crap. So, we wandered around the neighborhood for a while. The cache description had said that it was in what looked like a purely residential part, so we went in all the small roads we could find. The pictures that accompanied the listing had the whitewashed walls and blue windows that I had wanted to see on Santorini (but we didn't have enough time to do islands and the Peloponnese), so I was excited that I could see them in Athens. We never found it, and the Jeeps never found satellites. But, we still had a few things we needed to see, and not a whole lot of time to see them, so we moved on. I did get some pretty pics from that neighborhood, though.
When we got back to a familiar corner, we had Em find our way to the museum. I want her to be able to find her way around places. So, she learned where our hotel was in relation to the Acropolis, since you can see it from that whole downtown area, and what the roads right around us looked like. She found the signs to the museum, and found the museum no problem.
A note - the Acropolis is the whole area on the top of the big rock. The Parthenon is the main building up there, the temple to Athena.
The museum is pretty cool. When they were getting ready to build it, they found part of ancient Athens underneath. They designed the museum to work around the ancient site. So, the whole thing is up on stilts. In the outside entry area, you can look down through a hole in the sidewalk. They also have entire sections that are plexiglass, or some other transparent material that lets you look down on the site. It's rather disorienting, actually. But still cool. Once inside, they continue the intermittent glass floor. But, there are no pictures allowed inside.
Most of the museum itself wasn't much better than the ones we had already seen. And I'm glad we saw those first, because there were a lot fewer people, and we were allowed to take pictures in the others. The part that was a lot cooler, though, was the top floor. There, there's a huge panorama window to show you the Acropolis across the street. They also have it set up with the metopes (the little scenes in between the sections of three vertical lines you see on the outside of the Parthenon), pediments (The statues in the triangles at the ends of the Parthenon), and frieze (the continuous carved scene along the top of the inner wall of the colonnade), as they would have been on the Parthenon itself. Some are real, some are reproductions. You walk around a large central enclosed room, and the frieze and metopes are hanging so as to seem like you are seeing them in situ.
If you'd like to see what the Parthenon looked like, here's an excellent website - <http://www.parthenonfrieze.gr/#/read> You may have to click on English down at the bottom right. On the bottom left, there's a link to The Parthenon, which allows you to see other parts of the Parthenon, not just the frieze.
In the early 1800's, Lord Elgin, the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, was granted permission to draw and do some archeological work on the Acropolis. The situation is very heated, so some say he bribed officials, some say he just stole things, some say he interpreted his permission too broadly, etc. Whatever it was that happened, he took with him a great deal of the frieze, metopes, pediments from the Parthenon, as well as several columns and pieces from other temples on the Acropolis. When he got back home, he sold them to the British Museum. The Greeks asked for them back for a long time, but the British Museum maintained that the Greeks had no safe place for them. So, they built the New Acropolis Museum in 2009, with this top floor especially for the Elgin Marbles, as they are now called. They have yet to be returned.
Emma decided she didn't want to go to the Acropolis today, since we were still planning on going tomorrow with the tour group. But, I knew I would be horribly disappointed if something happened and we didn't get to see it tomorrow, so we were going for just a quick preview today. We had Em lead the way back to our hotel. We stopped to feed some pigeons on the corner of the road to the museum and the road to our hotel.
We dropped Em and most of our stuff at the hotel and Max & I headed back out to the Acropolis. When we got up there, there were a bunch of people standing outside (There's a large courtyard sort of place out front, lined with small souvenir and snack shops, as there often are in places like this.) We went to the gate, an lo and behold, it was closed for the elections. Sonofabitch. Why couldn't they have put that friggin' sign out yesterday? But, they still had opening hours for tomorrow, so I crossed my fingers.
It had only been a few minutes, so we decided to go walking. There was a church I wanted to see, Agia Marina. I had no idea why, actually. I had written it's name down in my guidebook for some reason, but I couldn't remember what it was. We had time, and we were already halfway there, so we went. On the way there, we found a sanctuary to Pan
We also saw this interesting roof garden sculpture. I can't tell if it's a really fancy chimney topper or just a sculpture
We couldn't go in the church, but the outside is quite pretty. It definitely had the best roofline I've seen.
We decided to walk back through one of the many park-like hills of Athens. Agia Marina is right by the Hill of Nymphs, which is a smaller hill on the larger Hill of Muses, or Filopappos Hill. We wandered around the hills for a bit, always heading in the general direction of our hotel. We found a gate to nowhere
We got some great pictures of the Acropolis.
and of Athens. This is a friggin huge city!
We also found the Pnyx - the area where ancient Athenians would meet and have votes and discussions. Basically, the birthplace of democracy, and we were the only people there.
What we didn't find was any of the caches I had brought for that hill, because I hadn't thought to bring the Jeeps with us on this outing.
We meandered back to the hotel, grabbed Em, and had some lunch. It was the only disappointing food we've had so far in Greece. We all had the gyro platter, which we're pretty sure was actually gyro jerky with some pita. It was fun to watch the birds, though. There were pigeons who acted like normal pigeons, and then there were some very brave little finches. They would fly up and actually sit on the rims of our drink glasses to ask for food. They hopped all over the table. Even more entertaining than that, though, was the lady behind us. She flipped out every time a bird (especially a pigeon) got near her. Word to the wise, if you are afraid of birds (especially pigeons), Athens is not the place for you. Most of the dining is outside, and pigeons are EVERYWHERE.
After lunch, it was nap time. We were all so very tired. The rest of the day was relaxing, checking email, etc. We needed it.
The drunken Australians were back tonight. We knew they were Australians this time, because they kept singing "AAAAAUS-TRAAAAA-LIIIIIII-AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"
Emma says - I thought about getting a ceramic dog at the flea market, but I decided against it. I'm kind of sad that I didn't find any glass bottles for my Night Circus room. The finches at lunch were really smart, and they would eat out of my hand. Especially this one, who kept coming back for more. His name is Gilbert. The drunken Australians were fun.
(The original plan had been that today would be the day to go to an island, which is what Max wanted to do for his birthday, but it ended up being the only day the Acropolis museum was open, so we couldn't make it to the island. Come to think of it, it might have been difficult with the elections today, anyway)
As we were walking to the flea market, we realized we were in Anafiotika. I thought we may as well see if we were near the cache. The Jeeps said it was .23 miles behind us. We could just get it on the way back. We got to the flea market, and were confronted with a huge jumble of stuff. Some of it looked like any old flea market, with blankets and folding tables piled with junk. Some of it was pretty cool junk, though. Old typewriters, movie cameras, lamps, ceramic things, old cameras and cell phones, just about anything you could need to decorate your junk antique shop.
 |
| Can you see the amazing variety of things for sale? Check out the cradle in the doorway |
I saw a platter I liked. I thought I would be willing to spend a couple of euro on it. When I picked it up, it was really heavy. Brass, I think. I asked the guy how much. He said 30 euro. I said no that you. He asked how much I would spend. I said 10. He said no. I put it down and walked away. Apparently he was yelling progressively smaller prices at me, but I didn't hear him. I did hear when he got down to 10, though. I said OK, gave him the 10, and happily took my platter. I'm awesome.
The best parts were the stores that were filled to the brim with stuff. There's no better way to describe it than stuff. Some of them had carts filled with stuff out front.
 |
| That is a cart just piled with stuff |
 |
| This is the shop that belongs to that cart |
I'm glad we had our fancy thief-proof bags that we bought for Morocco, because we were groped by pickpockets several times each.
We walked back towards our hotel and the Acropolis Museum. When we got back to Anafiotika, I turned on the Jeeps so we could find the cache. It wouldn't find satellites. Crap. So, we wandered around the neighborhood for a while. The cache description had said that it was in what looked like a purely residential part, so we went in all the small roads we could find. The pictures that accompanied the listing had the whitewashed walls and blue windows that I had wanted to see on Santorini (but we didn't have enough time to do islands and the Peloponnese), so I was excited that I could see them in Athens. We never found it, and the Jeeps never found satellites. But, we still had a few things we needed to see, and not a whole lot of time to see them, so we moved on. I did get some pretty pics from that neighborhood, though.
When we got back to a familiar corner, we had Em find our way to the museum. I want her to be able to find her way around places. So, she learned where our hotel was in relation to the Acropolis, since you can see it from that whole downtown area, and what the roads right around us looked like. She found the signs to the museum, and found the museum no problem.
A note - the Acropolis is the whole area on the top of the big rock. The Parthenon is the main building up there, the temple to Athena.
The museum is pretty cool. When they were getting ready to build it, they found part of ancient Athens underneath. They designed the museum to work around the ancient site. So, the whole thing is up on stilts. In the outside entry area, you can look down through a hole in the sidewalk. They also have entire sections that are plexiglass, or some other transparent material that lets you look down on the site. It's rather disorienting, actually. But still cool. Once inside, they continue the intermittent glass floor. But, there are no pictures allowed inside.
 |
| The hole in the patio, to see the excavation below |
Most of the museum itself wasn't much better than the ones we had already seen. And I'm glad we saw those first, because there were a lot fewer people, and we were allowed to take pictures in the others. The part that was a lot cooler, though, was the top floor. There, there's a huge panorama window to show you the Acropolis across the street. They also have it set up with the metopes (the little scenes in between the sections of three vertical lines you see on the outside of the Parthenon), pediments (The statues in the triangles at the ends of the Parthenon), and frieze (the continuous carved scene along the top of the inner wall of the colonnade), as they would have been on the Parthenon itself. Some are real, some are reproductions. You walk around a large central enclosed room, and the frieze and metopes are hanging so as to seem like you are seeing them in situ.
If you'd like to see what the Parthenon looked like, here's an excellent website - <http://www.parthenonfrieze.gr/#/read> You may have to click on English down at the bottom right. On the bottom left, there's a link to The Parthenon, which allows you to see other parts of the Parthenon, not just the frieze.
In the early 1800's, Lord Elgin, the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, was granted permission to draw and do some archeological work on the Acropolis. The situation is very heated, so some say he bribed officials, some say he just stole things, some say he interpreted his permission too broadly, etc. Whatever it was that happened, he took with him a great deal of the frieze, metopes, pediments from the Parthenon, as well as several columns and pieces from other temples on the Acropolis. When he got back home, he sold them to the British Museum. The Greeks asked for them back for a long time, but the British Museum maintained that the Greeks had no safe place for them. So, they built the New Acropolis Museum in 2009, with this top floor especially for the Elgin Marbles, as they are now called. They have yet to be returned.
Emma decided she didn't want to go to the Acropolis today, since we were still planning on going tomorrow with the tour group. But, I knew I would be horribly disappointed if something happened and we didn't get to see it tomorrow, so we were going for just a quick preview today. We had Em lead the way back to our hotel. We stopped to feed some pigeons on the corner of the road to the museum and the road to our hotel.
 |
| The little finches were brave |
We dropped Em and most of our stuff at the hotel and Max & I headed back out to the Acropolis. When we got up there, there were a bunch of people standing outside (There's a large courtyard sort of place out front, lined with small souvenir and snack shops, as there often are in places like this.) We went to the gate, an lo and behold, it was closed for the elections. Sonofabitch. Why couldn't they have put that friggin' sign out yesterday? But, they still had opening hours for tomorrow, so I crossed my fingers.
It had only been a few minutes, so we decided to go walking. There was a church I wanted to see, Agia Marina. I had no idea why, actually. I had written it's name down in my guidebook for some reason, but I couldn't remember what it was. We had time, and we were already halfway there, so we went. On the way there, we found a sanctuary to Pan
We also saw this interesting roof garden sculpture. I can't tell if it's a really fancy chimney topper or just a sculpture
We couldn't go in the church, but the outside is quite pretty. It definitely had the best roofline I've seen.
We decided to walk back through one of the many park-like hills of Athens. Agia Marina is right by the Hill of Nymphs, which is a smaller hill on the larger Hill of Muses, or Filopappos Hill. We wandered around the hills for a bit, always heading in the general direction of our hotel. We found a gate to nowhere
We got some great pictures of the Acropolis.
 |
| That's all city, all the way up to the mountains |
We also found the Pnyx - the area where ancient Athenians would meet and have votes and discussions. Basically, the birthplace of democracy, and we were the only people there.
We meandered back to the hotel, grabbed Em, and had some lunch. It was the only disappointing food we've had so far in Greece. We all had the gyro platter, which we're pretty sure was actually gyro jerky with some pita. It was fun to watch the birds, though. There were pigeons who acted like normal pigeons, and then there were some very brave little finches. They would fly up and actually sit on the rims of our drink glasses to ask for food. They hopped all over the table. Even more entertaining than that, though, was the lady behind us. She flipped out every time a bird (especially a pigeon) got near her. Word to the wise, if you are afraid of birds (especially pigeons), Athens is not the place for you. Most of the dining is outside, and pigeons are EVERYWHERE.
After lunch, it was nap time. We were all so very tired. The rest of the day was relaxing, checking email, etc. We needed it.
The drunken Australians were back tonight. We knew they were Australians this time, because they kept singing "AAAAAUS-TRAAAAA-LIIIIIII-AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"
Emma says - I thought about getting a ceramic dog at the flea market, but I decided against it. I'm kind of sad that I didn't find any glass bottles for my Night Circus room. The finches at lunch were really smart, and they would eat out of my hand. Especially this one, who kept coming back for more. His name is Gilbert. The drunken Australians were fun.
I love the sanctuary to Pan. I love that it is just "there", no fees or anything to enjoy the age and mystery of it.
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