Athens

Athens, don’t know what to say… Perhaps I had too high of expectations or perhaps we have sightseeing fatigue or maybe we’ve been lucky enough to see some of the best sites in the world on this trip? Either way, Athens was fun and interesting.

We visited most of the Greek ruins around the Acropolis and went to the acropolis museum. We also visited a beach outside of Athens for a few hours called vouliagmeni. Apparently the beaches in Athens proper are so polluted you shouldn’t swim. Luckily the Athens public transport is common enough that we used it to get there and it wasn’t a hassle at all. For a 12€ entry fee we had an umbrella and 3 loungers, restrooms and a shower. we also had access to a huge water playground and kayaks/paddle boards. Even for midweek, the place was packed! It was picturesque with the setting in a large cove and a mega yacht anchored offshore but not really our style.

The Acropolis museum was built on top of an old settlement that they have excavated and much of the first floor had glass floors so you could see the different parts of the houses. A very neat way to preserve and display the history. The museum gave us a good idea of the scale and grandeur of the site so we’d have an idea of what we were going to see on the top.

The Acropolis and the ruins there were interesting but…. I was disappointed in how much reconstruction they had done. Apparently The Acropolis was destroyed in a war a looong time ago and the Greeks decided to not rebuild it and instead leave it as a symbol. The modern Greeks apparently realized the touristic value of the site and have been working on it since the 70’s I think. It was completely obvious that in many places there was more reconstruction than original! I get that they are trying to preserve it but when you have (permanent?) cranes and scaffolding surrounding most of it for decades, the way may be lost.

In contrast, when we walked the Khmer ruins in Cambodia we sometimes thought “wow I hope they fix that” or “I wonder why they haven’t repaired that” after seeing the somewhat finished product in Greece I can say the way they are preserving Cambodia seems superior. In Greece they are rebuilding whole structures using synthetic parts, in Cambodia, they are doing what their ancestors did and reusing the existing blocks and recycling others including using wood, cables, straps and anything else they can make work. Perhaps that won’t work for marble but synthetic just looks unnatural. I’d rather see it left to the imagination than completely rebuilt but I know others feel differently!

As we’ve toured many sites Ashley and I have talked about the line in preservation, how much is too much and it’s been an interesting conversation/ thought process that applies to more than just ancient ruins (think people and our possessions)

Note: the graffiti artists definetly originated in Athens with democracy! Their works are extensive and nothing that is stationary is immune, including statues and such.

We saw many Instances of venues built for the 2004 olympics sitting idle, pools empty, Tracks housing the homeless etc. when you see it, it makes you wonder why anyone would want to host the olympics. Perhaps this is a uniquely Athens problem but I doubt it