Athen's Showpiece

This morning, we again enjoyed breakfast at the Grecotel's great buffet, including a "Cretan corner", hot dishes, cold cuts and cheeses, yoghurts, granolas, honey and other sweets, baking goods and cakes, juices and champagne. After "experimenting" a bit yesterday, I went with the delicious fresh breads with olive spread and cheeses, yoghurt with honey and walnuts, and, the typical Greek sweets today.

Invigorated (though with permanently tired feet) we set off for the Acropolis. We had decided that we don't want to miss it (though we've been up there many times), needed to see what's going on currently and to enjoy the great views with partly blue skies and clear conditions.

Below: view towards the Hephaisteion (Greek Agora) and the Herodes Atticus Theater:


Lykabettos hill and, further below, the Panathenaic Stadium and the Olympieion (temple):


First time we've been up there, in the 1980ies, it was still possible to climb up the Parthenon steps, and, as students we even got a tour inside the temple. Now it's all barricaded trails for "herds of tourists", but restauration work is continuously going on, like in a medieval cathedral. The old museum (where we spent hours in cramped exhibition halls) is still there, but closed, contents were moved to the new Acropolis Museum ten years ago. What a big progress!

The museum, on the south slope of the Acropolis, with a direct view towards the Parthenon, was our next stop. Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi has designed the museum. Especially remarkable is the top-floor - glass-enclosed and skylit -, the Parthenon Gallery, which offers a 360-degree panoramic view of the Acropolis and modern Athens, and presents the preserved artwork from the temple - the metopes, the frieze and the pediments - in an ingenious way. Especially interesting among the rich collections from the Acropolis is the archaic sculpture, Korai and Kouroi, dating in the 6th century BC. (pic above, left), as well as all the other artwork from the different Acropolis temples, like the famous "Sandalenbinderin" (Sandalbinder, on pic below) from the Nike Temple ballustrade, dating in the heyday of Greek Classical Art, end of the 5th century B.C.

The base of the museum hovers over an excavation - which was newly opened this summer - on more than 100 slender concrete pillars. To be seen in the "basement" are houses and other archeological remains of life and human activities from the 4th millennium BC until the 12th cent. AD. Streets, residences, baths, workshops and tombs are very well preserved.

In the afternoon we met our old friend Panos, who we know from study times in Wuerzburg and Athens. He's (3/4) retired as a professor of Archeology and is happy now to get his hands dirty and to operate an olive oil/almond farm closeby Delphi. We had a wonderful meal in the venerable, very exclusive University Club, and pleasant conversation.