Visit to Athens (2)
It’s been 40 years since I visited Athens and much has stayed the same – after all, this is a city with 2,500 years of history. So it is still somewhat rough and raw with uneven pavements and crazy traffic – not a city that everyone would love.
But a lot has changed: the city now has a metro, the Acropolis has been in a permanent state of renovation and repair, and there is a now a terrific Acropolis Museum. Tourists – including us – are different too: we have smartphones with cameras, Google maps and access to Facebook and a lot of people (not us) have selfie sticks.
For Silvia and me, today has been Acropolis day: the morning at the site itself and the afternoon at the Acropolis Museum.
Our hotel is near the site and we set out quite early so that we avoided the crowds but this spectacular location – our guide book calls it “the most important ancient site in the Western world” – is always busy. A major programme of renovation started in 1983 and is still in progress, so that the west end of the Parthenon is covered in scaffolding and the caryatids on the Erechtheum have been moved to the new museum and replaced by copies.
The new Acroplis Museum was opened shortly after the city hosted the Olympic Games and is truly impressive, both in design – wonderfully light and airy galleries with a view through the windows of the Acropolis itself – and content – almost 4,000 original pieces from all parts of the site. A short film is shown in alternating Greek and English with respectively English and Greek subtitles and this explains that the Parthenon was constructed from some 16,500 pieces of marble that fit perfectly together. The film finishes with a reference to the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum and characterises their acquisition as an act of looting.
October 3rd, 2016 at 1:10 am
Sounds like a good trip. I’m always confusing the terms caryatid and katydid…
October 3rd, 2016 at 10:20 am
It was a good trip.
I don’t think that most people would know the terms caryatid and katydid (I had to look up the latter), so there is little chance of confusion for the average woman or man – but you have a special range of knowledge, Nadine.
October 3rd, 2016 at 11:40 am
While I actually did study entomology at University, I in fact know the term from the Cole Porter song (Let’s Do It) –
mos-qui-to’s heaven forbid, do it
soon as every katydid do it
let’s do it, lets’ fall in love
which I know from the great Alanis Morissette version from the film “De-Lovely”.