A Day with the Ancients

Ah Plaka an oasis in the middle of the hot dusty bustling streets of Athens. Plaka is sometimes called Old Athens and is the site of Athens' most important ancient ruins. This is exactly how I pictured Greece to be. Wide cobbled streets, bright flowers blooming in the sun.

Unlike the dodgy, run down, third world place that our hostel was in. I swear that when I got out of the Metro it felt like I had taken a trip back to two decades ago. It looked a bit the way the old Soviet Union might look like. Old crummy apartments that were trying to look modern and everything needing a coat of paint, or two.

Anyway Plaka was a lovely way to spend the morning and afternoon. You should try and do this early in the morning as a) it gets HOT pretty quickly in Greece during the summer. And I'm talking about 40 degrees everyday kind of hot. b) everyone wants to see the Acropolis during the summer months and so there are hordes of tourists.

This was our first glimpse of the Acropolis. Ignore the crane.


Before you reach the Parthenon at the top you see other ruins. Like this ancient stadium. Can you see the black chairs at the bottom? This stadium is still used for live performances, they had an opera here a few days after we visited.

This is one of the views that you get once you start climbing up to the top. Isn't it amazing? In the background you can see a hill with a little temple on it. We decided to climb up there after our visit to the Parthenon and Acropolis to get a view of the Parthenon from above.


When I was doing my A levels I studied Keats who wrote a sonnet titled On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

It's a poem inspired by his first glimpse of the Elgin Marbles. Or as the Greeks like to say the Parthenon Marbles. You see there's bit of controversy about the Elgin Marbles. They were taken from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin to England and they are still in the British Museum today.

The Greeks believe the marbles should be returned to Greek soil and they even have a museum built in hope of getting the marbles back. Being poor backpackers me and Izan listened in on other people's tours while pretending to stare in wonder at the ruins.

Every tour guide mentions the Elgin controversy and they all sound very indignant that the Marbles are still in England. Also the marbles have been damaged due to bad cleaning procedures in the past, further riling up the Greeks.

So above is part of the whole frieze that the marbles were stolen/taken from.

Remember the hill in the background I mentioned? Well this is me on that hill with the Parthenon in the background. While the Parthenon and Acropolis are crowded this hill, which is a minor arcaheological site, is practically deserted.

I think me and Izan took the hardest trail ever to get to the top. We got to the top and saw these people who were climbing (and not sweating) up a paved trail. We had to go up a dirt sort of path and really climb in some places. Well it was worth it because the view was beautiful and we had it more or less to ourselves.


Next we went to see the Temple of Zeus (above). The Temples of Zeus is a bit of a walk away from the Acropolis but it's worth seeing. It's HUGE. It was started by one emperor (can't remembe, sorry) and finished by the Emperor Hadrian who added a gate (I think).

What amazes me is how advanced the Greeks were when it came to architecture and engineering. The Parthenon was built in such a way that all the columns look the same size and like they are in a row when in fact there are some smaller ones and they are not placed exactly in a row. It's only when you come close that you see this.

Even more amazing is the fact that these structures are still standing. Buying a ticket to the Acropolis also gets you tickets into the surrounding sites and so we did all the sites in one day even though the tickets are valid for three days.

So in theory you could decide to break it up and do a bit here and there. Some of the smaller sites are not much to look at and we decided not to go in.

Deciding to do it all in one day meant we kind of did everything there is to do in Athens in one day. And we got major tans. With our tank tops nicely outlines.

And yes I know this post was long overdue but what can I say, I got lazy. And when I get lazy I get really lazy. Why do things by halves?