6/29 Athens Acropolis and New Acropolos Museum

We dock in Athens sometime in the middle of the night, apparently very lucky to find (no doubt generously paid!) deck hands to help us dock. Every time we had docked (or de-docked) there were four men on shore who caught the little lines with monkey knots (solid knots about the size of a fist, so you can throw the rope).  Those slim lines are attached to much larger ropes that are then pulled to shore and secured on giant cleats.

Some last pictures of our boat are here.

By the time we wake, all that work is finished and the port area is completely deserted. The strike, in its second day, seems to have stopped everything. The schedule of stoppages at the airport is that all is to stop between 8 and 12 am and again 8 and 12 pm. The dock workers may be on a similar schedule. No wonder we went so fast! Cruise Director John and the other cruise personnel regularly give us updates on the situation, especially for those planning to fly home today.

We feel more relaxed, knowing we have four days in Athens. Of course, the main demonstrations are in Syntagma  (“constitution” in Greek) Square, exactly where our hotel is, but we aren't worried. We board a bus with about 10 other boat passengers who will be staying in downtown Athens and are eventually delivered to a Divani Hotel with Barbara and Joe. They're staying at a different Divani hotel, but will make the transfer later in the day. Our guide, Smaro of the beautiful voice, calls our hotel and gives us specific instructions about how to have our taxi driver call the hotel and arrange a meeting place where a hotel person will meet us to transport our luggage, the streets around the hotel being closed.

Other Acropolis pictures are here.

Parthenon - always being rebuilt

Temple of Athena on the Acropolis

We're  fine with that, check our luggage at the hotel where we were dropped off, and walk up the hill to the Acropolis. Yet again, I have no words to describe how wonderful it is to see such beautiful structures built more than 2600 years ago! There is much re-construction going on (apparently there always is) and in some places you can easily see the new, white marble that replaces missing pieces. According to an international treaty signed in Venice, they can only reconstruct parts where they have 70% of the original pieces. For those pieces on the ground, it’s like trying to put together a 3-D jigsaw puzzle.

The Parthenon is the main building on the Acropolis, but not the only one. We circle the Temple to Athena (neither building interior is accessible to tourists) and see several other buildings in the distance, including two theaters.

I hadn’t realized that during the Ottoman occupation of Athens, ending in about 1830, the Turks used the Parthenon to store explosives. At some point, it was accidentally lit, and much of the Parthenon exploded!

New Acropolis Museum

We visit the New Acropolis Museum, built, some say, to show the British that they could, indeed, house those pieces that Britain has refused to return to Greece, in a style appropriate to their majesty. No photos are allowed inside, but the floor, both inside and outside, is clear material, permitting one to view the excavations going on below.

The top floor of the building is oriented spacially, and is sized exactly the same, as the Parthenon just a few hundred feet above it. They display, where they have them, the pieces from around the top of the Parthenon. It's splendid! You really get a feel of the immensity of the work.

View from our balcony at the Athens Hilton - Acropolis and Syntagma smoke

By the time we return to the hotel where we left our luggage, the Grande Bretagne says "don't come." Teargas apparently is very strong in Syntagma so they arrange for us to stay at the Hilton, actually within about a mile of the center, but far enough away not to be bothered by the gas. Our taxi ride to the Hilton is roundabout, but still relatively quick. We settle in for a quiet evening with lovely, but distant, views of the Acropolis.

Hilton pictures are here.

In the photo above, you can see the Acropolis, smoke from Syntagma Square, and police lining the street waiting for action. Periodically a large band of police on wailing motorcycles circles past the hotel, presumably just in warning, but we never feel threatened in any way.