John of Ithica, ready for battle

Making a deal in the Ancient Agora


The Agora from the Acropolis

Nelson and John on the Acropolis

Athens is a difficult city to describe. In the Ancient Agora, on the Parthenon Hill and the old town it’s just like the picture books. The trouble is, the picture books are edited In the areas of the city that are not part of the “old town” or the Parthenon Hill, it’s chaotic, crowded, dirty and a bit intimidating. Our hotel was in a side street off Omenia Square. Across the street one block up is a police station and directly across is a multi-story parking garage. The street level of the parking garage is the place that the members of the Nigerian community congregate in the evenings. From our room we could watch them wander up and down the block, chatting on cell phones and sitting on the traffic barriers. There were quite a few veiled women out as well, everyone seemed to be having a really good time. During the day time there was no sign of an African community at all….curious. I’ve read that Greece has a very homogenous population and that the society is having trouble adapting to immigrants.

We visited all the usual places and some of the unusual ones -- The Parthenon and the new museum where the carvings and sculptures from the Parthenon hill are displayed. I never had much of an opinion about the “Elgin Marbles” before, but when I see the gaps in the museum where they should be placed I think the British Museum should send them back! Parts of the new museum are built over archeological finds (well, all of Athens is built over archeological finds!), and the floors are transparent so that visitors can look down at the ancient walls and roads below. It’s a bit disconcerting at first, but very interesting. We saw the major exhibits in the Archeological Museum, I was really disappointed that they did not have a postcard of my favorite statue - it’s of a goddess slapping a satyr with her slipper because he‘s getting too familiar with her!

Our one out of town venture was a guided tour to Delphi. It’s in a remote and beautiful valley, really impressive. We were in the middle of a book of historical fiction: “Odysseus, King of Ithica” which has its opening scenes in the temple at Delphi, so it was really fun to locate the sights we had imagined while we were reading. Sometime soon I am going to share a list of the books we’ve read and enjoyed as we’ve traveled.

The unusual places we visited were a high-tech theatre where we saw a 3D movie about the history of the Agora, and the Metropolitan Hospital, where I got an ankle ex-ray and a brace for said ankle. A sprain, and it’s slowed me down a bit. Greek medical care is efficient, kind and moderately expensive! As Nelson says, not everyone has ex-rays as a souvenir from Greece.