Acropolis, Stoa of Attalos, Bathhouse of the Winds, Acropolis Museum

Ah the number of things a list like this title can leave out.  Or for that matter, erroneously include..

This being my third or fourth visit to the Acropolis, one would assume that little could have changed about the site itself.  One would be wrong in assuming this, however, as the Acropolis site is one of the more fluid archaeological sites I've ever visited.  It helps that my time scale is measured in years rather than moments, but despite the glacial pace, even the Parthenon is under constant construction and restoration work.  I won't go into the historical or archaeological details except to say that 2400 years of combined pollution, weather, and 'restoration' work their wonders on even the stoutest of marble structures.

This time around the North side of the building was no longer scaffolded, which is fortunate, since it is the largest side that visitors have enough space to get a really good view of.  My previous visits in 2009-10 gave me a really great view of a crane and associated peripheral equipment, with a bit of Parthenon peaking out between the cracks.  Only the smaller East and West sides had been visible--now it is the West that is covered (which is also disappointing, as it is the first side visible from the Propylaea.  I am sure the restoration works will be well worth the time, but 40 years of constant construction is quite a long time, especially considering that with relatively primitive tools the building and its sculpture were completed in around 16.

My slightly better knowledge of the building and architecture in general since my last visit did actually add quite a lot to my ability to appreciate what I was seeing in person.  Of course one needs none of these to know that the Parthenon is beautiful; to see why it is beautiful is another thing altogether.  The architectural refinements really do seem to work some kind of strange magic.  In this sense I think the building's incompleteness is something of an asset (although simultaneously a great shame).

Just down the Acropolis is the Bathhouse of the Winds site, interesting to me because of a strange 8 sided structure in one corner depicting the 8 winds of ancient mythology.  I know extremely little about this building, as the plaques were not particularly useful, and information is relatively difficult to find online.  Surprisingly the site is also home to a mosque, built during Ottoman times, and now disused.  Its exterior could pass for a Byzantine church, which I had assumed it was from my first visit to Athens.  In fact, I sketched the door of the medrese the day I left Athens in 2010 and labeled it as a church door.  Looking closely at it today, I see an Arabic inscription above the door--I'm not sure how I missed that before, after having stared at it for 3 hours.

Further down from the Acropolis is the heavily restored Stoa of Attalos the Second.  This was the largest building in the Agora, and was originally built about 200 years after the Parthenon.  It would have served as a marketplace and common area at the time; the restored building serves as an Agora museum. Much longer than wide, it's got the most impressive colonnade in Athens, outside the Parthenon.  We didn't actually go in; but there was an impressive sculpture collection in the portico which we did spend some time exploring.

Finally, the Acropolis Museum once again shared its secrets, this time at a slightly more expensive rate than before.  Although again my Art History 101 class came in quite handy, as I find myself more familiar with sculpture and the history behind it than I ever was before.  Between the Archaeological Museum and the Acropolis Museum, few of the major sculptures I've seen photos of have been left unseen in person--although unfortunately the Acropolis Museum does not allow me to share via photograph.  A short list of famous objects in this museum includes the Caryatids, Kritios Boy, and the Peplos Kore.

Being in the middle of such an abundance of both natural and manmade beauty is something that is easy to become numb and spoiled to, even over the course of less than a week.  After the first 5 or 6 really famous statues and 50-60 less famous but still beautiful ones, it becomes harder and harder to really appreciate each one for what it is--a truly stunning piece of both creativity, history, and workmanship.  This is exacerbated by the fact that museums concentrate centuries worth of sculpture and architectural detail into small spaces, compressing both time and context into something visitors can see in a single day but that does not allow each piece to really shine.  It takes a truly unique or truly outstanding piece (sadly this often means only 'most intact' or 'most well-written about') to catch one's eye and draw a crowd.  The Acropolis museum has perhaps 2 dozen kore/koroi on a single floor, several of which rival the Peplos Kore, but most are scanned and then passed by visitors.

I think this is the true challenge of travel, and what most 'tourists' get wrong.  There are two ways to make sure that numbness doesn't set in--either narrow your focus to one time period or subject (how on earth can one person become intimately familiar with Archaic, Classical, Neoclassical, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Mycenean art, culture, and history in the space of one lifetime, much less one trip?) or learn to aesthetically appreciate an object in the strictest sense of the term.  I think this may be the harder method, as it requires concentration and the ability to let go of the desire to 'know something' about the subject, and requires instead a sort of pure examination of form.  This is what I am trying to do, although I am mostly failing.  I want too badly to 'know something' about each of the objects that I find myself playing detective with the features.  I have managed to slip, unnoticed, into a purely aesthetic appreciation of several things this trip, which is an amazing number by any count, but clearly I still have room for improvement.

Enough inane ranting, and on with the part most will skip to anyway--the photos.

National Archaeological Museum + Delphi

The last two days have been completely filled with new experiences.  Despite the fact that I have spent, cumulatively, around a month in Athens prior to this trip, I missed some pretty important elements of the area.  First among these was the Archaeological Museum, which I had heard mentioned about a dozen times but never in any context denoting its importance, or with any enthusiasm whatsoever.  Clearly this was a mistake. 

The museum itself is a rather plain building, as Athenian public spaces go.  It's a relatively plain neoclassical design, with statues at each of the corners of the roof marking the only significant decoration on the exterior.  Even the interior is plain and even slightly run down-- the plain whitewashed walls and screened and barred windows make it look as though it would serve equally well as an ornate auto mechanics' shop as its current function. 

The judge this book by its cover would be perhaps the greatest shame a visitor to Athens could make.  Within the plain walls, the museum contains a sculpture collection that would make an art history textbook's "Ancient Greek Art" chapter turn green with envy.  Not only are some of the most famous examples of Greek sculpture held here, but they are presented in a way that allows the kind of connection with the sculpture that one imagines may have existed in their original contexts.  99% of the museum's collection is not separated from the visitors by anything at all--vases, sculptures, steles, urns, etc are all simply bolted to the floor and left to fend for themselves, allowing anyone with the desire to take a very, very close look indeed.  The only exceptions to this rule are items too small to secure and a very few of the bronze statues, which have a short glass wall to keep idiotic tourists from bumping into them while photographic their shoes or something.  

I'll let a few photos do most of the talking for the museum.  My mind is still trying to process the aesthetic enjoyment of that day. 

We also wandered up to the church of Saint George, which is situated on a mountain adjacent to the Acropolis, although at a much higher elevation.  This is another example of the profitability of a sightseeing policy that can be best summed up as "go up."  Ben and I had no idea what was actually at the top, or why we were going there--we were a bit lost and decided that a higher vantage point would allow us to locate the Acropolis and direct ourselves toward 'home.'  By the time we got halfway up, we decided to go the whole nine yards, and we were rewarded with views of Athens even Athena herself would envy.  The church at the top of the mountain was a great example of relatively modern Orthodox church architecture--If memory serves properly, it was built in the last half of the 19th century--old enough to have some character, but new enough that the icon paintings were crisp and colorful.  No iconoclast fallout here!

Today was Delphi, which is another site I missed in my previous visits here.  This required getting up at 5:30 AM to catch a 7:30 bus, which dropped us in modern Delphi a bumpy 3 hours later.  Along the way the views went from urban sprawl to countryside to astounding mountain views.  The mountains around Delphi are almost enough to send even the most levelheaded traveller into an oracular seizure.  More on that in a moment. 

Perhaps two of the most picturesque villages I've ever seen are located along the route to Delphi.  The first is Parnassos, which appears to be a skiing resort during the winter and a refuge for Delphic visitors during the summer.  Very, very narrow streets combine with wood and stone buildings to create an atmosphere that is at once hardy and warm.  The windows of the Kreopoleion are filled with hanging carcasses of lamb, pork, beef, and poultry, all skinned and washed and ready for carving.  This is actually more interesting and less disturbing than it sounds.  It's interesting for an American to see that the source of meat is not actually a styrofoam tray in a supermarket, but from what was once a whole animal, carved by the skilled hands of a butcher.  

Delphi was the other fascinating town, a few kilometers down the road from Parnassos.  What modern Delphi lacks in oracles and Parnassian architecture it makes up for in views.  To the north are the mountains, to the South is the Ionian sea, at many points looking more like the progeny of the sun than of the sea.  East is ancient Delphi, West is mysterious (never went that far).  

The Delphi site itself is not nearly as impressive as I have been led to believe.  This is the second failure of the word of mouth touring system.  The Archaeological museum was ignored, Delphi raved about, and as far as antiquities go, there is no fair comparison between the two.  I have seen perhaps a dozen or more sites throughout Greece that had significantly more interesting ruins, although perhaps none but Delos can boast such a beautiful location.  

What was impressive about Delph was the second triumph of the "go up" touring philosophy.  Ben and I found a trail leading up the mountain just north of the town of modern Delphi-- part goat path, part actual trail, it led through thyme fields and various wildflowers of a variety and volume I had never dared imagine.  We even met a shepherd and his sheep (plus two lambs) along the trail as we ascended.  We reached a point high above the Delphi site--perhaps 500-600 feet above the highest part of the site, and perhaps 1000 feet above the Tholos.  On the 2-3 mile hike up we saw no one but the shepherd; on the way down we met one other group. Other than that, the entire mountain seemed undiscovered by tourists and locals alike.  The shepherd had a monopoly on the breathtaking view.