1
Museum
High point
Notes
Acropolis Museum
Closed. Owl at
entrance
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3392
The museum was closed as was the New Acropolis Museum for the movement of the
collection from the former to the latter. Nonetheless, I noticed the owl at the door.
Lord Elgin. New Acropolis Museum.
2
Archaeological Melos
3
Archaeological Piraeus
4
Benaki
5
Byzantine and Christian
6
Traditional Greek
Ceramics
Reference to the
dialogue with the
Melian elders,
Thucydides
Closed
We had the place to ourselves. No web site found.
Odd to call a
National Museum
when it has only the
work of three or four
craftsmen.
In the Old Mosque near Monastiraki Station. More interesting to see the inside of a
mosque than the display.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3421
Seeking information on the Athenian navy and those triremes
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3371
Red figure vases like The best of the lot. Exceeds Lord Leverhume’s incredible holdings at Port Sunlight.
those of the Felton
http://www.benaki.gr/index-en.htm
Bequest but in
perfect condition.
A delegation from Iran asks Greece to return the objects Benaki took for his collection.
Aristotle’s Lyceum
Aristotle’s Lyceum: ‘Building plans for the neighboring site were shelved when
excavators discovered ancient ruins identified as the Lyceum of Aristotle. The site has
been taken over by the Byzantine Museum with plans to open it to the public in 2007.’
This from Top 10 Athens (London: DK, 2006). Not open in October 2007, but I
snapped some holes in the ground of the construction site.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3349
7
8
Costume and Textiles
Cyclades or Kyklades
Closed
Those figures
enigmatic, alien
figures.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3380
Those figures. Learned how important Melian obsidian was and how widely distributed
were its products
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3520
9
Delphi Museum
Light, airy, and
ethereal
A coffee shop with
an impressive plaque
Ostracizing
Alcibiades!
A place fit for the gods or the film stars who ski nearby.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3404
Upstairs at 59 Mitropoleos, Plaka
10 Centre of Hellenic
Tradition
11 Hellenic Cosmos
12 Epigraphical
Themistocles’s
decree to evacuate
the city prior to
Persian attack in 480
B.C. in stone
An IMAX which is not easy to find from the metro at Kalithea.
http://www.fhw.gr/cosmos/
In this case is in so many others, there were far too few street signs, and even fewer of
them in Roman letters.
A library in stone. We were the only visitors there. Next to the National Technical
University where a student strike precipitated the downfall of the Colonels.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3348
This is the same Themistocles were once graced the drachma before the Euro took over.
13 Islamic Benaki
Those primitive
people; they have no
culture.
Includes ruins of the Themistoclean Wall in the basement. Remnants of the wall in many
places in Syntagma Square across from the Grande Bretagne Hotel in the Kerameikos
and the Temple of Zeus. I did not realize it was defence in depth, ass many as three
walls. But nothing about the other walls to Piraeus that I saw.
http://www.benaki.gr/collections/islamic/en/
14 Ilias Lalaounais
Jewellery Museum
Closed
Had hoped to see replicas of Helen of Troy’s jewels,
http://www.lalaounis-jewelrymuseum.gr/
15 Marathon Museum
Nothing from the
battle. But nearby
the ruins of the
Temple of Nemesis
I used my cell phone to book a hotel room while standing in a cotton field by the
museum.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3542
at Rhamnous.
16 Mining Museum on
Melos
17 National Archaeological
Gave it a miss
Agamemnon’s mask
More than the eye can take in. Good to see some many school kids and deafening, too.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3249
Nothing on development of the trireme just a few models without explanation.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3366
18 Nautical Piraeus
Odysseus’s map
upon entry
19 New Acropolis Museum
Annex
Roman bust of Plato. We went in only because the gatemen told Kate it was open, and he was right.
Museum itself
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Acropolis_Museum
closed
There I found a bust of Plato but no photographs were permitted. A Roman copy of the
first century A.D. I walked by it without looking, but turned, for some reason, and went
back and sure enough it was my old pal, Aristocles.
Schliemann’s house Went once alone and again with Kate. Money, money, money does indeed make the
itself with passages
world go round.
from the Iliad
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3368
painted on the walls.
Ostracism shards
Just to be there.
with Kimon’s name http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3443
on it and urn that
once contained
remains of
Alcibiades.
20 Numismatic
21 Oberlander
22 Stoa of Attalos
Spartan shield from
Pylos
Ancient retail therapy.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3290
23 Syntagma Station
Museum
24 Traditional Plottery and
Mosque Pottery
Themistocles’s
water pipers
Instructive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntagma_station
pixes
I could not find this one on the Ministry website which is consistent with the air of
vagueness that hangs over the place. ‘Plottery’ because one of the signs we saw styles it
thus.
http://travel.webshots.com/album/558117284hmdxIm
25 War
Lack of armour from Much about the fire from the East: Persia, Russia, Ottoman, and Turk. Very little from
Peloponnesian War
the Classical Period.
Site
High point
Notes
1
Acropolis
Even at the end of the
seasons crowds and crowds,
but I have seen Nashville
The crowds, many members of which gawked at the vista of suburbia rather than
at the ruins. The scale and durability has to be seen to be believed through one’s
eyes, and feet just to walk around. We went back on separate occasions to do the
theatres on the XXX face.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/3/eh351.jsp?obj_id=2384
2
Agora
Where Socrates roamed.
3
Archaion Restaurant
Closed
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/3/eh351.jsp?obj_id=2485
Nothing much to see but the remnants of stone foundations.
Ancient eats, no wheat, no tomatoes, and no forks!
http://www.thematic-dining.gr/arxaion/
4
Areopagos
5
Aristotle’s Lyceum
Steep, slippery steps but a
lot of room on top and a
commanding view.
Near Byzantine Museum.
6
Athens Metro
Used it a lot and found it
Cleon, Diodotus, Pericles, Nicias, Callicles, and others climbed those steps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopagus
Aristotle’s Lyceum: ‘Building plans for the neighboring site were shelved when
excavators discovered ancient ruins identified as the Lyceum of Aristotle. The
site has been taken over by the Byzantine Museum with plans to open it to the
public in 2007.’ This from Top 10 Athens (London: DK, 2006). Not open in
October 2007, but I snapped some holes in the ground of the construction site.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/eh151.jsp?obj_id=3349
Location is always a matter of guess work. In 1996 the site was thought to be at
the Museum of Contemporary (Modern) Art. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyceum In 2006 another find suggested it to be
adjacent to the Byzantine Museum.
The Olympic Games evidently got the Athens Metro built. I am grateful for that.
safe, and easy.
It is dual-signed in Greek and English. The trains are clean and quiet. The longest
wait we had for a train was two minutes.
Longest wait for a train was two minutes.
http://www.ametro.gr/#
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Metro
I also noted that the three trams lines are called Platonous, Aristotleous, and
Thukydideous.
7
Retail Attica
Department Store
nothing
8
Retail Central
Markets
Fish
9
Chaeronea
Alexander the Great’s lion
Hard to find on the web and not really worth the effort. No food hall. Not on a
par with Harrods, Ka De We, Nordsk, Galeries Lafayette, Tokyu, or
Bloomingdale.
The vegetables were pathetic. The meat market was like nothing else this
observer of food has ever seen.
http://www.athensinfoguide.com/wtsmarkets.htm
Mentioned in a Mary Renault novel and pictured in her book on Greece.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chaeronea_(338_BC)
The little guy in front is me.
10
Delphi
Terraced into eternity
Delphi was not on the original plan. However, when I realized Chaeronea was
halfway there it seemed like a good idea to combine the two. I had tried to read
another, grating Lindsay Davis novel partly set in Delphi earlier, but found I
dreaded turning the page. I quit. I almost always finish what I start, but not this
time. See Delphi and Die died at about page thirty for me. But see the author’s
home page for details http://www.lindseydavis.co.uk/seedelphianddie.htm
All I know about Delphi is that it was the proximate cause of more than one
Sacred War among Greek states, and that it was sight of the Delian League
treasury until Athens appropriated it.
All that intellectual knowledge fades against the ethereal eternity of the place
11
Ecclesia on the Pnyx
Berm there, done that
terraced into those steep slopes, even in ruins. Climbing up and down the vague
goat steps there was hard in that hand rail free environment, but we did it. But
best all was the museum which captured some of the essence of what it might
have been like. It airy and light and timeless. Best of all were the carved ivory
faces of Apollo and Athena; they were astounding. Still more the story that
French archaeologist found them, in 1939 just before more looters came, under
paving stones where they were buried by someone to hide them from ancient
plunderers and to keep them on the site. To that someone who buried them, thank
you. Athena is there, too, but I could find any pictures of her on the web. More
generally see.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/3/eh351.jsp?obj_id=2507 Though made of ivory the
faces are now black from the soot of a fire. Cleaning them would destroy them so
they are displayed thus transformed. No photographs were allowed and we
dutifully complied here as always. But here as always we noticed others who did
not comply.
The Acropolis makes a statement and it draws the crowd but it is not the only hill
in Athens. A few meters away is another massif called the Pnyx
Democratic assembly
Berm where the strategii stood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnyx
When we climbed the hill we were vittually along the entire time. When I found
the site of the ecclesia there was no one there but us and the shades of the past. A
rope and sign told me not to step on the bema and I respected that but I certainly
could have do so had I wished. But it was enough to be there.
We also slavishly followed the map to find the cell of Socrates and failed. Though
in doing so we came across, by accident, the crypt of Thucydides.
When we had given up and were retiring to cooling drinks and air conditioning,
only then did we come across a sign directing us to what was – ostensibly –
Socrates’s cell when he drank the hemlock.
12
13
Kerameikos
Marathon
Dipylon Gates where
Pericles gave the Funeral
Oration
Tumulus of Athenians,
tumulus of Plaeteans and
Christian cemetery
14
Melos
Kastro and Klima where
Thucydides set part of the
story and may have visited
himself such was his zeal
for field work.
15
Plato’s Academy
16
Pnyx
Been there, done that. The
eidos are always with us
whether we realize it or not.
Rostra where Pericles spoke
17
Retail Sandal maker
and poet
18
Ship sheds in Piraeus
I bought the Plato model.
What else? Since we had
just come from the putative
site of the Academy
Still there 2,500 years later
19
Socrates Cell
On the Pnyx
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/3/eh351.jsp?obj_id=2392
http://www.stoa.org/athens/sites/kerameikos.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon%2C_Greece
The tumulus in which 192 Athenians were buried on the spot.
Less well known is the nearby tumulus of the Plataeans who died there, allied to
the Athenians, forty in number.
There are also beaches
http://www.milostravel.com/
Honeycombed with tunnels, many excavated during the German occupation in
WWII.
The view from the top of ancient city at Plaka to one of the nearest beaches. Such
as the Athenians would have used. This picture does not convey the height from
which it was taken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy
Socrates, and others stood there.
http://www.stoa.org/athens/sites/pnyx.html
When I said I was from Nebraska the sandal-maker poet second generation told
me his latest play was being performed by Creighton University in Omaha.
http://www.athensinfoguide.com/shopping_poet.htm
http://www.zeaharbourproject.dk/3/3_09.htm
No web sites I could find on the ruins we saw.
Uncertain but the location and layout resembles the description of the place.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/3/eh351.jsp?obj_id=2580
The middle one of these three is two rooms. I am afraid there are steel doors
across them so it was no entry. The holes in the rock face would have been for
beam to support an awning.
The map had this in wrong place, as it had out hotel in the wrong place.
20
21
Temple of Zeus
Thucydides’s tomb
Scale and sight to Acropolis
Only a few remain of 196 columns.
http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/3/eh351.jsp?obj_id=2488
On the Pnyx and not on our With Kimon There is no certainly in the attribution but it fits a description from
map but we just happened to Plutarch.
walk by a sign.