August 7, 2013
Goodbye to Athens
There are some advantages to having been in Athens four times in three years. For one thing, it means that even if we went to the same things, I might pick up something new. For example, did you know why the Olympic Stadium was built where it was? Reputedly, it’s where the runner of the first “Marathon,” coming to announce the victory over the Persians, blurted out the victory—and literally died. And as often as I’ve ridden the metro in Athens (one of the few places with no graffiti), I’d not really paid attention to the excavations, which are part of the décor; dig anywhere in Athens, and you’re back in the 6th century BC (when Athens had sewage disposal pipes, a system lost on medieval Europe). Or you might get taken somewhere new, like the Orthodox Cathedral, which would have been more impressive had it not been under wraps.
For me though the advantage was that when we had free time in the afternoon, I knew what I wanted to do—and I had some unfinished business from May. I had, for one thing, never walked around the Acropolis hill; I had gotten halfway last May, only to realize the wondrous sites closed at 3—I realized that at 3:15, so I hit them first. Our guide had mentioned the Agora (marketplace) as worth a visit, since it was not only a sprawling ruin, but a well-designed museum, and you know how hard it is for me to miss a museum. In addition to the marketplace, it had temples (which became churches, and in some cases became mosques), with a lot of reconstruction. It has the largest Doric column temple in existence today. I also had time to visit the library of Hadrian, a first century AD emperor who spent a lot of time adding to the monuments in Athens . He built a triumphal arch that marked the division between the Roman and Greek parts of the city, and completed the Temple of Zeus (with its enormous columns) that had been begun 500 years earlier!
With an hour and a half remaining, I took the subway to an area of the city that housed a number of museums. One that I really wanted to see was closed on Tuesdays, and I decided I would visit either the Cycladic Art museum (I think 1100 BC), or the Byzantine and Christian art museum, which I’d visited three years ago before I had been to Constantinople. What I decided was that I would go to the first one I came to—since I had barely enough time to waltz through I came (happily) to the Byzantine museum, housed in one of those 19th century palaces that dignify Athens almost as much as its ancient ruins. The exhibits included some discussion of how the Parthenon was transformed into a Church, and a nice history of icons in the Orthodox Church (for about a century, the controversy over their acceptability threatened to blow the Orthodox church apart). I had time enough to buy the catalog, and get back to the boat for our closing ceremonies. Cruises tend to end with a filet dinner and baked Alaska, and this was no different.
But probably the best thing about having been to Athens as often as I have of late is that I did not feel compelled to stay there longer, which is why I’m writing this 180 miles away, in the second largest city in Greece, Thessaloniki, eagerly awaiting a guided tour tomorrow that will add to my knowledge of the Greek world, the Roman world (one of the co-emperors with Diocletian made it his headquarters), the Byzantine world (it was the second city of the Empire), the Venetians, the Turks (Mustafa Kemal, who turned Turkey to the West after World War I was born here)—in short, more of what we’ve seen for the last two weeks.