April 30: Our last day in Athens

Today was our last day in Athens, and we spent it arranging for our trip to Venice, a day earlier than planned; visiting the Greek Agora, including the prison where Socrates died and the Hephaistion; the Stoa Museum; the Keramikos, an ancient cemetery; and the National Archaeological Museum, which is one of the best museums in the world.

Due to the Greek Labour Day holiday tomorrow, and a general strike that is advertised all over town – we have elected to move on to Venice a day earlier.  Our original plan, to visit Mycenae and Epidaurus, has been cancelled, as no archaeological sites will be open, and there are no guarantees that busses and trains will be running.  Therefore, we packed more into our last day in Athens than even we thought possible, especially since the travel arrangements took up an hour of our precious “open archaeological site time”, and mailing the many pounds of guide books back to Canada took another hour.  (Although I must say that hanging onto the bag of books for an hour made me more reconciled to the cost of sending them home early, as Ian suggested.) 

Refreshed with a gelato, we headed toward the Agora.  It was a real pleasure to be able to explore the Greek Agora at leisure and without an agenda, and we saw lots that we hadn’t seen before.  We visited the small Byzantine Church again, and discovered that more 11^th century frescoes have been added to the originals, these from another small church that was irreparably damaged in the 1999 earthquake.

We were surprised and delighted to find the Stoa Museum open, in spite of the posted closure.  It gives a good sampling of the different artefacts that were found in the area of the agora itself.

This broze goddess once had glass eyes.

a selection of lamps!

It was also a pleasure to see our favourite temple, the Hephaistion, looking as eternal and beautiful as ever.

The Temple of Hephaestus

The architrave of the Temple of Hepahestus

We decided to look for the Bouelion, since I had ruined Ian’s movie about the Theatre of Dionysius by saying, “No!  It’s the Bouelion,” and Ian had to prove how wrong I was.  

Although we only found a pile of indeterminate ruins, we walked the entire perimeter of the park, and found the ancient city prison, where Socrates died.  There was something remarkable about standing in the place where such an important historical event took place. 

The aforementioned indeterminate ruins.

After an iced coffee, and some debate over the map, we went to the Keremios, which is not only the area where the ceramics artists worked, but was also the place for very high class funerary monuments. 

They have wisely moved the most important funerary monuments to museums – the site’s museum really was closed today -- but they have put replicas in their places, and one gets a sense of things.  The park is at the intersection of several important ancient roads:  the road to Piraeus, once flanked by the walls of Themistocles, and having the funerary monuments of many famous Athenian families, such as the Alcibiades clan; the Sacred Way, which culminates in the Acropolis; and the road to the Lyceum of Plato.  

They have done a really good job making both parks natural and beautiful.  Yes, you can hear sirens and traffic from the city that surrounds each park, and yes, there are constant whistles from the security guards sitting in every patch of shade, but there is still plenty of “scope for the imagination”, as Anne of Green Gables would say.

We stayed until the site closed at 3:00.  I wanted to take the subway to the Archeological Museum, and Ian thought we could walk it more quickly, so we compromised and walked there:  it took 45 minutes.  It was open until 8:00 this evening, but we only made it until 7:30, when our brains switched over to severe overload status and our legs ached liked they hadn’t done since the first few days of our tour.  However, we did see every single room that was open, and saw so many amazing things that I don’t know how to explain them all!  Highlights include the cache of weapons retrieved from Thermopylae, where the 300 Spartans made their stand against the Persians; the artefacts from Akrotiri, removed from Santorini when the roof collapsed and not returned quite yet; the mask of “Agamemnon” and other treasures from Mycenae; the Cycladic figures; the amazing, astounding, perfectly beautiful sculptures, and I’m sure Ian has his own list.

We treated ourselves to a taxi back to the hotel, found a hotel for tomorrow night in Venice – another hour! – and went for our last delicious Greek meal.  We have a 4:15 wake up call in the morning and a flaky Internet connection, so you might have to wait for tomorrow for pictures!