I realize it’s taken me a long time to write this update on Greece. As I said before, the end of the semester has really been creeping up and I’ve been spending most of my time as a hermit in the library doing homework.
Our trip to Greece started out at 3:00 am on Friday when we got picked up by our taxi in Jerusalem. There were a lot of us going to Athens and we filled a ten person taxi. (But there were many more people there as well, it seemed almost everyone was at least stopping by Greece for spring break.) We got to the airport with plenty of time, and with barely any issues we got our boarding passes and headed through security. That of course left time for a little bit of duty free shopping before getting on the plane for a 7am flight. Luckily I slept for most of the flight because I was absolutely exhausted from being up all night in transport. The airport in Athens was very small. We got off the plane and took a bus from the tarmac to the terminal. The first exciting discovery upon landing in Greece was that they have Citibank atms (which I’ve been sorely missing while in Israel).
A nice thing about the airport was that the Athens metro goes to it. So we lugged our bags to the metro and took the 40 minute ride to the center of town. It was kind of a pain that we had to carry our bags from the metro to our hostel, but it turned out not to be too far. We had originally planned to do a lot of touring the first day, but we were all so tired from traveling (even though Athens is in the same time zone as Jerusalem) that we instead took naps in the hostel room. One of my friends and I finally got up and went to explore around our hostel and get some lunch. Our first discovery was Starbucks. Not to sounds like a ridiculous American, but I’ve really missed it, drip coffee just doesn’t exist in Israel. It turned out the lunch place we were interested in happened to be right next to the Starbucks. We couldn’t decide whether or not we wanted to eat there, which is when we remembered that we could finally use Hebrew again as a second language. When we’re in Israel we don’t really speak to each other in Hebrew, but we could once again discuss whether we wanted to eat somewhere or buy things without being harassed by shop owners.
Our first really touring stop was the Acropolis. It was a ridiculous hike to get up to the top, but we got lots of amazing views of Athens along the way. On the way up to the Acropolis there are also a lot of ruins or exhibits of ruins which were really cool. There were two theaters, one of which was really well preserved. The area was also really beautifully landscaped. It was clear how much Greece cared for the ruins and how important the ruins were to the Athens skyline.
When we finally got to the top of the Acropolis it was totally worth it. Even though most of the stuff was covered in scaffolding, it was really amazing to see everything up close. It was kind of cool to think that the Ancient Greeks had to hike up that same ridiculous hill that we did to worship at the same temples where we were standing. Again, we got some great shots of the city of Athens from the top. It was also really cool to see some of the ruins throughout the city from the top of the Acropolis, they were like open areas in an incredibly full city.
After some confusing map reading and finding directions, we finally found our way down the Acropolis to the ancient agora (marketplace). On the way we saw one of the few Byzantine churches still standing in Athens. It had some really beautiful artwork on the ceiling and walls. The agora didn’t turn out to be that exciting, and was just a bunch of pieces of stones lying around. There kept being signs that told what each pile of stones were, but really they all looked the same. Nearby was the stoa. This was completely preserved and you could really imagine it being filled with stores. The agora was also a museum, but we were just not interested in paying to see more ruins. We headed back through the ancient agora to the Temple of Hephaestus. The temple was really well preserved and you could see how amazing it would have been in it’s prime. One of things we discovered there was a turtle. We later continued to see turtles all over Athens. Each time we couldn’t help recollecting some awkward turtle moment.
After a quick afternoon snack in a cafe, we made our way to the Roman agora. This was a tiny bit better preserved than the ancient agora, but it still wasn’t super exciting. Two interesting things we noted were the Tower of the Winds, which was a scientific weather station with many Roman gadgets for predicting weather. Another was a mosque from the Middle Ages. Unfortunately we couldn’t go inside the mosque, but we were assured it was typical of mosques from that era. We then headed to the nearby flea market for some quick shopping before going home for a nap. Our hostel was in a very touristy area, and there were a lot of restaurants within a minute’s walking distance. Because of this we had a lot of choices for dinner. I got what was to become one of my favorite Greek meals, tomato and pepper stuffed with rice. I was also able to get stuffed grape leaves which were just way better than in America.
The next morning, Saturday, we headed over to the Parliament building to see the changing of the guard. We of course had just missed it, so we decided to kill time by doing everything else first and coming back later. We headed through the national gardens to the Zappeion, which used to be the house of the president and now appears to be a conference center. Next we headed over to the marble Olympic stadium from the first modern Olympics in 1896. The stadium was absolutely massive and it was really cool to see. Then it was on to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The Temple was absolutely enormous during Grecian times, and even what is left now is spectacularly large. There were a bunch of other ruins in the area, including temples to some other major deities and homes of priests. We also saw Hadrian’s Arch.
We then rushed back to Parliament to see the changing of the guard. The presidential guard (evzones) wear traditional military costumes which are amusing, to say the least. The ceremony took five or ten minutes and was amazingly well coordinated. Next it was on to the Benaki museum. The museum was luckily free for students (most things were only discounted). The museum had a really great collection, and I even liked it better than the National Archeological Museum. On the way back to our hotel we passed by a bunch of embassies and the Foreign Ministry, all of which was cool for me. We walked around a bit and walked through a very cool neighborhood near our hostel. The neighborhood is up on a hill and only narrow paths go between the homes. From their we had more great views of Athens. We then went back to our hostel for our afternoon nap. For dinner we decided we wanted to go somewhere with a nighttime view of the Acropolis. It took us a while to find a place that had the food we could eat and the view we wanted, but luckily we could discuss among ourselves in Hebrew.
Next up: Our trip to Aegina and return to Athens…
