Like many others, I had been carrying notions about Greece since very young age. The history, culture, art, philosophy, and science that Greeks created has been enormous influence on Western civilization. Greece had always been mystical and magical in my mind, deeply worshipped, despite its recent near-bankrupt financial status. And this trip to Greece was, in a way, a pilgrimage to me.
Athens, named after the goddess of wisdom, a one-time powerful city state that cultivated many superstars such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and the modern day cosmopolitan capital that hosted 2004 Olympics, no doubt had always been the crown jewel in my fervently brewed Greece dream.
Athens’ golden age, the pinnacle of the classical era, came after the Persian Empire was repulsed at the battles of Salamis and Plataea (480–479 BC). The city has passed through many hands and cast off myriad invaders from Sparta to Philip II of Macedon, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and, most recently, the Ottoman Empire. In 1834 Athens superseded Nafplio as the capital of independent Greece.
Poof! - unfortunately, my Athens dream popped right there, right during my 1.5 day visit from April 19th to 20th.
Having decided to put behind the non-impressive experience that I had the night before, April 19th morning, I set out in search for the mystery in Athens with high spirit and curious mind. The Greek gentleman that I met in Brussels airport suggested me to walk from Thissio metro station to Monastiraki station, where locates the Acropolis, as "it is very beautiful". Looking at my "cartoon"-version of the subway map that I printed out from internet, Petralona station, close to where I stayed, is equally distant from Thissio as Thissio from Monastiraki. "What's the difference to walk two stops if walking one is quite easy", so I thought. Well, it turned out to be a big mistake as Petralona to Thissio is way, way longer. However, I was glad that I took the walk so I could see more, although what I saw was disappointing : residential areas look old, dusty, and the worst of it was the ubiquitous graffitis.
There was restaurant row on the side of the road from Thissio to Monastiraki, as well as street vendors selling souvenirs, collective coins, and accessories. Supposedly I walked through "the Plaka" to reach Parthenon. It's said to be the oldest neighborhood in Athens. If I was not mistakenly taking a different route, I really did not see much special in that neighborhood besides souvenir shops and restaurants, and graffitis everywhere again!
It's said it's impossible not to trip over an ancient column walking around. That's true. There were quite a few archeological sites on the way to the Acropolis. The small ones do not offer much besides a few stand alone columns and remains that barely above the ground. Other major archeological sites are definitely worth the time, such as the Ancient Agora and Theatre of Dionysious.
Even if you do not care about archeology, do not care about what ancient Greeks contributed to the human civilization, and you do nothing else on your visit to Athens, the Acropolis is one site you have to visit.
The Acropolis, a landmark visible from many parts of the modern city, is the original site of Athens, a limestone plateau supporting the Parthenon, the all-marble temple dedicated to the goddess Athena Parthenos (literally virgin Athens). In the same section is the Erechtheion with its six stone Karyatides maidens holding one side of the temple (four of the originals are in the Museum of the Acropolis and the one stolen by Lord Elgin is on display at the British Museum).
In late 1600s, the Parthenon was severely damaged by an ammunition explosion. Today we can only see the outer columns left and scaffolds set up for the repair project. Despite that, it's still an awe-inspiring place.
Then I had lunch in one of the restaurants at the bottom of the Acropolis. It's still a bit chilly although the weather was brilliant, and the seating was mostly outdoors. What's fantastic was that they all provided heating equipment : a tall shiny metal device with fire on the top. Cozy and comfortable, I enjoyed my first authentic Greek meal : moussaka, one stuffed tomato, one stuffed pepper, and pistachio milk shake. That was delicious. Pigeons and sparrows wandered around for food. Quite a few kids were playing musical instrument for money.
In the afternoon, I strolled around in the central market and Monastiraki Flea Market. Both of them are simply souvenir markets. When I was hesitating if I should buy a fridge magnet, I noticed one with the picture of Alexander the Great, and "Athens" on the top, his name at the bottom. So I jokingly asked the shop owner, a gentleman at his 60s, "isn't Alexander the Great a Macedonian?" Before he could make any comments, I suddenly noticed sitting right next to me an old lady was closing a book and started talking to me - she looked very dry, flesh decayed with aging, deeply chizeled wrinkles, withered mouth, and so the jaw seemed protrusive. She obviously was the intellectual one in the family. The next half an hour or so, she educated me passionately, with her right fist constantly pounding against her left palm, how Macedonia, Albania, Istanbul etc etc all belonged to Greece but were stolen by other people. How these days Germany wants to take Santorini for the bailout they provided. "As long as God sides with us, we'll get them back". She was quite confident. I then asked what went wrong these days. She was angry with the corrupted government.
Next day my plan was to visit the National Archaeological Museum, which is said to be one of the greatest museums in the world. However, after spending some time running errands, and wasted time on unknown disrupted metro service, I did not have enough time for that before I had to go back and catch the ferry boat to Santorini. Instead, I spent some time in Syntagma, the very center of Athens - I tried hard to find the possibility to dissipate my disappointment about the city. However, after walking across about 50 blocks, my disappointment only got exacerbated. It's still dusty, polluted, full of graffitis, and seemed a bit messy. If anything about the city infrastructure that's worth praising, it's probably the subway. At least it's clean and reasonably well connected, if ignoring the disrupted service. (Later I learned that most part of the green line had stopped running for more than a year because some archeological stuff was found during some construction project. But then there had not been any followup and the service had not resumed after so long)
I then went back to the Acropolis area and visited every single archaeological site that I missed the day before due to early close and that I did not plan to see in hope to save time for something else better.
While I was waiting for the metro in Monastiraki station, I exchanged a few words with an Australian old couple. The old lady whispered to my ear : "the city is terrible". I wish things could be different.
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