Greece
September 19, 2025
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Day 6, Literally standing outside the hotel ready to get the taxi to the port to depart for Santorini, the desk attendant runs out and calls me in ... the ferry to Santorini was cancelled
due to high winds. After scrambling to find another hotel, as the Hotel Arethusa was fully booked, got the last room at the very close Omiros Hotel, at an excellent 65 Euro price
for a quite OK room.
After dropping off my dirty laundry pretty much next door, it was off to historic Athens. First stop ... booking the Acropolis for later in the day. Second stop ...
the Acropolis Museum. The museum holds thousands of artifacts found on the Acropolis, and the sanctuarires at the base of the hill. Some key ones ... statue of the goddess Nike,
the Peplos Kore, the five Caryatids of the Erechtheum, Centaur and Lapith in battle, dozens of friezes from the Parthenon mostly depicting soldiers and horses, the Acroterion
of the Parthenon from 447-438 BC, frieze of Nike adjusting her sandal and lots more.
The Acropolis is a flattish-topped rock that rises 150 m. There are documented habitations from the 6th millennium BC (yeah, that's 8000 years ago). It was habitated in earnest
around the 7th century BC. A temple to Athena Polias (deity of the city) called the Hekatompedos was erected between 570 and 550 BC. Between 529 and 520 BC, the Old Temple of Athena
was built, right beside where the Erechtheion would later be erected. That temple may have been burnt down during 406/405 BC. An older Parthenon was started around 500 BC, but the
Persians invaded and sacked the city in 480 BC and destroyed the still-under-construction building. The northern and southern walls were built around 468 BC and still stand.
The Pericles happened and ordered a huge construction binge. He ordered a new Parthenon, which we see today ... construction began in 447 BC, completed in 438 BC.
A monumental gate at the western end of the Acropolis called the Propylaea was started 437 BC, completed 432 BC. Temple of Athena Nike finished between 421 BC and
409 BC. The very elegant temple, the Erechtheion, was complex to build because it was constructed 421-406 BC on very uneven ground. After seeing these four remaining Acropolis
buildings, it was a stroll back to the hotel through historic Athens, and Ella's for dinner.
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Above: Models of the Acropolis, top from 480 BC before the Persian invasion and destruction of the Temple of Athena,
and bottom from 420 BC with the Propylaea, Parthenon and Erechtheion constructed.
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