# Greece - Athens (2)

After a refreshing walk in the National Garden, we arrived at the Zappion. It was the first to hold an indoor Olympic event in 1896. The building was to commemorate Zappas, the founder of the modern international Olympic Games.

(There are some controversies over who is the true founder of the modern Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) credited Pierre de Coubertin as the founder, while it is argued that Evangelis Zappas sponsored the first modern international Olympic Games in Platia Kotzia in 1859. I will leave the arguments to the historians and professionals)


As we walked further on, we came upon something that totally took our breaths away - the Temple of Olympia Zeus.

The magnificent Temple of Olympia Zeus
- look at how huge the columns are compared to human size

The Temple of Olympia Zeus is the largest of the ancient Greek temples. It was one of the first to be conceived during 6th Century BC, but was only completed in 131 AD by the Emperor Hadrian - after 700 years later. The construction of the monument was disrupted many times due to lack of funds and change of governments. Also, during the Classical period (487-379) the work was abandoned because it was believed that the Temple was too ambitious and symbolized the human arrogance to be equal to Gods.

The remaining columns, with Acropolis as the backdrop

Originally there were 104 Corinthian columns, but there are only 15 which remains standing today. It was believed that the temple was destroyed in an earthquake during the medieval period. Like many other ancient buildings, the stones were taken away for building materials - what a pity! Now, though only these few columns remain, I could imagine how magnificent this Temple must have been during its most glorious period.

Remember Emperor Hadrian who completed the Temple of Zeus in 131AD? He decided to erect the Hadrian's Arch in 132AD as well, as a gate between the ancient city and the Roman city of Athens.

Hadrian's Arch

As we were heading to the Acropolis, we passed by the Theatre of Dionysious, the first stone theater built, formerly used by the Romans for gladiator fights.

Theater of Dionysious

Finally, we reached the ever-famous Acropolis! The word Acropolis means "upper city" and it is the place where most of the sacred buildings were built.

The first few things that we noticed when we walked uphill are:

• The place was pack full of tourists. Just look at the picture!
• The marble pathway was very slippery to walk on. Wonder how the people managed in the past.
• The view from the mountain top is marvelous! The sight of a sea of off-white buildings surrounding Athens was amazing. Every single houses below had different architectural design, yet together as a whole they formed uniform patterns which spanned across the horizon.

The sea of tourists & the sea of houses

This post would not be complete without a picture of the Parthenon. Designed by Kallikrates and Iktinos, built over 15 years and completed in 438BC, the Parthenon had housed the giant statue of Athena. It had been a temple, a church, a mosque and even a gunpowder storage place for Turkey. It was blown up when the Venetians bombed it in 1687.

The Parthenon, with lots of tourists

You can see from the picture that there were a lot of reconstruction work going on. It was quite a pity because I would have loved to capture the beauty of the Parthenon, minus the construction work and the tourists...

I didn't manage to capture a decent photo of the Erecthion. With the barriers standing in the way, the distance was too far for my poor k800i to capture the beauty without seriously reducing the picture quality. So I have to "borrow" the picture below from www.fulbright.com

Erecthion

The Caryatids which stand at the porch of Erecthion are actually copies, while the original ones sit in the Acropolis museum. And one of the original statue is still in British Museum, who claimed to be "safe-keeping" it, despite most people would have wanted it to be reunited with her other companions.

As our time is running short (we have to catch a ferry to Santorini at 5pm), we have to forgo a lot of interesting places such as the old town Plaka, the vibrant Thission and the fun Psiri. We stopped by Ancient Agora briefly, and we walked by the famous Monastiraki flea market rather too quickly.

We had some Greek food like Souvlaki, Tzaziki, stuffed tomatoes and mousakas in Monastiraki, I will write about the food in another post, they deserve a special post on their own. I have been very impressed by the food in Greece, it is amazing that healthy food can be so delicious that you would keep wanting more! More on these in future post.

As the ferry departure time is drawing near, we rushed to Pireaus, the port of Athens. With such a fleeting moment spent at the port, we haven't got time to explore the port area, but just got a grasp that it is a very busy port.

Our ferry to Santorini

Off we go to Santorini... where the real adventure begins! We will continue our exploration of Athens after we come back from Santorini yea.

More photos at my Flickr site.