Day II Athens
Trip Start
Jul 05, 2010
1
72
186
Trip End
May 15, 2011
Where I stayed
Hostel Dioskourous
Athens, Attica, Greece
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The new acropolis museum was worth the three euros each we had to pay. All of the statues and figurines that once adornedthe Parthenon and other buildings of the acropolis are now located in the museum so tha they are protected from the elements, and tourists. :) unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the museum and they had plenty of staff to enforce this. My favorite statue was an enormous one of Athena defeatng the giants. She was wearing a cape that I would like very much, but have not yet seen in EMS--it has about a dozen snakeheads on it that do the bitting of its wearer (you know, the usual biting off the fingers and other extremities of yor enimies and such). They also had a series of carved images od the Amazons (a tribe of female warriors) and their war with the Greeks. Unfortunately, these carvings were not that well preserved, and the characters were difficult to recognize. Another really cool set of statues were the women serving as pillars for the porch of the Echrictesus on the Aceopolis (the ones in our photos are actually replicas, and the real ones are safely in the museum).
David really liked the dozens of tiny lamps fueled by burning olive oil tha the ancients used. Also, another really cool thing about this museum is that there are ongoing excavations under the museum, that are visible through certain areas in the museum where the floors are made of glass.
After the museum, we visited the Athens flea market. David is still in search of the perfect old coin that he can use to practice his magic tricks. We stopped to drink a delicious frappe at one of the cute little cares lining the flea market.
At night, we went to a restaurant with David's high school aquaintance Kostas, a super friendly guy who spotted David at an Athens fountain. I guess it's a good thing to have such memorable hair. He brought along sn American friend and we shared some white wine and listened to live traditional Greek music.
