Athens

We spent February half-term week in Athens - 20c and sunny, in case you were going to ask, which was much nicer than grey and wet Wiltshire. The perfect weather and temperature for serious sight-seeing. We went with Andante again who put us up in the Herodion Hotel

which really did have this view of the Acropolis from the roof terrace, with a view into the Acropolis Museum on the other side. It was a very well located hotel, handy for many of the sights and for the restaurants in the Plaka, plus it had an excellent little bistro/bar for when we were just too knackered to make it back out at night!

Day 1

We walked up the Acropolis hill, past the Theatre of Dionysus (5th century BC or earlier) and the Odeion of Herodes Atticus (theatre 2nd cent. AD). The views over Athens and up at the protective walls of the Acropolis were stunning. I loved the green spaces around some sides of the hill which then give way to remnants of the old town clustering close to the Acropolis, seemingly for protection.

The Acropolis still dominates the city, as it has since at least 1400BC when the Mycenaeans built a palace there. It's such a great defensive and ostentatious site that successive inhabitants must have been drawn there from the earliest times. In the 6th cent. BC temples, treasuries and a formal entrance (Propylaia) were built but were destroyed when the Persians attacked in 480BC. Rather than rebuild immediately, the Athenians chose to bury the sculpture and use the stones from temple columns and walls in strengthening the defences - these massive column drums can still be seen in the walls that surround the Acropolis today.

The Athenians rebuilt the temples on the Acropolis between 447 and 406BC. The largest and most iconic is the Parthenon but it is possible that the Erechtheion was the most important to contemporary residents, and had been for along time as it contained the original 'statue' of Athena - Mary Beard says that by the 440s BC it was, "...little more than an olive-wood plank...Its sacred status came...from its extreme antiquity"*. The Temple of Nike (Athena as Victory) and the Propylaia were also re-built at this time. The trip to the Acropolis proved the wisdom of visiting at this time of year. During busier holiday periods it is just crammed with people - I know 'cos I was there nearly 30 years ago in August - but there were few large groups up there with us and, if you waited a short while, almost any view would clear of people long enough to take a photograph or get a better perspective. I think that the crane inside the Parthenon is the same one that I saw in 1986, but the scaffolding has moved around a bit!

After lunch - we chose cheese or spinach pies most days (sublime!) - we visited the Greek Agora, the civic heart of the ancient city. Along one end of it is the Stoa of Attalos (a covered walk-way which would have had a range of uses) that has been restored and now houses a sweet little two storey museum and storage rooms for finds. But one of the main reasons to visit the Agora is to see the Hephaisteion, a very well preserved 5th cent. BC temple which gives a good idea of what the Parthenon would have looked like. Like many ancient buildings that have survived into modern times, it survived because it was taken over by the early Christians - OK they did have a tendency to deface sculptures and carve their own images over things they didn't like, but at least most of the building survived!

Day 2

Some of the intended visits had to be re-jigged because of 'winter opening hours' and ad hoc strikes. I would humbly suggest that a country that's economically stuffed would do better to keep their monuments open beyond 3pm to screw as much money out of tourists as possible. We started today with Hadrian’s Arch - by the side of a road so no chance of that being closed! But a planned visit to the Kerameikos district had to be shelved because of strike. I think that the Greek tour guide who accompanied the Andante guide was quite embarrassed at the negative impression she thought the strikes were giving us of her country, and I don't think she was consoled by one of the older members of our party exclaiming, "It's Greece, we expected it!".

Instead we had a brilliant walk around the flea market in the Monastiraki district, culminating in the fantastic little Panagia Gorgoupekous - Agia Eleftherios church on Mitropoleos Square. It's a 12th cent. church but the builders re-used all sorts of sculpture, pediments and cornices from earlier buildings completely out of context and with no knowledge of architectural conventions (a triangular pediment floats in a wall nowhere near a door), which makes it fascinating to walk round. Scenes were often 'Christianized' by simply adding a cross between the images. A really lovely little place.

Then off to the Library of Hadrian, which we were surprised to find was full of tortoises! We'd spotted one yesterday as we'd walked past the entrance and hadn't quite believed our eyes, but at least 5 of them were charging around - and they really can move pretty quickly too. Lunch was at the new Acropolis Museum (which we could see into from our hotel - very nice when it's lit at night and you can see the sculptures from our hotel's roof terrace), followed by a tour.

It's nice to get up close to sculpture that would once have been high on a building, oh, and the original caryatids from the Erechtheion on the Acropolis (the girlies who hold the roof up with their heads) are there too. I always like to see the bits of original paint on all these statues and bits of architecture - I think we'd have been shocked to see these statues, that have come down to us as pure white marble, in their original gaudily painted state.

Jon took the guided walk to the Pnyx (a rocky hillside where the council of Athens used to meet in the 6th cent. BC) whilst I went and put my feet up!

Day 3

Today we had a coach trip north out of the city to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, in a wonderfully dramatic mountain terrace setting. I don't think any of us had realised that Greece had a skiing region so we were rather surprised to find that Mount Parnassus had a snow-sports resort. Unfortunately, the bad weather that had been depositing rain on the UK from December to February had not been falling as snow in Greece, so I think trade was a little thin, but it was quite surreal to drive past alpine-style chalets and through towns stuffed with ski/snowboarding shops. As we drove past trees whose pink and white blossoms were coming out, with the snow-capped mountain in the background, it all looked rather Japanese.

Delphi was thought to have been the 'belly-button of the world' by the ancient Greeks (an 'outie' rather than an 'innie' if the stone at the site is anything to go by!) and seems to have been the site of an important oracle from as early as the 1400s BC. The oracle or prophecies were delivered by a priestess, who sat on some sort of tripod over a chasm in the inner sanctum of the temple. It is thought that she inhaled the gases which came up from this volcanic region and then delivered the prophecies in a trance. Every four years Delphi also held the second most important of the series of four Panhellenic games that the modern Olympics are based on (the other 3 being held at Olympia, Nemea and Isthmia).

These ancients certainly knew how to pick a picturesque spot. Delphi is simply stunning and well worth a trip just to look at the view - in fact I was so busy goggling at the view that I almost missed the theatre in this photo that was right behind me! It's a rather vertiguous site though and is quite a climb from the entrance at the bottom to the stadium at the top. I'd hate to do that climb in the heat of summer when it's rammed with parties of school kids and you can't even fit a fag-paper between the tourists. The small on-site museum holds some of the best items that have been discovered at Delphi, including the charioteer, but I was fascinated by some tiny but beautifully carved ivory figures hardly an inch high; as well as the painted stonework from the temples and a style of column that I'd not seen before. As usual, photos are in the gallery on the right =>

On the way back to Athens we stopped off at the Byzantine monastery and World Heritage Site of Hosios Luscas. The monastery was founded in the late 900s AD in a beautiful setting on Mount Helikon and is dedicated to St Luke of Steiris who died in 946AD - he, or rather his 'relics', now lives in a glass box to the right as you enter the church. The outside of the buildings were gorgeous but the mosaics and frescos inside were simply stunning; I'm always amazed that such things can survive over a thousand years of earthquakes, wars and redecoration. Sadly my camera couldn't do them justice and it was a little disappointing to see relatively inexpensive 'phones capturing much better images than my 8 year old Canon Powershot. Once again I thought that I may have to upgrade...

Day 4

The morning was spent having a quick guided tour of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, with one of the finest collections in the world we decided that a morning wasn't enough so we had lunch and then explored it on our own. I'd spotted what appeared to be a temporary exhibition bringing together all the finds from the Antikythera shipwreck into one space (they're usually spread around different rooms of the museum) so I was desperate to see it - sorry, I am that boring, 'desperate' was not an exaggeration! The wreck was discovered by sponge drivers off the coast of the Aegean island of Antikythera in 1900. It appears to have sunk in around 70BC and was carrying a treasure trove of some of the best Greek art of the previous 400 years, leading archaeologists to believe that it was taking art looted by the Roman General Sulla back to Julius Caesar in Italy. Again, I'm stunned that such delicate glasswork survived intact for over 2000 years and I loved the contrast in decay between a bit of a sculpture that had been buried in the sea bed and the part that had been exposed to the sea.

But the highlight was a series of corroded bronze lumps made up of various cogs and gears which formed what's become known as the Antikythera mechanism, or 'the world's oldest computer'. It took archaeologists and engineers the best part of 100 years to analyse it and the exhibition has various examples of that they think it would have looked like. It's a fascinating and complex piece of equipment that seemed designed to predict astronomical events, eclipses and other data relevant to the ancient Greeks, such as the date of various Olympiads. Although one might think that it was designed as a navigational aid (especially as it is transportable and appears to have its own instruction manual) it looks like it was part of the loot, as the metal would not have stood up to the corrosive salt-laden atmosphere and it seems to have too much unnecessary data. This object does not seem to have been rare in the classical Greek-speaking world but, although some elements of this ancient technology were preserved by the Byzantine and Islamic cultures after the fall of the Roman empire and later travelled back into Europe via the writings of Islamic scholars, it took over one thousand four hundred years for anyone in the west to create anything using a geared or clockwork mechanism - and these first mechanical clocks were still much simpler than the Antikythera mechanism. If you have even a small element of geekiness about you

(either archaeological or technological) keep your eye open for BBC Four's brilliant 'The two-thousand-year-old computer' which pops up every few months and tells the fascinating story of the decoding of these corroded bronze lumps.

There are such treasures here, like the Cycladic figurines which influenced the 20th century modern artists, but a day wasn't enough.

Jon took the guided walk to the Philopappos Monument whilst I, again, put my feet up. This is an ancient mausoleum dating to about 116AD on the top of Mouseion Hill which gives stunning views over the Acropolis and the city.

Day 5

We managed to fit in a quick visit to Kerameikos (area of the potters) which had been closed the other day due to a strike. This was the most important cemetery in ancient Athens but also had the Dipylon Gate which was the favourite entrance to the city and led to Plato's academy, and the Sacred Gate which led to Eleusis. The rich lined these two roads with lavish tombs until such extravagance was outlawed in the 300s BC when only small columns were allowed as grave markers although, strangely, some people still managed to have bigger columns than others... There's a cracking little museum which, as well as the usual marble statues, has some really interesting everyday items like make-up boxes with face-powder and other tints still inside.

Then onto Attica to the stunningly situated Sanctuary of Athena Sounias and Temple of Poseidon on a headland at Sounion. Lord Byron carved his name on the temple in 1810 - when I visited 30 years ago you were allowed into the temple and up to the column that he graffitied, so close that you could actually touch it (although I just took a photo instead, honest), but now you have to keep a respectful distance. There were lots of other graffitied blocks to photograph this time!

On to the ruined ancient city of Thorikos, famous for its silver mines, on which the Athenian economy depended - 20,000 slaves were employed at its height. This was the sort of place that we come on specialist archaeological tours to visit, no-one else was there for the entirety of our visit, so, well off the beaten track so to speak, even though it was at the side of he road and completely free of charge. It has one of the earliest surviving theatres in Greece, which is also an unusual rectangular shape. There is a restored ore-dressing and washing floor next to the entry to one of the mines. Again, it's a lovely spot and all the spring flowers were in full bloom. I was thrilled to find a bit of graffiti from a Soviet sailor who must have docked at the port we could see just across the bay in 1972 - he even drew a picture of his trawler!

It was a great trip and a really beautiful time of year to visit. We've visited Rome and Athens now in February and it does seem to be a great time to go: few tourists, lovely (if very cold in Rome) weather and very relaxed. All photos will be uploaded to the album asap.


* The Parthenon, Mary Beard, Harvard Uni Press, 2003, p.147