30th May 1984 Agora and Acropolis Then

Wednesday 30^th May  When I was quite ready for it, I caught a trolley bus all the way to the Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Arch, which are just near the National and Zapia Gardens on Leoforos Amalias (though Hadrian’s Arch is on Leoforos Singrou).

The temple took rather a long time to build – Hadrian finished it 700 years after the Peisistratids started it. I wonder how Hadrian found the spare time to build all these things, as edification [in the meaning of building edifices, rather than education] is such a time-consuming hobby. Anyway, it was the largest Greek temple ever built and had 104 Corinthian columns, though only fifteen are still standing. Most of them are in a clump and one or two standing apart, unloved and unwanted. There is also a fallen column. Near the temple are the foundations of some sort of building. The site is covered with a lot of dry grass, which was being raked up. Two men were creating a mound of the stuff, and another two were stuffing a different pile further away into the back of a compacting truck – the driver wanted me to take a picture of his lovely truck. So I did. [Funny, in my memory, the Temple of Olympian Zeus is west of the Acropolis, where in fact it is just east of it.]

Hadrian’s Arch, on the other hand, would crush it. [Get it?] It was built in the second century AD to mark the boundary between the city of Theseus – the ancient city – and the new Roman extension, the city of Hadrian.

Leaving this site, I walked up Dionissiou Areopagitou and turned up a little lane that runs up beside the Theatre of Dionysus. This led into the Plaka, an area that is all that is left of 19^th century Athens – and according to the guidebook, it remains Greek and draws more Greeks to its taverns than foreigners. But I found that there were many many souvenir shops selling many many souvenirs. There is just so much of the same sort of thing – brass ware, chess sets, leather, pots, material etc – but it is all good quality stuff, which is fortunate.

I wandered around the narrow streets, past a walled noisy schoolyard, opposite which is an excavation site. And I went into a large church outside which the pavement is being/has been remarbled. The church is the Cathedral Church of Athens and its walls include materials obtained from the ruins of 72 small churches and chapels around Athens. [It took twenty years to build and was dedicated in 1862.] It’s loftier and more spacious than the Russian Orthodox churches I went into in Russia. There are chairs and candle stands but the murals and icons aren’t as beautiful or as gold-ridden or as wall-covering as the Russian. The figures in some of the icons have flat painted faces but wear clothes of beaten silver. It’s the main church in Athens [the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece] and holds the remains of St Gregory V, who was hanged by the Turks in 1821 for independence fighting.

Sooner or later I was bound to end up in Monastiraki Square, from which the Metro train leaves from its station there. The railway track runs alongside the Agora, which is where I went now, for 100Dr.

I looked at, first, a statue of a giant (proper giants are supposed to be half-fish or something), then I went up to the Temple of Haphaestus which is as big and with the same basic design as the Parthenon but more complete – it’s the best-preserved of all the Greek temples, in fact; only the outer roof is missing. Actually, it doesn’t seem to be as big as the Parthenon. [Actually, it’s well-preserved because it was built after the Persian occupation of Greece, during which time the Persians had destroyed many buildings which the Greeks later declined to rebuild or repair.]

I then walked around some garden paths and came upon some gravestones collected together. Some had carvings and most were cylindrical. I presume they’re gravestones. There were two tortoises in the grass and a long thin green snake on a fence. Lots of poppies in situ.

I gamboled around the foundations for a little while and then went to the Stoa of Attalos [the 1950s reconstruction], the reconstruction of the original of the 2^nd century AD. The columns of it are massive and the statues and the museum exhibits are very interesting.

 

Ticket to the Ancient Agora Museum in the Stoa of Attalos

There is a church just up the hill from the Stoa, the Church of the Twelve Apostles, I think. This is another restoration job from the fifties, though it seems that they knocked down a bit of it to do it. I think the original church was from the 11^th century, with later additions. The walls inside are plaster with bits of faded original mural here and there – not really a very impressive reconstruction. But on the way up to the church there were some puddles with the minutest frogs you ever did see hopping around enjoying life as amphibians.

   I followed the path – the ancient Panathenaic Way – up the hill to an outcrop of slippery marble to look at the view of the Acropolis from there. (Bumped into John, the tobacco-chewing American in my room at the hostel). Then up the path to the Acropolis, buying some cans of drink at the rip-off refreshments trucks. Entrance is 150Dr. I had a look down into the Odeum of Herodes Atticus – it would be great performing there on some balmy Athenic night.

    

Ticket for the Acropolis (they had similar style tickets in 1970)

   Well, the Acropolis is the Acropolis, and there’s a lot of scaffolding about – on the temples and also on the retaining walls and buttresses on the east end. The original Caryatids (only four of them) are in the museum. I’m not sure where the other two are – I didn’t have a close look at the Erechtheion.

   After the Acropolis, I went back down Dionissiou Areopagitou and back into the Plaka. In a street approaching Monastiraki Sq. I met Charley, whom I had met at the bus station in London, but he had gone on a different bus. We sat on the curb watching the people go by and talking for quite a while – a good way to spend an afternoon in Greece. Every now and then, old ladies would try to sell us lace table cloths. Charley is from Sydney and is 26.

   After leaving Charley, I walked all the way back to the hostel, had a shower and a sleep and chatted with Londoner Charlie and John (the American). They went off with Argentine Alex to watch the European Cup Final in a café up the street. On television, of course. I went to bed. [I knew it was Liverpool playing, but I didn’t know the result up till now – Liverpool won 4-2 on penalties against Roma. You can watch the whole match on Youtube…]