These are my first four e-mails from Greece, just to catch everyone up on what I've been doing!!! Enjoy!!!
E-mail one:
Hi all (and hi newcomers!)I'm writing you from Athens Backpackers Hostel in the heart of Athens, two minutes from the Acropolis, the Temple of Zeus Olympaious, Hadrian's Arch you get the idea etc. It's been a travel-filled few days, and because Nora and Lindsey are waiting for me I'm going to attempt to make this short. And maybe sweet.We arrived at the Ft. Lauderdale airport on Monday morning, and were dropped off by Nora's lovely parents (thanks again for letting me stay with you!) Our flight to Atlanta was uneventful, as was our flight from Atlanta to Barcelona. I caught up on some movies by watching Stranger Than Fiction (darling film) and selected scenes from Dreamgirls. Which means I just watched the musical numbers. And "And I am telling you, I'm not going." Four times. Okay maybe it was six. Additionally I was able to watch the first episode of Heroes (best show on television) which I have somehow never seen. So hooray for Delta and its world of entertainment choices--because of this, the eight hour flight went quickly. Also, we flew over the Pyrenees on our way into Barcelona. They were snow-capped and strange, and very beautiful--especially to someone who doesn't understand terrain. Or winter.We got into Barcelona, retrieved our checked luggage, and took a cab to our hotel. The hotel was located outside of the city and was picked primarily for location--we had a 6:30 flight the next day. So Tuesday we primarily chilled. We checked into our hotel, which was sort of a modernist/minimalist/glass and wood and dark stone classy sort of place. We trekked to a nearby mall (yes, mall) and had some lunch--and no, mother, I did not explore the mall, sorry. Afterwards we wandered back to the hotel. The girls wanted to lay out by the pool, and somehow they convinced me to overcome my inherent fear of daytime and sunlight. So after much SPF45 we "chilled" by the pool. I think "laid out" is the proper term, but I don't think it really worked--my skin is still a shade away from translucent and it still reflects light. This is what I get for my vampiric tendencies...>.. D(["mb","..u003cbr /..>Because we had a 6:30 flight and because we were jet-lagged and exhausted we decided to go to bed at...6:00. In the evening. So waking up at 3:30 was not such a shock, thank goodness. We took Alitalia from Barcelona to Rome, and then made a connection from Rome to Athens. For some reason they did not let us bring our rather enormous backpacks on the plane (Delta had) but there was no problem with retrieval. We took the Metro from the airport into the center of town, and easily found our hostel. So far our travels have been remarkably stress-free...and hopefully I did not just jinx myself. Oi...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>The hostel is a hostel--co-ed rooms, shared bathrooms, bunk beds. Everyone is remarkably friendly. We..'re actually split up--I..'m in one room, and Lindsey and Nora are in the adjacent room. Right now there are two older men in my room--a Californian named Jeff, and a man from Thailand named Wince (I think). But everyone is extremely friendly, extremely helpful...there was sharing of makeup and flat irons and travel stories. I..'ve met some Canadians. Etc. So I..'m looking forward to staying here for a few days...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>After settling in and unpacking a few things we set out to find some lunch and to begin seeing the city. We found remarkably cheap, rather delicious gyros (which french fries in them. I guess nothing is bad with french fries in them...) and then worked our way toward the Acropolis. Along the way we stopped in the Roman Forum, which features the first century B.C.E. Tower of the Winds, is bordered by a an old Ottoman theological school, and also holds what were the Roman public latrines. Make of that what you will. We kept walking toward the Acropolis, climbing upward past the nursery for the children of municipal workers (very colorful) and eventually coming to a fence that overlooked the Greek Agora. And the Hephaistaion, the Temple of Hephaistos that looks very squat when compared to the graceful Parthenon. This is due to the use of entasis, a method the architect of the Parthenon employed to give the optical illusion of delicacy. The Hephaistaion, which I have now only seen an aerial view of (actually, the same aerial view Dr. Barletta showed us in class) does not imply entasis. And it shows. But it is very, very, very well preserved...u003cbr /..>",1] ); //-->..> Because we had a 6:30 flight and because we were jet-lagged and exhausted we decided to go to bed at...6:00. In the evening. So waking up at 3:30 was not such a shock, thank goodness. We took Alitalia from Barcelona to Rome, and then made a connection from Rome to Athens. For some reason they did not let us bring our rather enormous backpacks on the plane (Delta had) but there was no problem with retrieval. We took the Metro from the airport into the center of town, and easily found our hostel. So far our travels have been remarkably stress-free...and hopefully I did not just jinx myself. Oi.The hostel is a hostel--co-ed rooms, shared bathrooms, bunk beds. Everyone is remarkably friendly. We're actually split up--I'm in one room, and Lindsey and Nora are in the adjacent room. Right now there are two older men in my room--a Californian named Jeff, and a man from Thailand named Wince (I think). But everyone is extremely friendly, extremely helpful...there was sharing of makeup and flat irons and travel stories. I've met some Canadians. Etc. So I'm looking forward to staying here for a few days.After settling in and unpacking a few things we set out to find some lunch and to begin seeing the city. We found remarkably cheap, rather delicious gyros (which french fries in them. I guess nothing is bad with french fries in them...) and then worked our way toward the Acropolis. Along the way we stopped in the Roman Forum, which features the first century B.C.E. Tower of the Winds, is bordered by a an old Ottoman theological school, and also holds what were the Roman public latrines. Make of that what you will. We kept walking toward the Acropolis, climbing upward past the nursery for the children of municipal workers (very colorful) and eventually coming to a fence that overlooked the Greek Agora. And the Hephaistaion, the Temple of Hephaistos that looks very squat when compared to the graceful Parthenon. This is due to the use of entasis, a method the architect of the Parthenon employed to give the optical illusion of delicacy. The Hephaistaion, which I have now only seen an aerial view of (actually, the same aerial view Dr. Barletta showed us in class) does not imply entasis. And it shows. But it is very, very, very well preserved...>.. D(["mb","..u003cbr /..>So we kept climbing the Acropolis. I believe we accidentally took the back way, but it enabled us to see many little, nondescript ruins and shrines and some cave that was dedicated to Wood Nymphs (I made the girls pose at wood nymphs, I don..'t think they were amused). We passed by the Theatre of Dionysus (beautiful, with a precursor to the stage that was ringed by reliefs) and the modern-day outdoor Athenian theatre which, I believe, was a Roman theatre...? There were arches, I..'m just guessing...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>So after much wandering and wrong turns and small archaeological treasures we finally (!!!) made it to the Acropolis. Unfortunately the two entrance structures, the Propylaia and the Temple of Nike, are under renovation. The Propylaia was covered with scaffolding, and the Temple of Nike is completely destructured--they..'re piecing it back together to better balance the building. The Propylaia, however, was magnificent despite the scaffolding--the entrance to the Acropolis, a rather botched attempt at symmetry. One room was an ancient art gallery, and the other--shortened by geographical confines--was a rather awkward receiving room. Once you walk through the Propylaia you are greeted with the Eryctheion to your left, and the fantastically unbelievably looming large famous Parthenon to your right. The Parthenon was also under renovation. It didn..'t matter. This was something I have studied in so many classes...in the sixth grade I made a to-scale model of the Acropolis from clay (my mother threw it out) and lord knows I covered the Acropolis and the Parthenon in A.P. Art History and Dr. Barletta..'s gauntlet of a class (she..'s really a lovely woman, I..'d enjoy having tea and crustless sandwiches with her, but her tests are a misery). Seeing the Parthenon is simply unbelievable--like seeing the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum. It is simply so famous that you can hardly believe you are seeing it...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>The structure is a masterwork of architecture--but it is very badly damaged. Of course Lord Elgin took off with much of the pediment sculptures and the friezes, but even now a lot of the metope work is being removed, put in museums, and replaced with replicas because the Athenian smog keeps eating away at the marble. The Acropolis was fairly peaceful--we got there around 4:30, and there realy weren..'t that many tourists, so it was lovely to have the area mostly to ourselves. The Eryctheion is also beautiful, especially the patio with the caryatids (replicas. Four of the original are in the Acropolis Museum, one in London, and one has vanished). The Temple was dedicated to an ancient king of Athens and built on the supposed site where Poseidon struck the soil during the contest to see who would be the Patron God/Goddess of Athens. Athena, of course, won. The Parthenon is her temple. Once it held an enormous statue of her, made of gold and ivory and designed by Phidias. The statue is no longer existent, but a copy exists in the National Archaeological Museum (we..'re going there tomorrow)...u003cbr /..>",1] ); //-->..> So we kept climbing the Acropolis. I believe we accidentally took the back way, but it enabled us to see many little, nondescript ruins and shrines and some cave that was dedicated to Wood Nymphs (I made the girls pose at wood nymphs, I don't think they were amused). We passed by the Theatre of Dionysus (beautiful, with a precursor to the stage that was ringed by reliefs) and the modern-day outdoor Athenian theatre which, I believe, was a Roman theatre...? There were arches, I'm just guessing.So after much wandering and wrong turns and small archaeological treasures we finally (!!!) made it to the Acropolis. Unfortunately the two entrance structures, the Propylaia and the Temple of Nike, are under renovation. The Propylaia was covered with scaffolding, and the Temple of Nike is completely destructured--they're piecing it back together to better balance the building. The Propylaia, however, was magnificent despite the scaffolding--the entrance to the Acropolis, a rather botched attempt at symmetry. One room was an ancient art gallery, and the other--shortened by geographical confines--was a rather awkward receiving room. Once you walk through the Propylaia you are greeted with the Eryctheion to your left, and the fantastically unbelievably looming large famous Parthenon to your right. The Parthenon was also under renovation. It didn't matter. This was something I have studied in so many classes...in the sixth grade I made a to-scale model of the Acropolis from clay (my mother threw it out) and lord knows I covered the Acropolis and the Parthenon in A.P. Art History and Dr. Barletta's gauntlet of a class (she's really a lovely woman, I'd enjoy having tea and crustless sandwiches with her, but her tests are a misery). Seeing the Parthenon is simply unbelievable--like seeing the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum. It is simply so famous that you can hardly believe you are seeing it.The structure is a masterwork of architecture--but it is very badly damaged. Of course Lord Elgin took off with much of the pediment sculptures and the friezes, but even now a lot of the metope work is being removed, put in museums, and replaced with replicas because the Athenian smog keeps eating away at the marble. The Acropolis was fairly peaceful--we got there around 4:30, and there realy weren't that many tourists, so it was lovely to have the area mostly to ourselves. The Eryctheion is also beautiful, especially the patio with the caryatids (replicas. Four of the original are in the Acropolis Museum, one in London, and one has vanished). The Temple was dedicated to an ancient king of Athens and built on the supposed site where Poseidon struck the soil during the contest to see who would be the Patron God/Goddess of Athens. Athena, of course, won. The Parthenon is her temple. Once it held an enormous statue of her, made of gold and ivory and designed by Phidias. The statue is no longer existent, but a copy exists in the National Archaeological Museum (we're going there tomorrow)...>.. D(["mb","..u003cbr /..>We also went to the Acropolis museum, which has some of the decorations from the acropolis and many kouroi and korae (attic male and female statues) including the Peplos Kourae, which Barletta tested us on (she..'s named for her garment, which is called a peplos). After we finished in the museum we went to a lookout point at the eastern end of the Acropolis, and attempted to orient ourselves to the city. Additionally, many pictures were taken (I..'m sure you can imagine) and we discussed politics with a man who I believe was...maybe Austrian? I have no idea. I also (somehow) found myself lecturing a group of American tourists on the Elgin marbles on our way out...then it turned into a conversation on the Greek War of Independence...and, well, that was that. Nora and I both praised our AP European History exam for teaching us about the Greeks..' struggle against the Turks. Good times...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>We walked down the Acropolis mount around 6:00, and wound our way back to the Plaka (the area of town in which we are staying). We stopped and split some fantastic dessert crepes for a snack, and then went and saw the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian..'s Arch. The Temple of Zeus was a sort of ongoing project that was completed by the Roman emperor Hadrian, and today it is a series of spectacularly tall columns, including one dramatically toppled column. The columns are ornate and Corinthian. The park in which the temple stands was mostly empty--so, again, the area was peaceful and vaguely eerie. The nearby Hadrian..'s arch was sort of Hadrian..'s way of marking his territory. One side says something about how Athens was once Theseus..' city. The other, however, says that Theseus don..'t live here no mo..' and that Athens is now the property of Hadrian. Hadrian liked to build things. Hadrian was also a megalomaniac. So the temple and the arch are not surprising, considering the amount of building he did in Rome...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>So now we..'re back at the hostel. We..'ve showered, changed, and are soon going to go out and grab some dinner, and maybe experience a bit of nighttime Athens. So far Athens has charmed me--people are friendly, the city is fairly easy to navigate, the the ancient sites are simply unbelievable. Especially the Acropolis. It is amazing to be able to look up and see the Acropolis silhouetted in the distance, or gleaming white in the midday sun...just...fantastic. The art historian in me is positively giddy...u003cbr /..>",1] ); //-->..> We also went to the Acropolis museum, which has some of the decorations from the acropolis and many kouroi and korae (attic male and female statues) including the Peplos Kourae, which Barletta tested us on (she's named for her garment, which is called a peplos). After we finished in the museum we went to a lookout point at the eastern end of the Acropolis, and attempted to orient ourselves to the city. Additionally, many pictures were taken (I'm sure you can imagine) and we discussed politics with a man who I believe was...maybe Austrian? I have no idea. I also (somehow) found myself lecturing a group of American tourists on the Elgin marbles on our way out...then it turned into a conversation on the Greek War of Independence...and, well, that was that. Nora and I both praised our AP European History exam for teaching us about the Greeks' struggle against the Turks. Good times.We walked down the Acropolis mount around 6:00, and wound our way back to the Plaka (the area of town in which we are staying). We stopped and split some fantastic dessert crepes for a snack, and then went and saw the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Arch. The Temple of Zeus was a sort of ongoing project that was completed by the Roman emperor Hadrian, and today it is a series of spectacularly tall columns, including one dramatically toppled column. The columns are ornate and Corinthian. The park in which the temple stands was mostly empty--so, again, the area was peaceful and vaguely eerie. The nearby Hadrian's arch was sort of Hadrian's way of marking his territory. One side says something about how Athens was once Theseus' city. The other, however, says that Theseus don't live here no mo' and that Athens is now the property of Hadrian. Hadrian liked to build things. Hadrian was also a megalomaniac. So the temple and the arch are not surprising, considering the amount of building he did in Rome.So now we're back at the hostel. We've showered, changed, and are soon going to go out and grab some dinner, and maybe experience a bit of nighttime Athens. So far Athens has charmed me--people are friendly, the city is fairly easy to navigate, the the ancient sites are simply unbelievable. Especially the Acropolis. It is amazing to be able to look up and see the Acropolis silhouetted in the distance, or gleaming white in the midday sun...just...fantastic. The art historian in me is positively giddy...>.. D(["mb","..u003cbr /..>Tomorrow we..'ll probably do the National Archaeological Museum (Mask of Agammemnon!!! Vaphio Cups!!!) and explore the city a bit more. Hopefully we..'ll meet some interesting/fun/etc. individuals in the hostel with whom to explore the city. But for now, dinner and night life. I..'ll attempt to update again before we head off to Delphi and Central Greece!..u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>I hope that y..'all are well!..u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>Efcharisto for reading (thank you being the only Greek word I know...),..u003cbr /..>Lindsay..u003cbr /..>..u003c/span..>..u003c/div..>",0] ); D(["ce"]); //-->..> Tomorrow we'll probably do the National Archaeological Museum (Mask of Agammemnon!!! Vaphio Cups!!!) and explore the city a bit more. Hopefully we'll meet some interesting/fun/etc. individuals in the hostel with whom to explore the city. But for now, dinner and night life. I'll attempt to update again before we head off to Delphi and Central Greece!I hope that y'all are well!Efcharisto for reading (thank you being the only Greek word I know...),Lindsay
E-mail Two:
Yassas from Athens,
After I left y'all last night adventurous things happened--primarily dinner and socialization with the people in the hostel. Everyone here is extremely friendly, and mostly English speaking. I met several Canadians (including two medical residents named Dave and Namdar) an Australian named Felicity who has been tooling around the world at random for almost two years, and a Peace Corps member from San Francisco named Joey, who is currently teaching English to students in Albania. At one point during the socializing someone made the suggestion of going to see the Acropolis at night, so a number of us trekked out to this look-out point on the west end of the Acropolis. The look out point is actually a rock outcropping that has a set of stairs leading up to it. After the stairs you are on your own--the rocks are a little precarious, but one can get by with a little help. We were not alone on the look-out--it was populated with couples making out, groups talking, and a small circle of (I think) Spanish people playing guitar. It was charming--until the guitar player decided to play Metallica's "Fade to Black." Not so good at that point...
...but the view! Ohmygoodness absolutely breathtaking. The Acropolis is lit in full splendor on your right, and the Greek Agora and the Hephastaion are sprawled out in front of you. Beyond that is modern Athens, busy and twinkling and vaguely ugly--but the juxtaposition of Classical and Modern is simply marvelous. The way the Acropolis is lit enables one to imagine ancient priests wandering through the ruins, performing their rituals in honor of Athena while the rest of the crowd sleeps below. The girls and I might head back to the rock tonight, since we have an early day tomorrow and want to have an early night. I figure dinner and nighttime sightseeing is definitely in order.
We returned to the hotel after taking in the view, and were so exhausted (since we'd been up almost twenty-four hours) we went straight to sleep. Until I was awakened, at 5:30 in the morning, by the loudest most horrendous snoring I'd ever heard in my life. It was coming from the bunk directly above mine and it was simply dreadful. It only got worse when the snorer's alarm went off--and then she hit the snooze--and then the alarm went off again--and then she hit the snooze again...and finally after four cycles of this I told the snorer to turn the alarm off, because keeping your roommates up via the snooze alarm is not proper etiquette. After this I smartened up--I shoved earplugs in my ears and became dead to the world.
We slept in until around 10:00, and got breakfast at the hostel. Then we dressed and set out for the National Archaeological Museum, which possesses a breathtaking amount of art from the Minoan, Mycenaean, and Cycladic cultures, as well as art from early Greece through Hellenism. The Museum is undergoing extensive renovations, but its main wings and the highlights of the collection were still intact. The Mycenaean collection is spectacular--almost all of what Heinrich Schliemmann uprooted from Grave Circles A and B in Mycenae. Most of the artifacts were gold. Some of the highlights were the very famous (but improperly named) Mask of Agamemnon, several knives with inlaid scenes of animals and nature, and the bull's head rhyton. Also in this first wing were the Vaphio Cups (on which Dr. Barletta spent an inordinate amount of time in class--actually, the entire museum was basically Barletta's class, in the flesh) and a fantastic vase with Minoan sea motifs in the form of an Octopus.
After the first wing we were stopped for lunch in a local cafe, and ate in the park outside of the museum. We then tackled the rest of the first floor, which was sculpture. And lots of sculpture. You start on your left, with Korei and Kouros, and work your way through the years. The museum has a number of famous works, including the Diadoumenos ("The Scraper") by the sculptor Polykleitos and the bronze sculpture of Poseidon/Zeus (no one knows which, and the debate over whether the figure held a lightning bolt or a triton still rages).
Once we finished the sculpture section we were rather exhausted, but determined to tackle the rest of the museum: the second floor with the enormous ceramics exhibit. I will be entirely honest: after seeing hundreds of vases, one gets a little bored. But there were some absolutely spectacular pieces (that Barletta had featured in her class, of course) including the gorgeous Perseus Beheading Medusa by the Nessos painter and several large amphorae from the Kerameikos cemetary, featuring stylized humans and geometrical motifs.
The museum collection is, quite possibly, unsurpassed in terms of quality. But there is, of course, a lot of what my mother calls "stuff." But it's worth weeding through the "stuff" to find the (sometimes quite literal) gold, and the museum was well worth the trek and the aching feet.
After we finished in the museum we headed back to the hostel, to freshen up a bit (and to allow me to grab some blister gear). Afterwarsd we headed into the Plaka (the central part of town and where we are staying) for a bit of ice cream and shopping (yay shopping). We had our ice cream in a lovely park, and lingered there for awhile because, well, shade and ice cream are excellent. We then shopped about for a bit, and at one point I took off from the girls, saying I'd meet them at the hostel at 6:30.
My solo walk started out innocently enough. And then I took a wrong turn. And then, somehow, I was horribly lost. It was rather bizarre, in that I thought I'd figured out the Plaka, but no. So I wandered about for around an hour, figuring I'd get back to the hostel eventually. Along the way I passed a number of fantastic old churches, including an enormous Greek Orthodox church that was (unfortunately) undergoing extensive renovations. I popped my head in--the church was spectacular, all Byzantine motifs and iconography. And a priest with an enormous beard, but these things do happen.
So after around an hour of wandering I decided I should ask for directions. The hostel is right by the Metro stop for the Acropolis, so I asked how to get to that station. I was, instead, directed to Syntagma Square (the plaza in front of the Greek Parliament). So I trekked to Syntagma Square...and luckily there was a Metro there. I was tired of wandering about. I took the metro back to the hotel--and no, that isn't lazy, my feet were killing me!
And here I am. I'm cleaned up and ready for the evening, and the girls are upstairs dressing for dinner. We think we're going to attempt a restaurant we read about in a guide book, which primarily serves mezdezes (I butchered the spelling, but essentially that's Greek for tapas) and supposedly has a fantastic garlic based sauce. And afterwards I think I'll try to convince the girls to make another nighttime visit to the Acropolis. Tomorrow we leave at 7:30 in the morning on a guided tour (we're so relieved to not have to make any decisions, deciding things is exhausting, goodness) through Central Greece. We'll be seeing Delphi, Thermopylae, Meteora, and several villages in the area. The tour is about three days, and I'm not sure if I'll be wired during the interim--so you may have to wait until I get back to Athens to hear about that leg of our trip.
I hope you're enjoying the e-mails, and as always thanks for reading!
Yours, with very sore feet,
Lindsay
E-mail Three:
Hi y'all,
After I signed off last night the girls and I went to this fantastic (and fantastically inexpensive!) restaurant in the Plaka. The restaurant was called Damigos, and we never would have found it were it not for the power of Frommers. The restaurant is in a tiny little basement room, and has apparently been operating since 1865. We ordered a caraff of retsina and a series of appetizers including mashed fava beans, tomato balls, chickpea balls (essentially falafel), olives, fried eggplant strips, and this unbelievable garlic sauce that I'll probably be breathing for weeks. Everything was fresh and excellent, and it was a truly unique (and Greek) dining experience. The small size of the dining hall enabled us to converse with the other diners, and we had a rather lengthy conversation with an older couple from Boston. They've been travelling Greece for several weeks, and there experience is--to say the least--abnormal. They spent their first week in Greece on a boat cataloguing dolphins, and next week they're going to rent a sailboat and sail around the Greek islands.
After dinner we went back to the Acropolis, and seated ourselves on the rock outcropping. Again, beautiful, and after a number of failed photo attempts we simply sat and enjoyed the fantastic view(s). We went earlier, so the population was less couples making out and more tourists and groups of friends. One might say that we were living the dream: three friends, nighttime in Athens. The girls even got me to start laughing--quite a feat, considering I take myself far too seriously and tend to go all drill-sergeant crazy when art is involved. Of course the way the girls got me laughing was by making fun of my absolute inability to completely relax (so true. maybe I'll relax on Mykonos, but this is highly doubtful) and, well, that was that. I'm sure the other people at the look out thought we were insane, because we spent most of our time laughing our collective heads off.
Afterwards we went back to the Plaka in search of all-important dessert. We returned to the hostel armed with ice cream and a nutella baklava (the baklava was very soggy, but I don't much like baklava because it does not include chocolate, and everything should include chocolate). We wanted to have an early night, as we had to be ready to be picked up by the tour group at 7:00 this morning.
That doesn't necessarily mean I got much sleep. When I got back to my room around 11:00 I found that four of the six occupants were already asleep...and that they had closed the window. This wouldn't ordinarily be problematic, but the hostel is not air conditioned and the room was horribly stuffy. The previous night's snorer had left--only to be replaced by another girl, who also slept above me, and who also snored. I didn't want to put my ear plugs in because I was afraid I wouldn't hear my alarm clock, so I basically spent the night suffocating and being kept awake by a lovely chorus of snorting.
At least I (and the girls) took a nap on the bus on the way to Delphi. The bus picked us up at 7:30, but we drove around the city until around 9:00 collecting people from various hotels. We are, I believe, the youngest on the tour--at least, we're the youngest remaining. About two-thirds of the people on our bus only took the day trip to Delphi, so they're on their way back to Athens. I believe I slept through the ugly part of the drive--barren shrubbery and bland rock--because the latter half of the drive, through the mountains and toward Mount Parnassus, was absolutely spectacular. We don't have terrain in Florida, so I am always impressed by mountains. In the winter this area turns into a ski resort--except for this winter, which was unseasonably warm (big surprise) and lacking in snow. The drive to Delphi took about two and a half/three-ish hours.
We arrived at Delphi around 12:30, and the tour guide took us through the site. I actually received two tours--one in English and one in Italian, since there was an Italian couple on the tour that spoke no English. Nora and I were, as ever, excited to practice our Italian--since the only opportunity we've had so far was a fifty minute layover in Rome.
The Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi was considered, by the Ancient Greeks, to be the center of the world (omphalos). The mytholology states that Zeus wanted his son Apollo to have his own sanctuary. Zeus released two eagles at both ends of the world, and they met over Delphi--hence, the center of the world. There was constant construction on the site from about 700 BCE to 400 CE, when Christianity pushed out the pagan religion in Greece. The site was a pilgrimage location, but it was also the host to the Pythian Games, which was a festival that involved sports and artistic competitions. Apollo was the god of art, so the artistic component of the competition (poetry, songwriting, etc.) differentiated it from all other festivals in Greece. The Oracle of Delphi was actually three different women, each with the title of Pythia (essentially high priestess). Individuals could offer a sacrifice in Apollo's honor and then ask the priestess a question. It is thought that the priestesses probably breathed in some sort of substance which caused them to speak in tongues. The priests of the temple would then give the questioner his or her answer--and that answer was typically cryptic. The site was also the host to a number of treasuries, which held the numerous gifts sent in honor of Apollo. Also at the site are a theatre and a stadium. In the distance, lower on the slope, is an ancient tholos (a round, ritual building) and a temple of the goddess Athena.
The view from the sanctuary is absolutely breathtaking: mountains and ruins and clear blue sky. You enter the sanctuary in the agora, which was converted to a Christian church. Beyond the agora are the numerous treasuries, including the restored Athenian treasury. Beyond this is the entrance to the Temple of Apollo, which is now merely foundations and a few columns. The temple was not made of marble, as marble was very difficult to move to the top of the mountain. It is, instead, made of limestone. The best view of the temple is from above, where one can see the actual plan and imagine how the sanctuary looked in its prime. The site itself is fairly well preserved, and actually more affective than the Acropolis because it is not covered in scaffolding. If one continues to ascend the slope (and it is quite a steep ascent) one will find the temple and, much much much higher up, the stadium. The girls and I decided that we had to run through the stadium--because, well, it is a stadium, and it is Greece, and the stadium is old old old. So we had a mini-race, which culminated in Lindsey's victory and her screaming (in honor of the movie 300) "I AM SPARTA!!!" One of the woman on our trip, a solo traveller from Australia named Helen, caught the entire race on video--so our antics are definitely saved for posterity.
After climbing all the way up to the stadium (and yes we climbed and then we ran--I swear. I don't know how the ancient Greeks ran marathons or whatever after climbing all the way up the slope--additionally, they did sports naked. That sounds horribly uncomfortable) we returned down the slope to the museum. On the way down we were spoken to by a number of eleven year old Greek school children. Their english was beautiful--they barely had an accent--and they definitely put me to shame regarding my (lack of) language skills. The museum houses many of the gifts given to Apollo, as well as much of the decoration from the various treasuries and the Temple itself. The most notable piece, for me, were the Argos Twins, a set of Korei we covered in Barletta's class. It was rather a shock to see them--the slide we studied made them look tiny, but they're actually monumental. The rest of the museum was fragmentary decorative works--pediment sculpture, metope reliefs (including a fantastic set from the Athenian treasury chronicling the labors of Hercules and the story of Theseus) and the occasional statue. Unfortunately we were a bit rushed through the museum, but I feel that we were able to conquer the entire site (alla Sparta...?)
We then went for lunch with the tour group, and sat with Helen and a couple from Michigan who have done extensive travelling. The Michiganers offered a number of suggestions regarding Jewish heritage tours in Budapest and Prague, and gave me the address of the conservative synagogue in Prague. We're going to be in Prague on a Friday night, and Lindsey and I want to go to services. Helen, we learned, has travelled all over the world--she has never married, is a school teacher, and works only so she can travel. She is currently in the middle of an eleven week holiday, and she shows no signs of slowing down.
We were then dropped off at our hotel, which is in the modern village of Delphi. The village is set into the mountain top, and possesses winding streets and a fantastic view (however, it is clear that it is a tourist town...every other doorfront is a hotel). I did some (much-needed) laundry, and the girls wandered off to explore. I set off on my own to explore, and I found this internet cafe--and here I am. We have dinner at the hotel at 8:00, and are planning to meet back at the room at 6:00 in order to clean up before dinner. Tomorrow we have the morning free, so I think I might walk back to the site and venture down to the Temple of Athena--since we did not visit that area today. We are being picked up at 1:30 to go to the monasteries at Meteora, and will spend the night there. On Sunday, we return to Athens.
Hope everyone is well!
Cherete,
Lindsay
Hi all (and hi newcomers!)I'm writing you from Athens Backpackers Hostel in the heart of Athens, two minutes from the Acropolis, the Temple of Zeus Olympaious, Hadrian's Arch you get the idea etc. It's been a travel-filled few days, and because Nora and Lindsey are waiting for me I'm going to attempt to make this short. And maybe sweet.We arrived at the Ft. Lauderdale airport on Monday morning, and were dropped off by Nora's lovely parents (thanks again for letting me stay with you!) Our flight to Atlanta was uneventful, as was our flight from Atlanta to Barcelona. I caught up on some movies by watching Stranger Than Fiction (darling film) and selected scenes from Dreamgirls. Which means I just watched the musical numbers. And "And I am telling you, I'm not going." Four times. Okay maybe it was six. Additionally I was able to watch the first episode of Heroes (best show on television) which I have somehow never seen. So hooray for Delta and its world of entertainment choices--because of this, the eight hour flight went quickly. Also, we flew over the Pyrenees on our way into Barcelona. They were snow-capped and strange, and very beautiful--especially to someone who doesn't understand terrain. Or winter.We got into Barcelona, retrieved our checked luggage, and took a cab to our hotel. The hotel was located outside of the city and was picked primarily for location--we had a 6:30 flight the next day. So Tuesday we primarily chilled. We checked into our hotel, which was sort of a modernist/minimalist/glass and wood and dark stone classy sort of place. We trekked to a nearby mall (yes, mall) and had some lunch--and no, mother, I did not explore the mall, sorry. Afterwards we wandered back to the hotel. The girls wanted to lay out by the pool, and somehow they convinced me to overcome my inherent fear of daytime and sunlight. So after much SPF45 we "chilled" by the pool. I think "laid out" is the proper term, but I don't think it really worked--my skin is still a shade away from translucent and it still reflects light. This is what I get for my vampiric tendencies...>.. D(["mb","..u003cbr /..>Because we had a 6:30 flight and because we were jet-lagged and exhausted we decided to go to bed at...6:00. In the evening. So waking up at 3:30 was not such a shock, thank goodness. We took Alitalia from Barcelona to Rome, and then made a connection from Rome to Athens. For some reason they did not let us bring our rather enormous backpacks on the plane (Delta had) but there was no problem with retrieval. We took the Metro from the airport into the center of town, and easily found our hostel. So far our travels have been remarkably stress-free...and hopefully I did not just jinx myself. Oi...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>The hostel is a hostel--co-ed rooms, shared bathrooms, bunk beds. Everyone is remarkably friendly. We..'re actually split up--I..'m in one room, and Lindsey and Nora are in the adjacent room. Right now there are two older men in my room--a Californian named Jeff, and a man from Thailand named Wince (I think). But everyone is extremely friendly, extremely helpful...there was sharing of makeup and flat irons and travel stories. I..'ve met some Canadians. Etc. So I..'m looking forward to staying here for a few days...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>After settling in and unpacking a few things we set out to find some lunch and to begin seeing the city. We found remarkably cheap, rather delicious gyros (which french fries in them. I guess nothing is bad with french fries in them...) and then worked our way toward the Acropolis. Along the way we stopped in the Roman Forum, which features the first century B.C.E. Tower of the Winds, is bordered by a an old Ottoman theological school, and also holds what were the Roman public latrines. Make of that what you will. We kept walking toward the Acropolis, climbing upward past the nursery for the children of municipal workers (very colorful) and eventually coming to a fence that overlooked the Greek Agora. And the Hephaistaion, the Temple of Hephaistos that looks very squat when compared to the graceful Parthenon. This is due to the use of entasis, a method the architect of the Parthenon employed to give the optical illusion of delicacy. The Hephaistaion, which I have now only seen an aerial view of (actually, the same aerial view Dr. Barletta showed us in class) does not imply entasis. And it shows. But it is very, very, very well preserved...u003cbr /..>",1] ); //-->..> Because we had a 6:30 flight and because we were jet-lagged and exhausted we decided to go to bed at...6:00. In the evening. So waking up at 3:30 was not such a shock, thank goodness. We took Alitalia from Barcelona to Rome, and then made a connection from Rome to Athens. For some reason they did not let us bring our rather enormous backpacks on the plane (Delta had) but there was no problem with retrieval. We took the Metro from the airport into the center of town, and easily found our hostel. So far our travels have been remarkably stress-free...and hopefully I did not just jinx myself. Oi.The hostel is a hostel--co-ed rooms, shared bathrooms, bunk beds. Everyone is remarkably friendly. We're actually split up--I'm in one room, and Lindsey and Nora are in the adjacent room. Right now there are two older men in my room--a Californian named Jeff, and a man from Thailand named Wince (I think). But everyone is extremely friendly, extremely helpful...there was sharing of makeup and flat irons and travel stories. I've met some Canadians. Etc. So I'm looking forward to staying here for a few days.After settling in and unpacking a few things we set out to find some lunch and to begin seeing the city. We found remarkably cheap, rather delicious gyros (which french fries in them. I guess nothing is bad with french fries in them...) and then worked our way toward the Acropolis. Along the way we stopped in the Roman Forum, which features the first century B.C.E. Tower of the Winds, is bordered by a an old Ottoman theological school, and also holds what were the Roman public latrines. Make of that what you will. We kept walking toward the Acropolis, climbing upward past the nursery for the children of municipal workers (very colorful) and eventually coming to a fence that overlooked the Greek Agora. And the Hephaistaion, the Temple of Hephaistos that looks very squat when compared to the graceful Parthenon. This is due to the use of entasis, a method the architect of the Parthenon employed to give the optical illusion of delicacy. The Hephaistaion, which I have now only seen an aerial view of (actually, the same aerial view Dr. Barletta showed us in class) does not imply entasis. And it shows. But it is very, very, very well preserved...>.. D(["mb","..u003cbr /..>So we kept climbing the Acropolis. I believe we accidentally took the back way, but it enabled us to see many little, nondescript ruins and shrines and some cave that was dedicated to Wood Nymphs (I made the girls pose at wood nymphs, I don..'t think they were amused). We passed by the Theatre of Dionysus (beautiful, with a precursor to the stage that was ringed by reliefs) and the modern-day outdoor Athenian theatre which, I believe, was a Roman theatre...? There were arches, I..'m just guessing...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>So after much wandering and wrong turns and small archaeological treasures we finally (!!!) made it to the Acropolis. Unfortunately the two entrance structures, the Propylaia and the Temple of Nike, are under renovation. The Propylaia was covered with scaffolding, and the Temple of Nike is completely destructured--they..'re piecing it back together to better balance the building. The Propylaia, however, was magnificent despite the scaffolding--the entrance to the Acropolis, a rather botched attempt at symmetry. One room was an ancient art gallery, and the other--shortened by geographical confines--was a rather awkward receiving room. Once you walk through the Propylaia you are greeted with the Eryctheion to your left, and the fantastically unbelievably looming large famous Parthenon to your right. The Parthenon was also under renovation. It didn..'t matter. This was something I have studied in so many classes...in the sixth grade I made a to-scale model of the Acropolis from clay (my mother threw it out) and lord knows I covered the Acropolis and the Parthenon in A.P. Art History and Dr. Barletta..'s gauntlet of a class (she..'s really a lovely woman, I..'d enjoy having tea and crustless sandwiches with her, but her tests are a misery). Seeing the Parthenon is simply unbelievable--like seeing the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum. It is simply so famous that you can hardly believe you are seeing it...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>The structure is a masterwork of architecture--but it is very badly damaged. Of course Lord Elgin took off with much of the pediment sculptures and the friezes, but even now a lot of the metope work is being removed, put in museums, and replaced with replicas because the Athenian smog keeps eating away at the marble. The Acropolis was fairly peaceful--we got there around 4:30, and there realy weren..'t that many tourists, so it was lovely to have the area mostly to ourselves. The Eryctheion is also beautiful, especially the patio with the caryatids (replicas. Four of the original are in the Acropolis Museum, one in London, and one has vanished). The Temple was dedicated to an ancient king of Athens and built on the supposed site where Poseidon struck the soil during the contest to see who would be the Patron God/Goddess of Athens. Athena, of course, won. The Parthenon is her temple. Once it held an enormous statue of her, made of gold and ivory and designed by Phidias. The statue is no longer existent, but a copy exists in the National Archaeological Museum (we..'re going there tomorrow)...u003cbr /..>",1] ); //-->..> So we kept climbing the Acropolis. I believe we accidentally took the back way, but it enabled us to see many little, nondescript ruins and shrines and some cave that was dedicated to Wood Nymphs (I made the girls pose at wood nymphs, I don't think they were amused). We passed by the Theatre of Dionysus (beautiful, with a precursor to the stage that was ringed by reliefs) and the modern-day outdoor Athenian theatre which, I believe, was a Roman theatre...? There were arches, I'm just guessing.So after much wandering and wrong turns and small archaeological treasures we finally (!!!) made it to the Acropolis. Unfortunately the two entrance structures, the Propylaia and the Temple of Nike, are under renovation. The Propylaia was covered with scaffolding, and the Temple of Nike is completely destructured--they're piecing it back together to better balance the building. The Propylaia, however, was magnificent despite the scaffolding--the entrance to the Acropolis, a rather botched attempt at symmetry. One room was an ancient art gallery, and the other--shortened by geographical confines--was a rather awkward receiving room. Once you walk through the Propylaia you are greeted with the Eryctheion to your left, and the fantastically unbelievably looming large famous Parthenon to your right. The Parthenon was also under renovation. It didn't matter. This was something I have studied in so many classes...in the sixth grade I made a to-scale model of the Acropolis from clay (my mother threw it out) and lord knows I covered the Acropolis and the Parthenon in A.P. Art History and Dr. Barletta's gauntlet of a class (she's really a lovely woman, I'd enjoy having tea and crustless sandwiches with her, but her tests are a misery). Seeing the Parthenon is simply unbelievable--like seeing the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum. It is simply so famous that you can hardly believe you are seeing it.The structure is a masterwork of architecture--but it is very badly damaged. Of course Lord Elgin took off with much of the pediment sculptures and the friezes, but even now a lot of the metope work is being removed, put in museums, and replaced with replicas because the Athenian smog keeps eating away at the marble. The Acropolis was fairly peaceful--we got there around 4:30, and there realy weren't that many tourists, so it was lovely to have the area mostly to ourselves. The Eryctheion is also beautiful, especially the patio with the caryatids (replicas. Four of the original are in the Acropolis Museum, one in London, and one has vanished). The Temple was dedicated to an ancient king of Athens and built on the supposed site where Poseidon struck the soil during the contest to see who would be the Patron God/Goddess of Athens. Athena, of course, won. The Parthenon is her temple. Once it held an enormous statue of her, made of gold and ivory and designed by Phidias. The statue is no longer existent, but a copy exists in the National Archaeological Museum (we're going there tomorrow)...>.. D(["mb","..u003cbr /..>We also went to the Acropolis museum, which has some of the decorations from the acropolis and many kouroi and korae (attic male and female statues) including the Peplos Kourae, which Barletta tested us on (she..'s named for her garment, which is called a peplos). After we finished in the museum we went to a lookout point at the eastern end of the Acropolis, and attempted to orient ourselves to the city. Additionally, many pictures were taken (I..'m sure you can imagine) and we discussed politics with a man who I believe was...maybe Austrian? I have no idea. I also (somehow) found myself lecturing a group of American tourists on the Elgin marbles on our way out...then it turned into a conversation on the Greek War of Independence...and, well, that was that. Nora and I both praised our AP European History exam for teaching us about the Greeks..' struggle against the Turks. Good times...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>We walked down the Acropolis mount around 6:00, and wound our way back to the Plaka (the area of town in which we are staying). We stopped and split some fantastic dessert crepes for a snack, and then went and saw the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian..'s Arch. The Temple of Zeus was a sort of ongoing project that was completed by the Roman emperor Hadrian, and today it is a series of spectacularly tall columns, including one dramatically toppled column. The columns are ornate and Corinthian. The park in which the temple stands was mostly empty--so, again, the area was peaceful and vaguely eerie. The nearby Hadrian..'s arch was sort of Hadrian..'s way of marking his territory. One side says something about how Athens was once Theseus..' city. The other, however, says that Theseus don..'t live here no mo..' and that Athens is now the property of Hadrian. Hadrian liked to build things. Hadrian was also a megalomaniac. So the temple and the arch are not surprising, considering the amount of building he did in Rome...u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>So now we..'re back at the hostel. We..'ve showered, changed, and are soon going to go out and grab some dinner, and maybe experience a bit of nighttime Athens. So far Athens has charmed me--people are friendly, the city is fairly easy to navigate, the the ancient sites are simply unbelievable. Especially the Acropolis. It is amazing to be able to look up and see the Acropolis silhouetted in the distance, or gleaming white in the midday sun...just...fantastic. The art historian in me is positively giddy...u003cbr /..>",1] ); //-->..> We also went to the Acropolis museum, which has some of the decorations from the acropolis and many kouroi and korae (attic male and female statues) including the Peplos Kourae, which Barletta tested us on (she's named for her garment, which is called a peplos). After we finished in the museum we went to a lookout point at the eastern end of the Acropolis, and attempted to orient ourselves to the city. Additionally, many pictures were taken (I'm sure you can imagine) and we discussed politics with a man who I believe was...maybe Austrian? I have no idea. I also (somehow) found myself lecturing a group of American tourists on the Elgin marbles on our way out...then it turned into a conversation on the Greek War of Independence...and, well, that was that. Nora and I both praised our AP European History exam for teaching us about the Greeks' struggle against the Turks. Good times.We walked down the Acropolis mount around 6:00, and wound our way back to the Plaka (the area of town in which we are staying). We stopped and split some fantastic dessert crepes for a snack, and then went and saw the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Arch. The Temple of Zeus was a sort of ongoing project that was completed by the Roman emperor Hadrian, and today it is a series of spectacularly tall columns, including one dramatically toppled column. The columns are ornate and Corinthian. The park in which the temple stands was mostly empty--so, again, the area was peaceful and vaguely eerie. The nearby Hadrian's arch was sort of Hadrian's way of marking his territory. One side says something about how Athens was once Theseus' city. The other, however, says that Theseus don't live here no mo' and that Athens is now the property of Hadrian. Hadrian liked to build things. Hadrian was also a megalomaniac. So the temple and the arch are not surprising, considering the amount of building he did in Rome.So now we're back at the hostel. We've showered, changed, and are soon going to go out and grab some dinner, and maybe experience a bit of nighttime Athens. So far Athens has charmed me--people are friendly, the city is fairly easy to navigate, the the ancient sites are simply unbelievable. Especially the Acropolis. It is amazing to be able to look up and see the Acropolis silhouetted in the distance, or gleaming white in the midday sun...just...fantastic. The art historian in me is positively giddy...>.. D(["mb","..u003cbr /..>Tomorrow we..'ll probably do the National Archaeological Museum (Mask of Agammemnon!!! Vaphio Cups!!!) and explore the city a bit more. Hopefully we..'ll meet some interesting/fun/etc. individuals in the hostel with whom to explore the city. But for now, dinner and night life. I..'ll attempt to update again before we head off to Delphi and Central Greece!..u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>I hope that y..'all are well!..u003cbr /..>..u003cbr /..>Efcharisto for reading (thank you being the only Greek word I know...),..u003cbr /..>Lindsay..u003cbr /..>..u003c/span..>..u003c/div..>",0] ); D(["ce"]); //-->..> Tomorrow we'll probably do the National Archaeological Museum (Mask of Agammemnon!!! Vaphio Cups!!!) and explore the city a bit more. Hopefully we'll meet some interesting/fun/etc. individuals in the hostel with whom to explore the city. But for now, dinner and night life. I'll attempt to update again before we head off to Delphi and Central Greece!I hope that y'all are well!Efcharisto for reading (thank you being the only Greek word I know...),Lindsay
E-mail Two:
Yassas from Athens,
After I left y'all last night adventurous things happened--primarily dinner and socialization with the people in the hostel. Everyone here is extremely friendly, and mostly English speaking. I met several Canadians (including two medical residents named Dave and Namdar) an Australian named Felicity who has been tooling around the world at random for almost two years, and a Peace Corps member from San Francisco named Joey, who is currently teaching English to students in Albania. At one point during the socializing someone made the suggestion of going to see the Acropolis at night, so a number of us trekked out to this look-out point on the west end of the Acropolis. The look out point is actually a rock outcropping that has a set of stairs leading up to it. After the stairs you are on your own--the rocks are a little precarious, but one can get by with a little help. We were not alone on the look-out--it was populated with couples making out, groups talking, and a small circle of (I think) Spanish people playing guitar. It was charming--until the guitar player decided to play Metallica's "Fade to Black." Not so good at that point...
...but the view! Ohmygoodness absolutely breathtaking. The Acropolis is lit in full splendor on your right, and the Greek Agora and the Hephastaion are sprawled out in front of you. Beyond that is modern Athens, busy and twinkling and vaguely ugly--but the juxtaposition of Classical and Modern is simply marvelous. The way the Acropolis is lit enables one to imagine ancient priests wandering through the ruins, performing their rituals in honor of Athena while the rest of the crowd sleeps below. The girls and I might head back to the rock tonight, since we have an early day tomorrow and want to have an early night. I figure dinner and nighttime sightseeing is definitely in order.
We returned to the hotel after taking in the view, and were so exhausted (since we'd been up almost twenty-four hours) we went straight to sleep. Until I was awakened, at 5:30 in the morning, by the loudest most horrendous snoring I'd ever heard in my life. It was coming from the bunk directly above mine and it was simply dreadful. It only got worse when the snorer's alarm went off--and then she hit the snooze--and then the alarm went off again--and then she hit the snooze again...and finally after four cycles of this I told the snorer to turn the alarm off, because keeping your roommates up via the snooze alarm is not proper etiquette. After this I smartened up--I shoved earplugs in my ears and became dead to the world.
We slept in until around 10:00, and got breakfast at the hostel. Then we dressed and set out for the National Archaeological Museum, which possesses a breathtaking amount of art from the Minoan, Mycenaean, and Cycladic cultures, as well as art from early Greece through Hellenism. The Museum is undergoing extensive renovations, but its main wings and the highlights of the collection were still intact. The Mycenaean collection is spectacular--almost all of what Heinrich Schliemmann uprooted from Grave Circles A and B in Mycenae. Most of the artifacts were gold. Some of the highlights were the very famous (but improperly named) Mask of Agamemnon, several knives with inlaid scenes of animals and nature, and the bull's head rhyton. Also in this first wing were the Vaphio Cups (on which Dr. Barletta spent an inordinate amount of time in class--actually, the entire museum was basically Barletta's class, in the flesh) and a fantastic vase with Minoan sea motifs in the form of an Octopus.
After the first wing we were stopped for lunch in a local cafe, and ate in the park outside of the museum. We then tackled the rest of the first floor, which was sculpture. And lots of sculpture. You start on your left, with Korei and Kouros, and work your way through the years. The museum has a number of famous works, including the Diadoumenos ("The Scraper") by the sculptor Polykleitos and the bronze sculpture of Poseidon/Zeus (no one knows which, and the debate over whether the figure held a lightning bolt or a triton still rages).
Once we finished the sculpture section we were rather exhausted, but determined to tackle the rest of the museum: the second floor with the enormous ceramics exhibit. I will be entirely honest: after seeing hundreds of vases, one gets a little bored. But there were some absolutely spectacular pieces (that Barletta had featured in her class, of course) including the gorgeous Perseus Beheading Medusa by the Nessos painter and several large amphorae from the Kerameikos cemetary, featuring stylized humans and geometrical motifs.
The museum collection is, quite possibly, unsurpassed in terms of quality. But there is, of course, a lot of what my mother calls "stuff." But it's worth weeding through the "stuff" to find the (sometimes quite literal) gold, and the museum was well worth the trek and the aching feet.
After we finished in the museum we headed back to the hostel, to freshen up a bit (and to allow me to grab some blister gear). Afterwarsd we headed into the Plaka (the central part of town and where we are staying) for a bit of ice cream and shopping (yay shopping). We had our ice cream in a lovely park, and lingered there for awhile because, well, shade and ice cream are excellent. We then shopped about for a bit, and at one point I took off from the girls, saying I'd meet them at the hostel at 6:30.
My solo walk started out innocently enough. And then I took a wrong turn. And then, somehow, I was horribly lost. It was rather bizarre, in that I thought I'd figured out the Plaka, but no. So I wandered about for around an hour, figuring I'd get back to the hostel eventually. Along the way I passed a number of fantastic old churches, including an enormous Greek Orthodox church that was (unfortunately) undergoing extensive renovations. I popped my head in--the church was spectacular, all Byzantine motifs and iconography. And a priest with an enormous beard, but these things do happen.
So after around an hour of wandering I decided I should ask for directions. The hostel is right by the Metro stop for the Acropolis, so I asked how to get to that station. I was, instead, directed to Syntagma Square (the plaza in front of the Greek Parliament). So I trekked to Syntagma Square...and luckily there was a Metro there. I was tired of wandering about. I took the metro back to the hotel--and no, that isn't lazy, my feet were killing me!
And here I am. I'm cleaned up and ready for the evening, and the girls are upstairs dressing for dinner. We think we're going to attempt a restaurant we read about in a guide book, which primarily serves mezdezes (I butchered the spelling, but essentially that's Greek for tapas) and supposedly has a fantastic garlic based sauce. And afterwards I think I'll try to convince the girls to make another nighttime visit to the Acropolis. Tomorrow we leave at 7:30 in the morning on a guided tour (we're so relieved to not have to make any decisions, deciding things is exhausting, goodness) through Central Greece. We'll be seeing Delphi, Thermopylae, Meteora, and several villages in the area. The tour is about three days, and I'm not sure if I'll be wired during the interim--so you may have to wait until I get back to Athens to hear about that leg of our trip.
I hope you're enjoying the e-mails, and as always thanks for reading!
Yours, with very sore feet,
Lindsay
E-mail Three:
Hi y'all,
After I signed off last night the girls and I went to this fantastic (and fantastically inexpensive!) restaurant in the Plaka. The restaurant was called Damigos, and we never would have found it were it not for the power of Frommers. The restaurant is in a tiny little basement room, and has apparently been operating since 1865. We ordered a caraff of retsina and a series of appetizers including mashed fava beans, tomato balls, chickpea balls (essentially falafel), olives, fried eggplant strips, and this unbelievable garlic sauce that I'll probably be breathing for weeks. Everything was fresh and excellent, and it was a truly unique (and Greek) dining experience. The small size of the dining hall enabled us to converse with the other diners, and we had a rather lengthy conversation with an older couple from Boston. They've been travelling Greece for several weeks, and there experience is--to say the least--abnormal. They spent their first week in Greece on a boat cataloguing dolphins, and next week they're going to rent a sailboat and sail around the Greek islands.
After dinner we went back to the Acropolis, and seated ourselves on the rock outcropping. Again, beautiful, and after a number of failed photo attempts we simply sat and enjoyed the fantastic view(s). We went earlier, so the population was less couples making out and more tourists and groups of friends. One might say that we were living the dream: three friends, nighttime in Athens. The girls even got me to start laughing--quite a feat, considering I take myself far too seriously and tend to go all drill-sergeant crazy when art is involved. Of course the way the girls got me laughing was by making fun of my absolute inability to completely relax (so true. maybe I'll relax on Mykonos, but this is highly doubtful) and, well, that was that. I'm sure the other people at the look out thought we were insane, because we spent most of our time laughing our collective heads off.
Afterwards we went back to the Plaka in search of all-important dessert. We returned to the hostel armed with ice cream and a nutella baklava (the baklava was very soggy, but I don't much like baklava because it does not include chocolate, and everything should include chocolate). We wanted to have an early night, as we had to be ready to be picked up by the tour group at 7:00 this morning.
That doesn't necessarily mean I got much sleep. When I got back to my room around 11:00 I found that four of the six occupants were already asleep...and that they had closed the window. This wouldn't ordinarily be problematic, but the hostel is not air conditioned and the room was horribly stuffy. The previous night's snorer had left--only to be replaced by another girl, who also slept above me, and who also snored. I didn't want to put my ear plugs in because I was afraid I wouldn't hear my alarm clock, so I basically spent the night suffocating and being kept awake by a lovely chorus of snorting.
At least I (and the girls) took a nap on the bus on the way to Delphi. The bus picked us up at 7:30, but we drove around the city until around 9:00 collecting people from various hotels. We are, I believe, the youngest on the tour--at least, we're the youngest remaining. About two-thirds of the people on our bus only took the day trip to Delphi, so they're on their way back to Athens. I believe I slept through the ugly part of the drive--barren shrubbery and bland rock--because the latter half of the drive, through the mountains and toward Mount Parnassus, was absolutely spectacular. We don't have terrain in Florida, so I am always impressed by mountains. In the winter this area turns into a ski resort--except for this winter, which was unseasonably warm (big surprise) and lacking in snow. The drive to Delphi took about two and a half/three-ish hours.
We arrived at Delphi around 12:30, and the tour guide took us through the site. I actually received two tours--one in English and one in Italian, since there was an Italian couple on the tour that spoke no English. Nora and I were, as ever, excited to practice our Italian--since the only opportunity we've had so far was a fifty minute layover in Rome.
The Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi was considered, by the Ancient Greeks, to be the center of the world (omphalos). The mytholology states that Zeus wanted his son Apollo to have his own sanctuary. Zeus released two eagles at both ends of the world, and they met over Delphi--hence, the center of the world. There was constant construction on the site from about 700 BCE to 400 CE, when Christianity pushed out the pagan religion in Greece. The site was a pilgrimage location, but it was also the host to the Pythian Games, which was a festival that involved sports and artistic competitions. Apollo was the god of art, so the artistic component of the competition (poetry, songwriting, etc.) differentiated it from all other festivals in Greece. The Oracle of Delphi was actually three different women, each with the title of Pythia (essentially high priestess). Individuals could offer a sacrifice in Apollo's honor and then ask the priestess a question. It is thought that the priestesses probably breathed in some sort of substance which caused them to speak in tongues. The priests of the temple would then give the questioner his or her answer--and that answer was typically cryptic. The site was also the host to a number of treasuries, which held the numerous gifts sent in honor of Apollo. Also at the site are a theatre and a stadium. In the distance, lower on the slope, is an ancient tholos (a round, ritual building) and a temple of the goddess Athena.
The view from the sanctuary is absolutely breathtaking: mountains and ruins and clear blue sky. You enter the sanctuary in the agora, which was converted to a Christian church. Beyond the agora are the numerous treasuries, including the restored Athenian treasury. Beyond this is the entrance to the Temple of Apollo, which is now merely foundations and a few columns. The temple was not made of marble, as marble was very difficult to move to the top of the mountain. It is, instead, made of limestone. The best view of the temple is from above, where one can see the actual plan and imagine how the sanctuary looked in its prime. The site itself is fairly well preserved, and actually more affective than the Acropolis because it is not covered in scaffolding. If one continues to ascend the slope (and it is quite a steep ascent) one will find the temple and, much much much higher up, the stadium. The girls and I decided that we had to run through the stadium--because, well, it is a stadium, and it is Greece, and the stadium is old old old. So we had a mini-race, which culminated in Lindsey's victory and her screaming (in honor of the movie 300) "I AM SPARTA!!!" One of the woman on our trip, a solo traveller from Australia named Helen, caught the entire race on video--so our antics are definitely saved for posterity.
After climbing all the way up to the stadium (and yes we climbed and then we ran--I swear. I don't know how the ancient Greeks ran marathons or whatever after climbing all the way up the slope--additionally, they did sports naked. That sounds horribly uncomfortable) we returned down the slope to the museum. On the way down we were spoken to by a number of eleven year old Greek school children. Their english was beautiful--they barely had an accent--and they definitely put me to shame regarding my (lack of) language skills. The museum houses many of the gifts given to Apollo, as well as much of the decoration from the various treasuries and the Temple itself. The most notable piece, for me, were the Argos Twins, a set of Korei we covered in Barletta's class. It was rather a shock to see them--the slide we studied made them look tiny, but they're actually monumental. The rest of the museum was fragmentary decorative works--pediment sculpture, metope reliefs (including a fantastic set from the Athenian treasury chronicling the labors of Hercules and the story of Theseus) and the occasional statue. Unfortunately we were a bit rushed through the museum, but I feel that we were able to conquer the entire site (alla Sparta...?)
We then went for lunch with the tour group, and sat with Helen and a couple from Michigan who have done extensive travelling. The Michiganers offered a number of suggestions regarding Jewish heritage tours in Budapest and Prague, and gave me the address of the conservative synagogue in Prague. We're going to be in Prague on a Friday night, and Lindsey and I want to go to services. Helen, we learned, has travelled all over the world--she has never married, is a school teacher, and works only so she can travel. She is currently in the middle of an eleven week holiday, and she shows no signs of slowing down.
We were then dropped off at our hotel, which is in the modern village of Delphi. The village is set into the mountain top, and possesses winding streets and a fantastic view (however, it is clear that it is a tourist town...every other doorfront is a hotel). I did some (much-needed) laundry, and the girls wandered off to explore. I set off on my own to explore, and I found this internet cafe--and here I am. We have dinner at the hotel at 8:00, and are planning to meet back at the room at 6:00 in order to clean up before dinner. Tomorrow we have the morning free, so I think I might walk back to the site and venture down to the Temple of Athena--since we did not visit that area today. We are being picked up at 1:30 to go to the monasteries at Meteora, and will spend the night there. On Sunday, we return to Athens.
Hope everyone is well!
Cherete,
Lindsay
E-mail Four:
Yassas etc.,
So this is going to be a long e-mail y'all because I haven't updated in about forty-eight hours (imagine that, I'm surprised I don't have the shakes). We're back in Athens after finishing our mini-tour of Central Greece, so I'll fill you in on what has occurred in the interim.
After I signed off Friday night I wandered the main street of the village of Delphi, and walked along the road until I could view the Sanctuary of Apollo. Below me were rows of olive trees, and in front of me the Parnassus mountain range, so I lingered there and enjoyed the view until I had to meet the girls at our hotel. We relaxed and dressed for dinner, and then we had dinner with the tour group at a local taverna. We invited Helen, the single Australian school teacher, to join us--and she sort of became our informal fourth for the trip. She's a charming woman who lives for travel and who gave us tons of insider backpacker tips. Dinner ended around 10:00-ish, I'd say, at which point the girls and I were left with the dilemma of what to do with our evening.
Well, there isn't too much to do at night in Delphi, we discovered. We traipsed up and down the main street, were drawn back into the taverna in which we'd eaten dinner by the lure of the owner's pet hedgehog (weird little creature that curled in on itself but absolutely cute) and then we were drawn into a discotheque that was playing Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." What a bizarre experience this was. The scene was reminiscent of middle school dances, and the discotheque was populated by a group of sixteen-year old European kids and a group of 18 year-old American girls from a Catholic school in Indiana. The girls claimed that they were twenty-one but they were clearly lying. So we stood around and giggled at the scene and harassed the kids by jumping in the middle of their dance circles and "breaking it down." And then we left. After maybe half an hour. Delphi discotheque equals lame.
We decided to walk to the edge of town to see if the ruins were lit at night; they were not, but the stars were quite alight. Once you got a block or two from the main street of Delphi you could see an amazing spectrum of stars. We lingered there for about fifteen minutes, then headed back to the hotel and to sleep.
The next morning we woke up, hit up the breakfast buffet, and returned to the ruins to explore the Sanctuary of Athena, which is
lower down the slope of Mount Parnassus from the Sanctuary of Apollo. The site is even more ruined than the Sanctuary of Apollo. The tholos ( a circular building used for a ritual purpose--except no one knows what that ritual was ) has been partially reconstructed. Additionally, there is a well-preserved stadium that is blanketed in lilac-colored wild flowers. On our way back to the village of Delphi we passed a spring that had, once upon a time, been thought to have given "divine inspiration" to poets who drank from the waters. The spring, however, is no longer accessible--so I had to do without my divine inspiration for the day.
We spent the rest of the morning getting dressed for what would, essentially, be a day on a bus. We were transporting from Delphi to Meteora, about a three and a half hour drive. We grabbed lunch in the village and were picked up at our hotel at 1:20 promptly. At this point our group had changed--about two-thirds of the group had left the day before, and now we were combined with a smaller four-day tour group that had seen Olympia and Delphi. Highlights of the bus were the Canadian couple with a remarkably well-behaved five month old baby named James (who became the unofficial mascot for the bus), a drunk Australian named Charlie, an American-transport named Carolann who lives in New Zealand, and--and this one is super strange so pay attention MOTHER--a University of Florida professor. I am not lying. The Professor is named William Harrison. He teaches chemistry, and he was travelling with his wife Juanita We didn't meet them until we were at the monastery of the Great Meteoran at Meteora, but we were sure to express our pleasure at the fact that the Gator Nation is, indeed, everywhere. Also, we took a few pictures for documentation.
The ride from Delphi to Meteora was about two hours of winding mountain (awful, so I slept through most of it to avoid the inevitable diziness) followed by a long drive through the plain of Thessaly. When I was sixteen I was obsessed with a graphic novel series by Neil Gaiman. The series was called The Sandman, and one of the recurring characters was an 8,000 year old practitioner of black magic. The woman went by various names, including Thessaly and Larissa ( one of the main cities in the area of Thessaly). It was revealed that she'd been a powerful witch in the early days of Greece, and that she was from the area of Thessaly. Well I never thought I'd actually see where Larissa-Thessaly was from; I kept thinking of her as we drove through the area--which was rather flat, fairly dull, and apparently has the ability to become the hottest point in Europe during the summer. The plains were, on occasion, broken by fields of perfectly red, perfectly beautiful poppies. This breed of wild poppy, we were told, will not "put you to sleep." The opium-infused poppies are a lilac or a white, and are much bigger than the (in my opinion far prettier) wild poppies.
On our way to where we were staying (not actually in Meteora, but in the nearby village of Kalambaka) we stopped at an icon workshop to learn about how Orthodox icons were made. Icons are purely Orthodox works--not present in Catholicism--and they have a strange stylization to them. They are usually in a full frontal pose, and are often decorated with gold leaf. The workshop is headed by a monk who has been written about in National Geographic (but I cannot for the life of me remember his name) and we were given a very brief description of the process of icon making by several women. I try to look at iconography as art objects, but it is difficult when the pictures are so blatantly of Jesus or Mary or a martyr. Still, the colors and facial features of the individuals rendered are so expressive that it is impossible to be emotionally disinterested. What I also found intriguing (and also a little ironic) is that the icon workshop silk screens many less expensive works. Andy Warhol and the icon much? I think so.
After our brief tour we went to our hotels--and there we learned that they'd made a slight mix-up with our bookings. But it was a fortunate little mix-up--they booked up into three singles rather than three of us in one room. Since we did not have to pay a single's supplement, we decided to accept a night of privacy and happily spread out in our various hotel rooms.
Dinner was at eight in the hotel--fairly nondescript, and we dined with Carolann and two women from Australia. A side note: Australians absolutely dominated on this tour, and I find that I now say certain words with a slight Australian accent. This is not a recent phenomena: when I went to camp Ramah in Georgia, a girl from Alabama lived with my cabin. By the end of the summer I was drawling like I'd lived in Birmingham my entire life.
After dinner the girls and I explored the main street of Kalambaka. The town reminded me of a slightly less tacky Gatlinberg--that is, no one goes to the town for the town itself, it is an embarkation point for inaccessible places. The town was charming in several aspects, however, most notably the series of small plazas with fountains. Mostly, though, the town was restaurants, shops, and leering Greek men. I actually find that Greek men leer more than Italian men--or maybe it is simply that Italian men are more attractive, and therefore I do not mind if they leer. That's my brief rant regarding Greek men.
So after wandering the town, and finding little to do, we returned to our respective hotel rooms. We had an early wake-up the next morning, because we were setting out for the monasteries of the Meteora. Meteroa is Greek for meteor or moon. The Meteora are a series of bizarre, almost extra-terrestrial looking rock formations that rise out of the middle of the flat plain of Thessaly. Geologists aren't precisely certain how the formations arose--some thing that they are alluvial deposits from an inner sea. In approximately 1100 C.E., monks who were uber-ascetic moved to the caves of the Meteora to, quite literally, escape from the world. Soon, monasteries and convents began to sprout on the forbidding rocks of the Meteora. No one knows how anyone built anything atop the rocks--the cliffs are very inaccessible. Stairs were added only in the last century--and even these stairs are steep and a little alarmign to climb. At one point, around 1400 or 1500, about 44 monastic communities existed at Meteora. Today there are only six functional communities that accept visitors. We visited two: The Great Meteoran (the oldest and largest of the remaining communities) and the community of Saint Stephen (a convent).
The drive through the Meteora was precarious--I was positive the bus was going to tip over a cliff. Thankfully we did not, and we reached the Great Meteoran in one piece. The Great Meteoran is the secular name for the Church, which is actually called the Church of the Transfiguration. One reaches the monastery by climbing stairs that go down one very steep hill and up another very steep hill. As we were travelling we saw the pulley system by which the monks get supplies. Apparently people used to be moved via the pulley system--but I'd rather not think about that. The Great Meteoran has a beautiful cruciform (circle-within-a-square, the traditional Orthodox church design) church decorated by frescoes that are attributed to Theophanes the Greek. When the guide told us this I did a little hop, because Theophanes the Greek was the tutor of the Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev (best movie ever. see it. really. it is life altering/affirming/etc.) The frescoes in the nave of the church represented Jesus and the saints, as well as scenes from Jesus' life. The narthex is decorated with scenes representing the martyrdom of the saints--particularly bloody scenes, actually, including one of a saint who was spewing blood from his headless neck. Very Kill Bill.
The monastery has fantastic views of the Meteora and the convent Rousseron (or...R-something...don't remember the name precisely, but it was very pretty). It has a museum with old icons, and preserved exhibits of the old refectory, kitchen, and wine cellar (because some things simply cannot be given up). There was also an ossuary, filled with skulls and bones...and an orange fanta bottle. I'm not kidding.
After we finished at the Great Meteoran we drove to the convent of Saint Stephanos (Saint Stephen) and did a very-quick walk through. The convent has two churches--a nineteenth-century chapel covered in frescoes and a chapel that was badly damaged during World War II. The nuns are attempting to restore the frescoes in that chapel. The convent also has a number of beautiful rose gardens--just fantastically colored, gorgeously cultivated roses. We only had a half an hour at the convent, but it was considerably smaller than the Great Meteoran. It did, however, have many little nuns flitting about. They ran the gift shop. They offered candles to light. They sat in a booth, watching security cameras (hilarious). The Meteora was definitely a site worth the shlep--the monastic communities seem to spring from the rock, and the juxtaposition of the natural, bare rock with the crude buildings makes for a particularly dramatic view.
We left Saint Stephanos and drove down the Meteora to grab a quick lunch. Then it was back on the bus for the six (oi) hour drive back to Athens. I managed to sleep at least part of the way, and it was broken up by two twenty-minute rest stops. We got back to Athens a little before seven, and resettled into the Athens Backpackers hostel. We're all in the same room this time, thank goodness. We dropped our stuff and ran to grab dinner--we decided to go back to Damigos because it is A) delicious, B) vegetarian friendly and C) inexpensive. The managed recognized us, which I found amusing. After dinner we came back to the hostel, showered, and now we're getting ready to conquer the Athenian night.
Tomorrow we might go to the Sanctuary of Asclepios at Epidauros (what the Greeks call Epidavros) to see the theatre--mainly because I wrote a paper on the theatre for Barletta's class, but also because the theatre is the best-preserved Greek theatre. And I really want to stand in the middle of it and sing something for the perfect acoustics. Probably Sondheim (but you already knew that, Jess). Sam or Larry or Mom--could you make sure my grandmother is getting these e-mails? I don't know her address, so one of y'all should forward them to her pretty please.
That's it for now. I'll endeavor to update before we head off to the Greek islands, but if not I'll be writing you next from Mykonos or Santorini!
Cherete,
Lindsay
Yassas etc.,
So this is going to be a long e-mail y'all because I haven't updated in about forty-eight hours (imagine that, I'm surprised I don't have the shakes). We're back in Athens after finishing our mini-tour of Central Greece, so I'll fill you in on what has occurred in the interim.
After I signed off Friday night I wandered the main street of the village of Delphi, and walked along the road until I could view the Sanctuary of Apollo. Below me were rows of olive trees, and in front of me the Parnassus mountain range, so I lingered there and enjoyed the view until I had to meet the girls at our hotel. We relaxed and dressed for dinner, and then we had dinner with the tour group at a local taverna. We invited Helen, the single Australian school teacher, to join us--and she sort of became our informal fourth for the trip. She's a charming woman who lives for travel and who gave us tons of insider backpacker tips. Dinner ended around 10:00-ish, I'd say, at which point the girls and I were left with the dilemma of what to do with our evening.
Well, there isn't too much to do at night in Delphi, we discovered. We traipsed up and down the main street, were drawn back into the taverna in which we'd eaten dinner by the lure of the owner's pet hedgehog (weird little creature that curled in on itself but absolutely cute) and then we were drawn into a discotheque that was playing Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." What a bizarre experience this was. The scene was reminiscent of middle school dances, and the discotheque was populated by a group of sixteen-year old European kids and a group of 18 year-old American girls from a Catholic school in Indiana. The girls claimed that they were twenty-one but they were clearly lying. So we stood around and giggled at the scene and harassed the kids by jumping in the middle of their dance circles and "breaking it down." And then we left. After maybe half an hour. Delphi discotheque equals lame.
We decided to walk to the edge of town to see if the ruins were lit at night; they were not, but the stars were quite alight. Once you got a block or two from the main street of Delphi you could see an amazing spectrum of stars. We lingered there for about fifteen minutes, then headed back to the hotel and to sleep.
The next morning we woke up, hit up the breakfast buffet, and returned to the ruins to explore the Sanctuary of Athena, which is
lower down the slope of Mount Parnassus from the Sanctuary of Apollo. The site is even more ruined than the Sanctuary of Apollo. The tholos ( a circular building used for a ritual purpose--except no one knows what that ritual was ) has been partially reconstructed. Additionally, there is a well-preserved stadium that is blanketed in lilac-colored wild flowers. On our way back to the village of Delphi we passed a spring that had, once upon a time, been thought to have given "divine inspiration" to poets who drank from the waters. The spring, however, is no longer accessible--so I had to do without my divine inspiration for the day.
We spent the rest of the morning getting dressed for what would, essentially, be a day on a bus. We were transporting from Delphi to Meteora, about a three and a half hour drive. We grabbed lunch in the village and were picked up at our hotel at 1:20 promptly. At this point our group had changed--about two-thirds of the group had left the day before, and now we were combined with a smaller four-day tour group that had seen Olympia and Delphi. Highlights of the bus were the Canadian couple with a remarkably well-behaved five month old baby named James (who became the unofficial mascot for the bus), a drunk Australian named Charlie, an American-transport named Carolann who lives in New Zealand, and--and this one is super strange so pay attention MOTHER--a University of Florida professor. I am not lying. The Professor is named William Harrison. He teaches chemistry, and he was travelling with his wife Juanita We didn't meet them until we were at the monastery of the Great Meteoran at Meteora, but we were sure to express our pleasure at the fact that the Gator Nation is, indeed, everywhere. Also, we took a few pictures for documentation.
The ride from Delphi to Meteora was about two hours of winding mountain (awful, so I slept through most of it to avoid the inevitable diziness) followed by a long drive through the plain of Thessaly. When I was sixteen I was obsessed with a graphic novel series by Neil Gaiman. The series was called The Sandman, and one of the recurring characters was an 8,000 year old practitioner of black magic. The woman went by various names, including Thessaly and Larissa ( one of the main cities in the area of Thessaly). It was revealed that she'd been a powerful witch in the early days of Greece, and that she was from the area of Thessaly. Well I never thought I'd actually see where Larissa-Thessaly was from; I kept thinking of her as we drove through the area--which was rather flat, fairly dull, and apparently has the ability to become the hottest point in Europe during the summer. The plains were, on occasion, broken by fields of perfectly red, perfectly beautiful poppies. This breed of wild poppy, we were told, will not "put you to sleep." The opium-infused poppies are a lilac or a white, and are much bigger than the (in my opinion far prettier) wild poppies.
On our way to where we were staying (not actually in Meteora, but in the nearby village of Kalambaka) we stopped at an icon workshop to learn about how Orthodox icons were made. Icons are purely Orthodox works--not present in Catholicism--and they have a strange stylization to them. They are usually in a full frontal pose, and are often decorated with gold leaf. The workshop is headed by a monk who has been written about in National Geographic (but I cannot for the life of me remember his name) and we were given a very brief description of the process of icon making by several women. I try to look at iconography as art objects, but it is difficult when the pictures are so blatantly of Jesus or Mary or a martyr. Still, the colors and facial features of the individuals rendered are so expressive that it is impossible to be emotionally disinterested. What I also found intriguing (and also a little ironic) is that the icon workshop silk screens many less expensive works. Andy Warhol and the icon much? I think so.
After our brief tour we went to our hotels--and there we learned that they'd made a slight mix-up with our bookings. But it was a fortunate little mix-up--they booked up into three singles rather than three of us in one room. Since we did not have to pay a single's supplement, we decided to accept a night of privacy and happily spread out in our various hotel rooms.
Dinner was at eight in the hotel--fairly nondescript, and we dined with Carolann and two women from Australia. A side note: Australians absolutely dominated on this tour, and I find that I now say certain words with a slight Australian accent. This is not a recent phenomena: when I went to camp Ramah in Georgia, a girl from Alabama lived with my cabin. By the end of the summer I was drawling like I'd lived in Birmingham my entire life.
After dinner the girls and I explored the main street of Kalambaka. The town reminded me of a slightly less tacky Gatlinberg--that is, no one goes to the town for the town itself, it is an embarkation point for inaccessible places. The town was charming in several aspects, however, most notably the series of small plazas with fountains. Mostly, though, the town was restaurants, shops, and leering Greek men. I actually find that Greek men leer more than Italian men--or maybe it is simply that Italian men are more attractive, and therefore I do not mind if they leer. That's my brief rant regarding Greek men.
So after wandering the town, and finding little to do, we returned to our respective hotel rooms. We had an early wake-up the next morning, because we were setting out for the monasteries of the Meteora. Meteroa is Greek for meteor or moon. The Meteora are a series of bizarre, almost extra-terrestrial looking rock formations that rise out of the middle of the flat plain of Thessaly. Geologists aren't precisely certain how the formations arose--some thing that they are alluvial deposits from an inner sea. In approximately 1100 C.E., monks who were uber-ascetic moved to the caves of the Meteora to, quite literally, escape from the world. Soon, monasteries and convents began to sprout on the forbidding rocks of the Meteora. No one knows how anyone built anything atop the rocks--the cliffs are very inaccessible. Stairs were added only in the last century--and even these stairs are steep and a little alarmign to climb. At one point, around 1400 or 1500, about 44 monastic communities existed at Meteora. Today there are only six functional communities that accept visitors. We visited two: The Great Meteoran (the oldest and largest of the remaining communities) and the community of Saint Stephen (a convent).
The drive through the Meteora was precarious--I was positive the bus was going to tip over a cliff. Thankfully we did not, and we reached the Great Meteoran in one piece. The Great Meteoran is the secular name for the Church, which is actually called the Church of the Transfiguration. One reaches the monastery by climbing stairs that go down one very steep hill and up another very steep hill. As we were travelling we saw the pulley system by which the monks get supplies. Apparently people used to be moved via the pulley system--but I'd rather not think about that. The Great Meteoran has a beautiful cruciform (circle-within-a-square, the traditional Orthodox church design) church decorated by frescoes that are attributed to Theophanes the Greek. When the guide told us this I did a little hop, because Theophanes the Greek was the tutor of the Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev (best movie ever. see it. really. it is life altering/affirming/etc.) The frescoes in the nave of the church represented Jesus and the saints, as well as scenes from Jesus' life. The narthex is decorated with scenes representing the martyrdom of the saints--particularly bloody scenes, actually, including one of a saint who was spewing blood from his headless neck. Very Kill Bill.
The monastery has fantastic views of the Meteora and the convent Rousseron (or...R-something...don't remember the name precisely, but it was very pretty). It has a museum with old icons, and preserved exhibits of the old refectory, kitchen, and wine cellar (because some things simply cannot be given up). There was also an ossuary, filled with skulls and bones...and an orange fanta bottle. I'm not kidding.
After we finished at the Great Meteoran we drove to the convent of Saint Stephanos (Saint Stephen) and did a very-quick walk through. The convent has two churches--a nineteenth-century chapel covered in frescoes and a chapel that was badly damaged during World War II. The nuns are attempting to restore the frescoes in that chapel. The convent also has a number of beautiful rose gardens--just fantastically colored, gorgeously cultivated roses. We only had a half an hour at the convent, but it was considerably smaller than the Great Meteoran. It did, however, have many little nuns flitting about. They ran the gift shop. They offered candles to light. They sat in a booth, watching security cameras (hilarious). The Meteora was definitely a site worth the shlep--the monastic communities seem to spring from the rock, and the juxtaposition of the natural, bare rock with the crude buildings makes for a particularly dramatic view.
We left Saint Stephanos and drove down the Meteora to grab a quick lunch. Then it was back on the bus for the six (oi) hour drive back to Athens. I managed to sleep at least part of the way, and it was broken up by two twenty-minute rest stops. We got back to Athens a little before seven, and resettled into the Athens Backpackers hostel. We're all in the same room this time, thank goodness. We dropped our stuff and ran to grab dinner--we decided to go back to Damigos because it is A) delicious, B) vegetarian friendly and C) inexpensive. The managed recognized us, which I found amusing. After dinner we came back to the hostel, showered, and now we're getting ready to conquer the Athenian night.
Tomorrow we might go to the Sanctuary of Asclepios at Epidauros (what the Greeks call Epidavros) to see the theatre--mainly because I wrote a paper on the theatre for Barletta's class, but also because the theatre is the best-preserved Greek theatre. And I really want to stand in the middle of it and sing something for the perfect acoustics. Probably Sondheim (but you already knew that, Jess). Sam or Larry or Mom--could you make sure my grandmother is getting these e-mails? I don't know her address, so one of y'all should forward them to her pretty please.
That's it for now. I'll endeavor to update before we head off to the Greek islands, but if not I'll be writing you next from Mykonos or Santorini!
Cherete,
Lindsay
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