Days 9 & 10: The Best-Laid Plans...

Monday morning I awoke feeling better and ready to tackle the Acropolis. The weather was grey and wet, so we decided to start with the Acropolis Museum, because I had heard it put the ruins in context, and because we hoped the sun would come out for pictures in the afternoon. Also, we hadn't purchased timed entry tickets in advance, and the morning slots were sold out. So there was that. 

The Acropolis Museum opened in 2009, after Dear Husband's previous visit. While the Acropolis opens at 8am, the museum opens at 9am. Either way, you want to come early or late to beat most of the crowds, including schoolchildren on field trips. Below left, looking down at the excavation site below the museum, which has many glass floors as well as walls to integrate it with its surroundings. Below right: poster of a partial statue of Athena you're not allowed to take pictures of in the museum.

The museum is well done, with lots of space to walk around the exhibits, explanations in Greek and English, and a few videos. Not enough signs in the places where you're not allowed to take photos, however, such as the hall where they show how the buildings and statues might have been painted. And we did find the layout slightly confusing. The ticket agent offered neither audio headsets nor a paper map, and we couldn't get the wifi to work on our phones until we ate lunch in the restaurant, so we mostly made our way around what looked interesting.

Diorama of the Holy Hill during the 5th century BCE. Far left is the ceremonial entrance gate, left of center is a statue of Athena, in the middle is the completed Parthenon, and behind it is the Erechtheion, a combination of temples and gravesites for Athens' mythical kings.

Diorama of the hilltop and south slope during Roman era. On the left is the Odeon of Herodes (a covered theater), and on the right is the open-air theater of Dionysus. In between is a long stoa used for storing props. That they were able to create a level floor for it is a minor architectural marvel on the hillside. Behind it is the Temple of Asklepius, which was founded in 418-419 BCE by Telemachos Acharneas. Patients slept outside on the porch and hoped the god or his daughter, Hygiea, would visit them in their dreams and cure them. The Romans expanded the temple due to demand. It was later converted to worship space for Christianity in the 500s CE.

Above left, Asklepius. Above right: dancers.

DH's illegal photo of a display of pigments for painting. It's kind of wild the patterns they're uncovering, such as a bright plaid for Persian warriors made out of primary colors. We learned about "the archaic smile" on older statues, while the classical ones had stoic expressions but more movement in their posture, with the weight of the body supported on one leg in a "contrapposto" style.

Above left: two of the five remaining caryatids. These are the real ones, cleaned and on display in the museum; there are six made out of "artificial stone" outside on the Erechtheion. The sixth original Lord Elgin stole, and it's in the British Museum in London. Above right: view of the Parthenon from the third floor of the museum, over the shoulder of one of the original statues, which is perfectly carved from front AND back, although when placed on the building, the back would never have been visible!

Above: model of the pediment showing Athena and Poseidon fighting over the city. Below: model of the birth of Athena from Zeus's forehead, which Hephaestus split open with his ax.

After looking at everything we wanted to inside, we went outside to the excavation site, which is only partially open. The signs explain which foundations were baths, or houses of various sizes, whose individual rooms however struck me as small. I'm always impressed by the heating and plumbing.

After about 2.5 hours of looking, we re-entered the museum to take the restaurant elevator up for lunch with a view of the Parthenon. Actually, they don't offer hot lunch until 12pm, but we were able to get sandwiches on some truly delicious bread, and I tried a homemade lemonade with mastic, which is a taste that takes some getting used to. It's also less bitter once the ice melts a little.

After a long slow lunch, it was finally time to wait in line--in the sun! where did that come from?--to enter the Acropolis. We applied our sunscreen and hats and started up the south slope. Luckily this entrance, which sees fewer crowds than the north-slope entrance, was closer to our hotel (and the museum).

The crowds were manageable until we merged with those from the upper entrance, and we all tried to climb the stairs through the partially reconstructed ceremonial gates, while some people stopped to pose for photographs, and other people ignored the multiple signs "DO NOT TOUCH THE MARBLE."

Obligatory photograph of the clinician-historian in front of what's left / reconstructed of the Asklepion.

Above: Stage-level view of Dionysius's theater. Below: View of the Odeion from above, its roof gone but the arched windows marking it as definitively Roman.

Above: crowds at the gate. I wondered what ancient Greeks would think of tourists coming from around the world to walk all over their holy site. Below: the Parthenon, or what's left of it, after an explosion in 1687. The Turks were storing gunpowder in it, and the Venetians fired a mortar anyway, killing about 300 people who were sheltering there, as well as severely damaging the building and local homes.

The Parthenon served as a central site to worship Athena for about 1,000 years, until the 400s CE, when it was closed (too pagan) and remodeled into a church. In the late 1400s, it was turned into a mosque.

Side view of the Erechtheion, with Athena's olive tree, the gift the Athenians chose over Poseidon's salt water spring.

Above left: my itinerary and bingo card got wet and torn in my bag. I staged this photo with what I thought would be my final tally without re-reading the text at the top. Only after taking a nap but before hopping in the hot tub on our balcony did I check my email and discover that we had missed our deluxe couples massage appointment at one of the city's many Turkish hammams at 1 o'clock. Having made the appointment 3 months earlier, I had gotten our Monday and Tuesday mixed up in my head: we were supposed to do the Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments and massage on Monday, because the museum is closed on Tuesdays, but the Acropolis is basically always open. Unfortunately, DH didn't read the schedule (it's nice not to have to worry about the details), and the hammam hadn't sent a reminder email or called (I later found out they didn't have my phone number to call when we didn't show, although at first they lied and said they had tried to reach me). They were of course fully booked, so we had our soak, but neither of us was in a particularly good mood for our much-anticipated "fancy dinner" at the Diogenes Restaurant, and I suspect our waiter thought we were breaking up or something. The guy at the hammam promised to call if they had a last-minute cancellation, but I knew it wouldn't happen. I could have looked for a last-minute spot elsewhere, because money is just money and we had come all this way, but we decided the universe was telling us enough was enough, so we spent our last day of vacation lounging around the hotel trying to get the spotty internet to work, and eating up our snacks and leftovers before a looong day of travel back to the United States on Wednesday.