Today we started early and went by Metro to the Plaka and Monastiraki.
Most text was copied from other sites, like Wikipedia and Lonely Planet. Pictures (added later) are originals though.
Plaka, (Greek: Πλάκα), lying just beneath the Acropolis, is famous for its numerous neoclassic buildings, making it one of the most scenic districts of Athens. It remains the traditional top tourist destination, with many tavernas featuring traditional music.
Nearby Monastiraki (Greek: Μοναστηράκι), on the other hand, is famous for its string of small tourist shops as well as its crowded flea market and the tavernas that specialize in souvlaki. Another district notably famous for its student-crammed, stylish cafés is Theseum or Thission (Greek: Θησείο), lying just west of Monastiraki. Thission is home to the remarkable ancient temple of Hephaestus, standing on top of a small hill.
I have to say it is nice and hectic, but off the main roads it is even cosey. What is terrible though is meeting a person every minute trying to sell you something, from sigaret lighters, sunglasses, CD/DVD to crafted African woodwork. You're not a minute without someone, especially when sitting at a restaurant or cafe.
We visited and photographed especially the Tower of the Winds,
The famous Tower of the Winds is just a block up from Adrianou on Aeolou street and it is a part of the ancient Roman Agora. It is meteorological station from the first century built by the Syrian Astronomer Andronikos Kyrrhestes. It had a hydrolic clock fueled from a reservoir on the south side and inside was a mechanical device that represented the sun, the moon and the five known planets. The freize which represents the winds and their personalities is the most interesting part of the building and deserves a closer look.
The Mosque on the grounds of the Roman Agora was called the Mosque of Mehmet the Conqueror, built around 1458 for the visit to Athens by Sultan Mehmet a fan of the ancient Greek philosophers. Later the Mosque was known as the Wheat Bazaar Mosque because it was next to the yearly wheat market. It was briefly a Catholic church during the five months that the Venetians occupied the city. The minaret was demolished after Greece won it's independence and the mosque became a school for teachers and then a bakery for the army. Now it is just used for storage by the archaeologists working on the Roman Agora.
Across from the Tower is the doorway of the Medrese, originally a theological school founded in 1721 by Mehmet Fahri. During the War of Independence the Turks used it as a prison and hung many Greeks from the platanos tree and after the war the Greeks used it for the same purpose. In the minds of the Athenians it became a cursed place. The poet Achilleas Paraschos in 1843 predicted that one day it would be chopped up and used for firewood. He was right. In 1919 the tree was struck by lightning and the rest was chopped down and used for firewood. The building itself was demolished except for the door.
Next step was the Agora:
The Agora (market) was Athens' meeting place in ancient times, the focal point of administrative, commercial, political and social life. All roads led to this bustling and crowded place, where Socrates once expounded his philosophy and, later, where St Paul disputed daily in an attempt to win converts to Christianity.
The site was first developed in the 6th century BC. It was devastated by the Persians in 480 BC, but a new agora was built in its place almost immediately. It was flourishing by Pericles' time and continued to do so until AD 267, when it was destroyed by the Herulians, a Gothic tribe from Scandinavia.
A good place to begin an exploration of the site is in the reconstructed Stoa of Attalos, originally built between 159 and 138BC; its expensive shops were a popular stamping ground for moneyed Athenians. It houses the Agora Museum, where there's a model of the Agora upstairs along with a collection of finds from the site. The Temple of Hephaestus, on the western edge of the Agora, dates from 449BC and is the best-preserved Doric temple in Greece.
To the northeast of the temple are the foundations of the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios, one of the places where Socrates spoke to the masses.
Near the southern entrance of the market is the Church of the Holy Apostles, which was built in the early 11th century to commemorate St Paul and his teachings. Have a look at the Byzantine frescoes inside.
After a simple, but nice Greeck lunch we started the climb to the Acropolis.
That day it was rather warm so it was a good tyring but rewarding journey.
The Acropolis of Athens is the best known acropolis (high city, The "Sacred Rock") in Greece and in the world. Although there are many other acropoleis in Greece, the significance of the Acropolis of Athens is such that it is commonly known as The Acropolis without qualification. The Acropolis was formally proclaimed as the pre-eminent monument on the European Cultural Heritage list of monuments on the 26th of March, 2007[1]. The Acropolis is a flat-topped rock which rises 150 m (512 ft) above sea level in the city of Athens, Greece. It was also known as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Kekrops or Cecrops, the first Athenian king.
Early human occupation
While the earliest artifacts date to the Middle Neolithic era, there have been documented habitations in Attica from the Early Neolithic (6th millennium BC). Once into the Bronze Age, there is little doubt that a Mycenaean megaron must have stood on top of the hill, housing the local potentate and his household, guards, the local cult facilities and a number of workshops and ordinary habitations. The compound was surrounded by a thick Cyclopean circuit wall, possibly between 4.5 m and 6 m in height, consisting of two parapets built with large stone blocks and cemented with an earth mortar called emplekton. The wall follows typical Mycenaean convention in that its gate was arranged obliquely, with a parapet and tower overhanging the incomers' right-hand side, thus facilitating defence. There were two lesser approaches up the hill on its north side, consisting of steep, narrow flights of steps cut in the rock. Homer is assumed to refer to this fortification when he mentions the "strong-built House of Erechtheus" (Odyssey 7.81). It was during that time that an earthquake caused a fissure near the northeastern edge, one that ran all the way down to the marl layer and in which water collected. An elaborate set of stairs was built and the well was used as a protected source of drinking water during some portion of the Mycenaean period, as it was invaluable in times of siege.
The Dark Ages
It seems that the Acropolis might have been spared the violent destruction of other Mycenaean palaces, as there are no signs of fire or other large-scale destruction in what few artifacts of that time survive. This agrees with the standard Athenian folklore that the area resisted the Dorians successfully. Not much is known as to the precise state of building on the rock leading up to the archaic era, except that the Acropolis was taken over by Kylon in the Kylonian revolt, and twice by Pisistratus: all attempts directed at seizing political power by coups d' etat. Nevertheless it seems that a nine-gate wall, the Enneapylon, had been built around the biggest water spring, the "Clepsydra", at the northwestern foot. It was Pisistratus who initially established a precinct for Artemis on the site.
Archaic Acropolis
A sizeable temple sacred to "Athena Polias" (Protectress of the City) was erected by mid-6th century BC. This Doric limestone building, from which many relics survive, is referred to as the "Bluebeard" temple, named after the pedimental three-bodied man-serpent sculpture, whose beards were painted dark blue. Whether this temple replaced an older one, or a mere sacred precinct or altar, is not known. In the late 6th century BC yet another temple was built, usually referred to as the Archaios Naos (Old Temple). It is thought that the so-called Doerpfeld foundations might have belonged to this temple, which may have been sacred not to Polias but to Athena Parthenos (Virgin), at least for as long as the Polias "Bluebeard" temple stood. It is not known how long these temples coexisted.
To confuse matters further, by the time the "Bluebeard" Temple had been dismantled, a newer and grander marble building, the "Older Parthenon", was started following the victory at Marathon in 490 BC. To accommodate it, the south part of the summit was cleared of older remnants, made level by adding some 8,000 two-ton blocks of Piraeus limestone, a foundation 11 m deep at some points, and the rest filled with earth kept in place by the retaining wall. The Mycenaean gate was demolished and replaced with the Old Propylon, a monumental colonnaded structure whose purpose was strictly ceremonial, rather than defensive.
The Older Parthenon was caught unfinished by the invading Persians in 480 BC, and was razed to the ground burnt and looted, along with the Archaios Neos and practically everything else on the rock. Once the Persian Wars were over, the Athenians brought some order to the location, firstly by ceremonially burying objects of worship and art that were rendered unsuitable for further use. This "Persian debris" is the richest archaeological treasure excavated on the Acropolis, as its burial had protected it from further destruction through the ages.
The Periclean building program
Most of the major temples were rebuilt under the leadership of Pericles during the Golden Age of Athens (460–430 BC). Phidias, a great Athenian sculptor, and Ictinus and Callicrates, two famous architects, were responsible for the reconstruction. During the 5th century BC, the Acropolis gained its final shape. After winning at Eurymedon in 468 BC, Cimon and Themistocles ordered the reconstruction of southern and northern walls, and Pericles entrusted the building of the Parthenon to Ictinus and Phidias.
In 437 BC Mnesicles started building the Propylaea, monumental gates with columns of Penteli marble, partly built upon the old propylaea of Pisistratus. These colonnades were almost finished in the year 432 BC and had two wings, the northern one serving as picture gallery. At the same time, south of the propylaea, building of the small Ionic Temple of Athena Nike commenced. After an interruption caused by the Peloponnesian War, the temple was finished in the time of Nicias' peace, between 421 BC and 415 BC.
During the same period the building of the Erechtheum, a combination of sacred precincts including the temples of Athena Polias, Poseidon, Erechtheus, Cecrops, Erse, Pandrosos and Aglauros, with its so-called the Kore Porch (or Caryatids' balcony), was begun.
Between the temple of Athena Nike and the Parthenon there was the temenos of Artemis Brauronia or Brauroneion, the goddess represented as a bear and worshipped in the deme of Brauron. The archaic xoanon of the goddess and a statue made by Praxiteles in the 4th century BC were both in the sanctuary.
Behind the Propylaea, Phidias' gigantic bronze statue of Athena Promachos ("she who fights in the front line"), built between 450 BC and 448 BC, dominated. The base was 1.50 m high, while the total height of the statue was 9 m. The goddess held a lance whose gilt tip could be seen as a reflection by crews on ships rounding Cape Sounion, and a giant shield on the left side, decorated by Mys with images of the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapiths. Other monuments that have left almost nothing visible to the present day are the Chalkotheke, the Pandroseion, Pandion's sanctuary, Athena's altar, Zeus Polieus's sanctuary and, from Roman times, the circular temple of Augustus and Rome.
Archaeological remains
The entrance to the Acropolis was a monumental gateway called the Propylaea. To the south of the entrance is the tiny Temple of Athena Nike. A bronze statue of Athena, sculpted by Phidias, originally stood at its center. At the centre of the Acropolis is the Parthenon
or Temple of Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin). East of the entrance and north of the Parthenon is the temple known as the Erechtheum.
South of the platform that forms the top of the Acropolis there are the also the remains of an outdoor theatre called Theatre of Dionysus. A few hundred metres away, there is the, now partially reconstructed Theatre of Herodes Atticus.
Site plan
- Parthenon
- Old Temple of Athena
- Erechtheum
- Statue of Athena Promachos
- Propylaea
- Temple of Athena Nike
- Eleusinion
- Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia or Brauroneion
- Chalkotheke
- Pandroseion
- Arrephorion
- Altar of Athena
- Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus
- Sanctuary of Pandion
- Odeon of Herodes Atticus
- Stoa of Eumenes
- Sanctuary of Asclepius or Asclepieion
- Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus
- Odeon of Pericles
- Temenos of Dionysus Eleuthereus
- Aglaureion
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