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RESERVATIONS
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Adventure Land Travel
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In short, Athens, as usual, is busy reinventing itself. Newly pedestrianized Dionissiou Areopayitou Street links what is being called an "Archaeological Park," stretching from Hadrian's Gate past the Acropolis and Ancient Agora to the Kerameikos. The legendary Grande Bretagne Hotel in Syntagma Square and the Hilton on Vasillisis Sophia Boulevard have been entirely remodeled in honor of visitors in the Olympic year and beyond. The Metro has significantly diminished Athens's endemic gridlock and nefos (smog). Still, traffic in central Athens can be fierce. Visitors may be forgiven for sometimes wondering, if Athens, with all its fabled glories, is the ideal holiday destination. Don't despair: Quite soon, you'll almost certainly develop your own love-hate relationship with Athens, snarling at the traffic and gasping in wonder at the Acropolis, fuming at the taxi driver who tries to overcharge you -- and marveling at the stranger who realizes that you're lost and walks several blocks out of his way to take you where you're going.
Even though you've probably come here to see the "glory that was Greece," perhaps best symbolized by the Parthenon and the superb statues and vases in the National Archaeological Museum, allow some time to make haste slowly in Athens. Your best moments may come sitting at a small cafe, sipping a tiny cup of the sweet sludge that the Greeks call coffee, or getting hopelessly lost in the Plaka (plaza)-- only to find yourself in the shady courtyard of an old church, or suddenly face to face with an ancient monument you never knew existed. With only a little advance planning, you can find a good hotel here, eat well in convivial restaurants, enjoy local customs such as the refreshing afternoon siesta and the leisurely evening volta (promenade or stroll) -- and leave Athens planning to return, as the Greeks say, tou chronou (next year).
And if you do get caught in an Athenian gridlock, just remember what it was like when the Parthenon was built: Teams of mules dragged carts laden with 12-ton blocks of marble from Mount Pendeli along today's Queen Sophia Avenue to the Acropolis. If an axle broke, traffic stopped for several days until the damage was repaired.
As far as when to go, from mid-March through May it's almost always pleasant and mild in Athens, although Greeks rightly say that the March wind has "teeth." Between June and August, the temperature usually rises steadily, making August a good month to emulate Athenian practice and try to avoid the city. If you do come here in August, you'll find that Athens, like Paris, belongs to the tourists: some 60% of all Athenians take their summer holiday between the first and fifteenth of August. September is usually balmy, with occasional light rain, although it's not unknown for August heat to spill over well into September. October usually offers beautiful summer/autumn weather, with rain and some high winds likely, and might be intermittently chilly. Most rain falls between November and February, when Athens can be colder and windier than you might expect. Average daytime temperatures range from 11°C (52°F) in January to 33°C (92°F) in August. Stretches when it's well over 38°C (100°F) are not uncommon in August, when anyone with health problems such as asthma should be wary of Athens's nefos. The city can be very hot and exhausting -- be sure to give yourself time off for a coffee or a cold drink in a cafe. After all, you're on vacation!
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Attractions Acropolis
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Warning -- At this time, the monuments of the Acropolis are undergoing extensive renovation. The temple of Nike has been entirely dismantled for restoration. The Proplyaia and Parthenon are encased in scaffolding. We are attempting to describe what you should see when the renovations are completed, supposedly in 2003/2004. The Acropolis is one of a handful of places in the world that are so well known it's hard not to be nervous when you finally get here. Will it be as beautiful as its photographs? Will it be, ever so slightly, a disappointment? Rest assured: The Acropolis does not disappoint -- but it usually is infuriatingly crowded. What you want here is some time -- time to watch as the columns of the Parthenon appear first beige, then golden, then rose, then stark white in changing light; time to stand on the Belvedere and take in the view over Athens (and listen for the muted sounds of conversations floating up from the Plaka); time to think of all those who have been here before you. When you climb up the Acropolis -- the heights above the city -- you know that you're on your way to see Greece's most famous temple, the Parthenon. What you may not know is that people lived on the Acropolis as early as 5,000 B.C. The Acropolis's sheer sides made a superb natural defense, just the place to avoid enemies and be able to see any invaders coming across the sea or the plains of Attica. And, of course, it helped that in antiquity there was a spring here. In classical times, when Athens's population had grown to around 250,000, people moved down from the Acropolis, which had become the city's most important religious center. The city's civic and business center -- the Agora -- and its cultural center, with several theaters and concert halls, bracketed the Acropolis. When you peer over the sides of the Acropolis at the houses in the Plaka, and the remains of the ancient Agora and the theater of Dionysos, you'll see the layout of the ancient city. Syntagma and Omonia squares, the heart of today's Athens, were well out of the ancient city center. Even the Acropolis's superb heights couldn't protect it from the Persian invasion of 480 B.C., when most of its monuments were burned and destroyed. You may notice some immense column drums built into the Acropolis's walls. When the great Athenian statesman Pericles ordered the monuments of the Acropolis rebuilt, he had these drums from the destroyed Parthenon built into the walls lest Athenians forget what had happened -- and so they would remember that they had rebuilt what they had lost. Pericles's rebuilding program began about 448 B.C.; the new Parthenon was dedicated 10 years later, but work on other monuments continued for a century. As you enter the Acropolis, you'll first go through the Beulé Gate, built by the Romans, and named for the French archaeologist who discovered it in 1852. After that, you'll pass through the Propylaia, the monumental 5th-century B.C. entranceway. It's characteristic of the Roman mania for building that they found it necessary to build an entranceway to an entranceway! Just above the Propylaia is the little temple of Athena Nike (Athena of Victory); this beautifully proportioned Ionic temple was built in 424 B.C. and heavily restored in the 1930s. To the left of the Parthenon is the Erechtheion, which the Athenians honored as the tomb of Erechtheus, a legendary king of Athens. A hole in the ceiling and floor of the northern porch indicates the spot where Poseidon's trident struck to make a spring gush forth during his contest with Athena to have the city named in his honor. Athena countered with an olive tree; the olive tree planted beside the Erechtheion reminds visitors of her victory -- as, of course, does Athens's name. Give yourself a little time to enjoy the delicate carving on the Erechtheion, and be sure to see the original Caryatids in the Acropolis Museum. The Caryatids presently holding up the porch of the Erechtheion are the casts put there when the originals were moved to prevent further erosion by Athens's acid nefos (smog). However charmed you are by these elegant little temples, you're probably still heading resolutely toward the Parthenon, dedicated to Athena Parthenos (Athena the Virgin), patron goddess of Athens, and, of course, the most important religious shrine here. You may be disappointed to realize that visitors are not allowed inside, both to protect the monument and to allow restoration work to proceed safely. If you find this frustrating, keep in mind that in antiquity only priests and honored visitors were allowed in to see the monumental -- some 11m (36 ft.) tall -- statue of Athena designed by the great Phidias, who supervised Pericles's building program. Nothing of the huge gold-and-ivory statue remains, but there's a small Roman copy in the National Archaeological Museum -- and horrific renditions on souvenirs ranging from T-shirts to ouzo bottles. Admittedly, the gold-and-ivory statue was not understated; the 2nd-century A.D. traveler Pausanias, one of the first guidebook writers, recorded that the statue stood "upright in an ankle-length tunic with a head of Medusa carved in ivory on her breast. She has a Victory about 2.5m (8 ft.) high, and a spear in her hand and a shield at her feet, with a snake beside the shield, possibly representing Erechtheus." If you look over the edge of the Acropolis toward the Temple of Hephaistos (now called the Theseion) in the ancient Agora, and then at the Parthenon, you can't help but be struck by how much lighter and more graceful the Parthenon is. Scholars tell us that this is because Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon, was something of a magician of optical illusions. The columns and stairs -- the very floor -- of the Parthenon all appear straight because all are minutely curved. The exterior columns are slightly thicker in the middle (a device known as entasis), which makes the entire column appear straight. That's why the Parthenon, with 17 columns on each side and eight at each end (creating an exterior colonnade of 46 relatively slender columns), looks so graceful, while the Temple of Hephaistos, with only six columns at each end and 13 along each side, seems so squat and stolid. Of course, one reason the Parthenon looks so airy is that it is, quite literally, open to the air. The Parthenon's entire roof and much of its interior were blown to smithereens in 1687, when the Venetians attempted to capture the Acropolis from the Turks. A shell fired from nearby Mouseion Hill struck the Parthenon -- where the Turks were storing gunpowder and munitions -- and caused appalling damage to the building and its sculptures. Most of the remaining sculptures were carted off to London by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century. Those surviving sculptures -- known as the Elgin Marbles -- are on display in the British Museum, causing ongoing pain to generations of Greeks, who continue to press for their return. Things heated up again in the summer of 1988, when English historian William St. Clair's book Lord Elgin and the Marbles received a lot of publicity. According to St. Clair, the British Museum "over-cleaned" the marbles in the 1930s, removing not only the outer patina, but also many sculptural details. The museum countered by saying that the damage wasn't all that bad -- and that the marbles would remain in London. The Parthenon originally had sculpture on both of its pediments, as well as a frieze running around the entire temple. The frieze was made up of alternating triglyphs (panels with three incised grooves) and metopes (sculptured panels). The east pediment showed scenes from the birth of Athena, while the west pediment showed Athena and Poseidon's contest for possession of Athens. The long frieze showed the battle of the Athenians against the Amazons, scenes from the Trojan war, and the struggles of the Olympian gods against giants and centaurs. The message of most of this sculpture was the triumph of knowledge and civilization -- that is, Athens -- over the forces of darkness and barbarians. An interior frieze showed scenes from the Panathenaic Festival each August, when citizens processed through the streets, bringing a new tunic for the statue of Athena. Only a few fragments of any of these sculptures remain in place, and visitors will have to decide for themselves whether it's a good or a bad thing that Lord Elgin removed so much before the smog became endemic in Athens and ate away much of what he left here. If you're lucky enough to visit the Acropolis on a smog-free and sunny day, you'll see the gold and cream tones of the Parthenon's handsome Pentelic marble at their most subtle. It may come as something of a shock to realize that in antiquity, the Parthenon -- like most other monuments here -- was painted in gay colors that have since faded, revealing the natural marble. If it's a clear day, you'll also get a superb view of Athens from the Belvedere at the east end of the Acropolis. Near the Belvedere, the Acropolis Archaeological Museum hugs the ground to detract as little as possible from the ancient monuments. Inside, you'll see the four original Caryatids from the Erechtheion still in Athens (one disappeared during the Ottoman occupation and one is in the British Museum). Other delights include statues of smiling korai (maidens) and kouroi (young men). You'll have to decide whether you find their smiles insufferably smug or becomingly modest. While you're deciding, don't miss the graceful 5th-century relief called the Mourning Athena, the athletic Calfbearer, and the three-headed figure of the Tryphon, whose tripartite body ends in a snaky tail. You can see clear traces of the ancient paint that decorated much ancient sculpture on the Tryphon. As you leave the Acropolis, you'll probably feel that you've seen a great many monuments. In fact, almost all of what you've seen comes from Athens's heyday in the mid-5th-century B.C., when Pericles rebuilt what the Persians destroyed. In the following centuries, every invader who came built monuments, most of which were resolutely destroyed by the next wave of invaders. If you had been here a century ago, you could have seen the remains of mosques and churches, plus a Frankish bell tower. The great archaeologist Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy and excavator of Mycenae, was so offended by the bell tower that he paid to have it torn down. If you'd like to know more about the Acropolis and its history, as well as the Elgin Marbles controversy, you can check to see whether the Center for Acropolis Studies, on Makriyanni just southeast of the Acropolis (tel. 210/923-9381), is open (usually 9am-2:30pm; admission is free). The center has been shut intermittently since excavations in 1998 for the adjacent new museum unearthed important Byzantine (and earlier) antiquities. The center houses artifacts, reconstructions, photographs, drawings, and plaster casts of the Elgin Marbles. If you find the Acropolis too crowded, you can usually get a peaceful view of its monuments from one of three nearby hills (all signposted from the Acropolis): the Hill of the Pnyx, where the Athenian assembly met; the Hill of the Areopagus, where the Athenian upper house met; and the Hill of Filopappos (also known as the Hill of the Muses), named after the 2nd-century A.D. philhellene Filopappos, whose funeral monument tops the hill. Open: The Acropolis is usually open Summer daily 8am-7pm; winter daily 8:30am-2:30pm. The Acropolis Museum usually closes at least half an hour earlier than the Acropolis.Admission 12€ adults. Free Sun. This ticket, which is valid for one week, includes admission to the Acropolis, Acropolis Museum, Ancient Agora, Theater of Dionysos, Karameikos Cemetery, Roman Forum, Tower of the Winds, and Temple of Olympian Zeus. It is still possible to buy individual tickets at the other sites.Metro:Acropolis; From Syntagma Sq., take Amalias Ave. into pedestrianized Dionysiou Areopayitou, and follow marble path up to the Acropolis.The ticket booth, along with a small post office and a snack bar, are slightly below the Acropolis entrance.
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