Athens, Greece: Lycabettus Hill

When you visit the Acropolis, you can't help but notice how flat and expansive Athens is, except for this one hill that pokes up in the middle (aside from the hill you're on.) That, people, is Lycabettus Hill, and it offers some of the best views - if you have the stamina.

When you get off the metro station, you start to climb the large hill. Then you start to climb stairs. Then you climb some stairs. Oh, and then you climb some more stairs. Then, you stop and take a breath, and climb some more stairs. These stairs bring you to the funicular - a sort of tram that takes you to the top of the hill, where you'll climb a few more stairs. (Feel free to climb the whole way and not take the ride. Good luck to you.)

Atop Lycabettus Hill, you'll find a pricey restaurant, a bell tower, a church, some wind, a guy and his dog selling drinks to all the staired-out visitors, and some SPECTACULAR views. Especially at sunset. (You all know me and my fondness for sunsets.) Watching the sun go down over this ancient city is chill-inducing. And the view of the Acropolis in the pink light, and then all lit up against the black of night is a surreal, I-can't-believe-how-lucky-I-am-to-see-it experience.

Below are some photos from Lycabettus Hill. Tomorrow, we'll get on a plane and island hop to Santorini. You'll definitely want to return to see those photos!

Zeus Who?

You'd never know it from the PR machine that is the Acropolis, but there are other ancient ruins in Greece. Entrance to one such ruin is included in your ticket to the Acropolis, and it is the Temple of Zeus. (hint: if the wait for tix to the Acropolis is long, go to Zeus's temple first, and get your ticket here.)

While clearly not the primary tourist attraction, the site of Zeus's temple is large, fascinating, and offers a different view of the main attraction, the Acropolis - you can see the wall built around the Acropolis that makes it a strategic military point. (You can also see Zeus's temple from atop the Acroplis, fyi.)

What I found so jaw-dropping is that this particular site is reached by crossing a main road (pollution, anyone?), power and phone lines are hung everywhere, and it's really like a park in the middle of houses and businesses.

To reach Zeus's Temple, you pass under Hadrian's Arch (along with the phone lines), which was the entrance gate into the city, built by those power-mongering Romans.

Originally, there were over 100 columns that supported the Temple of Zeus. Now, there are only 15, and one column that was blown over in the 1800s and left on the site, which I think is kinda cool. It really gives insight as to how columns are built, and the column pieces look like neatly organized crackers on a snack tray.

If you have one day in Athens, just get a glimpse of this site from the Acropolis. If you have some time, however, this is a good photo-op stopover. And, an easy walk from the Acropli Metro Station. (Quick note about the Greek subway - it's super convenient. The more touristy areas have new stations and trains - thanks to the 2006 Olympics. But even the older trains (non air-conditioned) get you where you need to go.)

Athens, Greece: The Acropolis

I realized that I posted some pictures of my Greece trip, but I didn't really TELL anything about it. I'm sure it's been keeping you all up at night, so for the next several days, I'll post about Greece.

The Acropolis:

The Acropolis ("high city") refers to a big hill in the center of Athens, Greece, with a temple to the city's protector, Athena. It's possibly the greatest monument of architecture in Europe.

From the Athens subway, it's a long walk up a steep graded hill to get to the base of the Acropolis site. However, when you get the first glimpse of the Parthenon, sitting high atop the Acropolis, it takes your breath away. It's hard to tear your eyes away and keep climbing. But climb you do.

It's clear that Europeans don't have the same tort law that Americans do, because the climb up to the ticket booth is fraught with age-old slippery stones. When you reach the ticket booth, you're almost too tired to go the rest of the way. But the doric columns of the Parthenon are calling to you. "Keep going, keep going". At the time we were there, a 12 Euro ticket gained entrance into the Acropolis, and included admission to a few other minor sites in Athens, including Zeus's temple.

I guess the Acropolis is a result of the modern world - there's a lot of scaffolding, a lot of reconstruction, and one building had been taken down completely to rebuild it. The Parthenon has probably had scaffolding in every picture taken of it for the last 10 years (but I tried to skillfully photograph it at an angle with no scaffolding.) When you reach the Parthenon, you should walk around it in its entirety, as each angle offers a different perspective. It's majestic. It's powerful. And it's survived for thousands of years despite every effort to destroy it by the morons of the world (it was a storage house for gunpowder at one point, and some gunpowder exploded, for example.)

The Erechtheion is the second-most preserved building, and the second-most interesting, in my humble opinion. The most photogenic part of the Erechtheion is the south porch, held up by columns that are shaped like women, the famous Caryatids. The originals are in the Acropolis museum, minus one, which is in the British Museum in London. (The Greeks want it back, by the way.)

You leave the Acropolis through the original entrance gate. There are some great Athens views from the gate.

Actually, the entire Acropolis offers some amazing views of Athens. The city stretches to the vanishing point, and shows how dense the city is. I think the Athenians would build houses on the Acropolis if the government would let them. The buildings sit right next to ruins, and it's an odd mix of old, kinda old, and new.

The BF and I visited the Acropolis twice. The first time we went, we'd been in JFK airport for 24 hours (because the morons at Olympus Airlines randomly changed flight times), we'd been on a plane for 10 hours, and we were pooped. While I was impressed the first visit, I feared that I'd been in a jet lag fog and had missed truly appreciating what I was seeing. Our first visit was in the late afternoon, which seemed the better time to go, as it was less crowded, though a bit more hazy. Our second visit was around 10 a.m., and was brighter sunshine, but packed with tour bus tourists. I don't think you'd want to go mid-day, as it's hot and dry, but you'd probably have the place more to yourself.

Also, you'd want to wear comfortable shoes with traction. Thousand-year-old stone walkways get pretty slippery when millions of people walk all over them.

There is a refreshment stand at the bottom of the Acropolis where the ticket booth is. The truth is that you're going to be tired and thirsty and fall into this tourist trap. The've got a captive audience (try the slushies. Mmmmm.) so the prices aren't discount, for sure. However, the time to your next cafe would be a half hour (plus the walking.)

Truly one of my top five coolest sites that I've visited. Photos below.