Athens Roundup

Right, sorry for the last few Athens posts just being picture dumps. Between several distractions and the worry that I might be approaching carpal tunnel syndrome, I've been reluctant to spend a lot of time adding text to them. But then, there isn't a whole heck of a lot to say. I must admit my trip was rather top-ended in interesting things to mention. The cruise was fun, but I became rather closely acquainted with the phrase "monotonous beauty" after hours and hours of the same gorgeous imagery of blue waters, islands, little villages...Day three I left unstructured and used to spend a few hours exploring the suburb of Glydfada, where I had a decent lunch and grabbed a beach towel for use at one of Glydfada's many, many beaches. I was tempted to try and see if I had the chutzpah for one of the nude beaches I'd heard about - thinking back to the brave, bareback bikers. But it's probably for the best that I didn't find them, since I couldn't even muster the chutzpah to ask a stranger "EXCUSE ME, WHERE ARE THE BEACHES WHERE THE CLOTHES ARE OPTIONAL?". Sorry, Athens, you lost out on a sight to last the ages!In the evening I mostly enjoyed pottering around the streets of Pelaka, the cafe and shopping district which lay along the North-Eastern side of the Acropolis. By this point I'd basically stopped using my camera as I felt like I'd seen more of Athens through it's viewfinder than my own eyes. As I suspected might be the case, my new memory card led to me taking a few hundred photographs in the first two days...by the third I needed a break, lest picture-taking become a compulsion. It was during these wanderings that I found that print shop which united me with the cold, warm, loving, hating eyes of Triplex. The kind of aimless city wandering I enjoy doesn't generally make for great stories though, sorry!
During what time I had during my last day before I had to catch my flight, I toddled around the National Gardens a bit and bumped into a bird house which I hadn't seen before. Later I went to take the tube back to the airport. At first I was stunned at how clean it was. More so than Toronto or Montreal's systems and certainly lightyears ahead of...oh, say Baker Street Tube Station in London - which I swear still has coal dust from the Victorian era on it (that might not be hyperbole!). It looked a bit like what 1960's futurists envisioned rail systems of the mysterious year 1999 to look like. In stark contrast to all this was the section which doubled as a small museum, seen in the last photo of my previous Athens post. In the far backdrop you can see where they allow you to see a cutaway of the earth which is marked with all the different era's of Athens ancient history as you go deeperthrough the layers.
Flying over the Alps I went back into ultra-tourist mode and took several pictures as we passed that famous landscape - which you've been browsing while reading this post. After a quick stop in Zurich where I bought some duty-free Swiss chocolate and quickly hopped back on to come on back to good old London. That last photo, which is a bit fuzzy (sorry), is of Hyde and St.James park.

All in all the Athens leg of my vacation was very novel, but I found myself kind of just wanting to get home near the end. I suppose it had been so long since I'd experience extreme heat for several days running that I forgot how much I didn't like it! Plus it really is a city for couples or large groups, not a lot is there to accommodate the lone traveller. I might go back again, but not on my own and not before seeing a lot of other places first. The next time I have a bit of cash to spare I'm going to hop over to Paris for a weekend, I think. Looking back over the week, I think I may have taken more from the second leg of my vaction - my return to Uffington.

Athens Round-up: Day Three - Narrative to follow when I ain't so dang tired

Athens: Straddling the Aegean

Athens: Greece's Pieces Part Four

Oliver Brackenbury, standing in front of famous things(like he did something) since 1982.

Right then, you've probably noticed all the scaffolding and other construction paraphenalia surrounding the Parthenon. This is not a recent thing, actually, and if you see a picture of the Parthenon where it isn't having restoration work done then that picture is at least fifty odd years old. The following is a quick video of me spinning on the spot to try and connect things a bit better. I breath SO LOUD, apparently?

The one moderin-ish structure atop the Acropolis is a small museum, whose air conditioning is a godsend after climbing in the heat. Walking around it I noticed an amusing theme where you'd keep running into four out of an original set of six statues or two out of an original set of four plates. Looking to the information plaques there was a highly repetitive theme of delicately worded explanations telling of how the British had taken various artefacts "for safekeeping during Greece's more turbulent times" and....you know....still had the sodding things. The Elgin Marbles are a pretty classic case where the English didn't leave anything for the Greeks.

Anyways! There are approximately a million billion more things I could go on about with all the other ruins, but it would get monotonous! Suffice to say, I spent the rest of the day seeing more of the sights and I had a great dinner, near yet more ruins, with which I tried the greek liqour known as Ouzo. Have you tasted black licorice? Then you have tasted Ouzo, in solid form. My waiter suggested I have a slice of fried cheese as it is supposed to compliment the Ouzo - but it did not! TRUE STORY.
So I'll wrap this up with a fuzzy picture from my hotel window. I tried to capture the Parthenon as it is at night, all underlit with several powerful spotlights. I suppose I should have walked back up to it when night fell - but I was plum tired and needed to get up early the next day for the cruise!

Athens: AcropOliver

Forced play on words? Doesn't really work? YOU BET.

Anyways, coming up the side of the Acropolis, I stopped (along with about the first fourty Japanese tourists I saw. Some stereotypes are there for a reason, as they say) and snapped a few shots of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus - which was refurbished about fifty-seven years ago so that it could be actually be used. This is unlike the other theatre leading up to the top of the Acropolis, the Theatre of Dionysus, which has been left to ruin.Eventually I reached the gate at the top and saw the what is arguably the centrepiece of the Acropolis...The Parthenon!

Athens: Greece's Pieces Part Three

The neighborhood of Pelaka wraps around the northern and eastern sides of the Acropolis. It's known for good cafe's and shops. I ate here a couple of times and enjoyed several walks through the neighborhood. If you don't like being harrassed by middle-aged men who want you to eat at their cafe, you might not like it as much as I did! As with taxi's, don't take any of their shit - there will be another cafe in ten to thirty seconds of walking. To my delight, there is a real dearth of fast foot in Athens (I saw one Subway and a burger chain called "Goody's", that is all!) and thus a vast multitude of cafes and restaurants. Moving on!
I shot up the wrong path while trying to find the entrance in the wrought iron fence which surrounds the Acropolis and all the while I kept noticing this mountain palace in the distance. It definitely seems to be the second highest point in the city and nobody I asked could tell me if it was a mosque, a palace or what. Ten thousand internet points for anyone who can figure it out! It's also very easy to end up wandering through people's homes on the eastern Acropolis mountainside. More than once I wound up in people's back yards, but luckily avoided causing an international incident. Eventually I figured it out though, I'm such a clever boy.
Tonight we finally ENTER the Acropolis. Until then let the cold, touching, loving, court-order defying stare of Triplex keep you company. I found him in a great print shop in Pelaka.

He's gonna touch you in places no Doctor has ever found.

Athens: Greece's Pieces Part Two

On day one I rolled out of bed for the free hotel breakfast, then rolled right back in until 2pm. Thirteen hours of travel (including some hilarious delays in Frankfurt) plus jetlag just wiped me out. But I forced myself up out to go see the main sights and sights of Athens which it is famous for - The Acropolis and its surrounding ruins. My guidebook map was not so hot but luckily the hotel was helpful and had a guide which a) labelled every road and b) wasn't so large I'd have to lay it out on a conference table to get the best use. Though I went with a Rough Guide to Athens, I'd almost recommend not to bother with guide books. None of them offer very satisfactory maps and a little bit of web research could have told me most of what my book had to offer.The bus system isn't too shabby, though they have this system where you don't drop the ticket in a box - you stick it in a stamping machine that puts the time on it (tickets are valid for about three hours I think). If you're a cheap bastard you can usually get away with not stamping your ticket, though I wouldn't suggest it on the tram system as those aren't so crowded as to leave the inspectors flabbergasted into inactivity. Thus a total of two bus tickets got me through my entire time in the city... Point is, I took the bus up Syngrou and, getting off one stop later than I meant to, started trotting around The National Gardens. Inside which you can find the Zappeion, which I thought was their Parliament BUT NOPE. It's just used for special functions. Oddly, I didn't take any pictures of it. Odder still, the Greeks use their parliment for a parliment.The paths in the National Gardens are very sprially so I got hell of lost for a while before popping out near where I wanted to be, conveniently. Specifically, I was outside of Hadrians Arch. Thanks to my bee-yoo-ti-full angle, you can see the Acropolis through the arch.
From there it was onto the first of the big six and I expected to part with a chunk of my cash here. Luckily you can get a very good deal on seeing the six main sites of central Athens, any of them will have a ticket vendor that can sell you an all-inclusive ticket for €12 (about $17 CAN or £8). In the end I only saw four of the six sites but even that felt like a pretty good deal for what I paid. First off, right beside the Arch but behind large fences, is the Temple of Zeus.
It's huge, as you might guess - but first here is a picture with a LADY standing near it to give proper scale.
It was around this point that a similar feeling of being steeped in history to that which I've felt in certain parts of London hit me. Not too surprising since Athens has a history which dwarf's that of London just as London dwarf's that of the New World.
The fact that several areas around the temple were archeological sites in progress only augmented the sensation!From here I then crossed over to Dionysus Promenade, which leads up to tomorrow's pictures at The Acropolis!

Athens: Greece's Pieces Part One

Phew! So I'm back and today itself wasn't too bad. It turns out that my magnificent prize for being temp of the month was a free lunch at a nice restaurant in Holborn with my recruitment agent, a nice girl with a penchant for athleticism. That plus half a day off which left me in Central London...but the heck with that -OFF TO ATHENS.

Crossing the channel, just as we hit France.

So yes, I left late the previous Saturday, stopped over in Frankfurt and then hopped down to Athens. I arrived at something like 2:30am local time. I was a bit knackered but luckily had the chutzpah to not take any shit from pushy cabbies. Athens, no exaggeration, probably has about one taxi on the road for every three other automobiles. One piece of solid advice I can give is that if you go to Athens and a cabby seems pushy or suspicious? Fuck'em, wait (often literally) thirty seconds and another will come along.

The view from my room, looking down Sygerou avenue - a main strip that runs from the docks up through central Athens.

Sorry to just drop two lame-o tame-o pictures and end it here, but jet lag just coshed me over the head and I have to sleep or die. Tomorrow I should be over the time displacement and be all set for a long narrative about my first day, in which I tromped all over the classic sites of ancient wonder which lay within the city proper.

Goddammit I'm on the internet while in Athens

While looking up the details on the tram I want to take to the beaches of Glydfada tomorrow, the first paragraph of the main page struck me as too tragic not to share. Bold has been added by the douchbag with the sunburned forehead.

"Forty years ago Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis (the first one) was photographed proudly tearing up the tracks for the original tram of Athens, which in the eyes of many people signified the switch from being a city where people relied on public transportation to one where everyone has their own car. This led to the Athens of the last three decades, choked with pollution and traffic, where getting from one side of the city to another required a lot of patience or some imaginative routes, which as more people discovered them also became choked with traffic. It might be said that when the Athenians embraced the automobile they screwed up Athens completely. "
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Addendum: A big hello to the person in England who found this website by typing "I wet myself today" into Google!