It was quite sad to say goodbye to Santorini having called it home for the past 8 days. The island really grows on you. Apart from the language barrier we almost felt like locals and looked down our noses at recent arrivals and regular tourists, especially those off cruise ships – the ancient ruins as I referred to them, somewhat unkindly.
As I mentioned at the start of my blog posts about our holiday it is all about comfort zones. We had found one and now it was time to move on. Neither of us had much enthusiasm for Athens and could not think of a single good report we had heard about it.
It was with a dull mood, despite the blue skies and sunshine, that we rode in the back of the taxi to Santorini’s tiny airport.
The plane arrived on the Tarmac from Athens. It was not the tiny twin engined prop plane we had expected, rather an Aerospace A321. The flight was a rediculously short 30 minutes and it seemed that no sooner had we finished climbing than we began our descent.
We had planned to take the metro into the city, but discovered that it was closed for four months. So we took the bus. It must have stopped at every bus stop between the airport and the city. Over an hour later we arrived at the terminus and elected to walk to our hotel rather than take the metro for one stop.
Amazingly we navigated our way to the backpacker’s that the apartment we would be staying in was connected to without getting lost. A couple of young German tourists showed us how to get to the apartment from there. I mentioned the war once, but I think I got away with it.
We quickly got changed and headed off to see the Acroplolis. It was fortunate we had a map as the signs to it are vague and ambiguous. You would imagine that a city’s major tourist attraction would have big signs directing stupid tourists. Not the Acropolis.
Once you have paid the 12€ entrance fee (which incidentally gets you into lots of other places of antiquity) you climb rest of the hill to the Acropolis proper, past the Theatre of Dionysus. The first impression of the Acropolis is that it isn’t as big as you imagined.
The next thing that struck me was that after 2500 years you would have thought they would have finished it by now. The Parthenon is covered with scaffold in contradiction of a large sign stating that the restoration has been finished. Anyway, it is very impressive and quite breathtaking. It is hard to believe that the whole thing was blown up when the Venetions attacked the munitions dump that the Greeks had placed inside it in the 17th century. You havevto keep reminding yourself that it is actually the Acroplis. It is just one of those places you see so often on television you can’t believe you are actually there.
We wondered about a bit and then headed off to see Hadrian’s gate and the temple of Zeus down the hill. It too was impressive. Lots of Doric columns. It had a checkered past and took a couple of hundred years to complete, the job being done by Hadrian. He seems to be to Athens what Justinian was to Istanbul – he got things done. I always thought he just built a wall in Scotland. After the fall of the Roman Empire it even became an outdoor mosque when the pesky Ottomans overran Southern Greece.
From here we sought a Starbucks. Multinational chain though it is it is something we don’t have at home. The map proved inadequate for the job and after a lot of getting lost we gave up and stopped for a coffee near the hotel. It was coming on for 7 by now but undaunted we headed off in search if Ancient Agora, which we eventually found.
The temple to Herpheastus there is quite spectacular, more so than the Parthenon because it is virtually complete. The setting sun gave it a golden glow and the whole atmosphere was quite magical. As we wondered the grounds we simultaneously developed antiquity fatigue – there is really only so much old stuff the brain can take in.
The Greeks and the Turks seem to share the same attitude to their ancient monuments. Both here and at Ephesus there are random piles composed of bits of column, broken statues and large chunks of marble. Seemingly left to rot. It seems to say “Here is some old stuff that we found. We weren’t sure what to do with it so we put it here.” Like the Parthenon I am sure that in many countries the reconstruction would have been completed years ago at most of these sites, but in Eastern Europe they don’t seem to care. The only complete restoration we saw was funded by the American billionaire Rockafella and completed by an American university.
Feeling that we couldn’t stand anymore history we left Agora and from the gate chanced into a very European scene. The street we were on was lined with cafes with tables spilling onto the street packed with Athenians drinking coffee and socialising. It was a cosmoplitan idyll normally associated with Rome or Venice and quite a surprise to find in Athens.
In fact Athens has been a pleasant surprise and a nice end to our trip. The area around the Acropolis, particularly the Placka, has a feeling not unlike Paris or other more well regarded cities. Streets are narrow and cobbled, restaurants and cafes abound and people throng the streets well into the evening. I have to say I am impressed. Sure there are broken pavements, delapedated buildings, hawkers on the streets and a patina of dust, but it has character. Looking out from the Acroplis it is obvious how big the city is. It is like a sea of buildings washing up against the hills that back it, with occassional islands of green. But it is Europe and like everywhere we have been on our trip we are richer for having known it and will miss it.
Even so we are ready to return to Australia and our Pookies.
