October 27, 2000 We've had some grea expiriences with the cab drivers of Athens. They're all pretty unique. This time we got a ride with Yorgas, a rock guitarist in a Memphis Blues band. Our room at the Athens Plaza was ready for us this time and within minutes we were back out into the Plaka looking for a $17. It’s great to be back in a big city. October 28, 2000 In 1940, the Italian/German forces wanted to set up bases in Greece. On October 28, 1940, General Ioannis Metaxas' response was "Ochi!" (No in Greek). It was this defiant "NO" that put Greece into the War on the Allied side. The commenoration of Ochi Day is now a National Holiday with all the trappings; closing of government offices and "the big Parade" which just happened to roll north of Syntagma Square, near our hotel. I love parades but after watching a couple of hours of almost every school band in Greece, we called it a day. We took the took the subway over to the National Archeology Museum, the best Archeology Museum we’ve seen in a quite a while. The subway system is new and the city is adding new stops as quickly as possible, Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) with every new dig, new artifacts are revealed. and new artifacts mean all work is suspended until the archeologists are finished. At the National Museum we met Stefanos, a college professor moonlighting as a guide who steered us through the millenia of Greek history. Turns out he taught French for years at Wayne State University in Detroit. He had some interesting arcane information and a great laid back delivery. The National Museum houses some of the best treasures from classical periods of Greece, Rome and Egypt. This is not the kind of musuem that throws everything it can find into the halls. Each piece is important and importantly displayed. There are rooms of the Cycladic art that inspired Picasso, the 16th century BC golden mask from Mycenae that was once thought to be the death mask of Agamemnon, an amazing bronze statue of Poseidon, the Artemision Jockey, a bronze statue found in a shipwreck off the island of Evia and the 2,000 year old Antikythera mechanism, disovered in a Roman shipwreck off the coast of the small island Antikythera in 1900. This strange interlocking of gears and teeth has since been concluded to be an astronomical computer. There are statues of Athena and Aphrodite, cases of gold cups and Roman antiquities including one bronze who of Octavius Augustus looking very much like a young Roddy McDowell. There's also a very good gift shop that sells really good cycladic statue replications.
There is a ratty Athenian flea market on the outskirts of the ancient Agora; knoock off clothing, plastic toys and lots of household things. And that's about all I can say about it. It was good o walk through it and even better to get to the Agora. The ancient Agora was once the heart of the city, with a direct line of sight to the Parthenon. On the column to the left, you can see the remains of the Cecrops, the half man half snake who was the first king of Athens. After a final walk through the Plaka, we finally bought our spungi. And now we were ready to continue on to Pompeii. |
Back to Athens 
October 29
This was the city center, home to governement buildings, marketplaces, grand gardens and, of course, more temples. To the right you can see some of the pottery shards of the "Ostraka", voting tiles found in the ancient Agora. Citizens used to vote one another into exile, a convenient way to get them out of the city for while. In the same small museum is an ancient child's potty chair and a 4-thousand year old cookie jar. No kidding.