Two Curious Souls

Wednesday, September 25 th :   Leaving Athens, and all of its glory, is bittersweet. Being a student of history Athens has always excited me and being in the cradle of western civilization was truly special.  But alas, the islands are calling, and we must go. As we left Athens’ port of Piraeus on Wednesday morning, we boarded a ferry for the Greek Island of Folegandros.  Greek ferries are like big 120’ long x 30' wide buses.  You sit in aircraft style seating with almost as much leg room as you get on a United economy flight.  The seats are arranged 3-4-4-3 with about 400 of our closest friends on board.  Such an efficient way to travel, but very boring stuff. But ferries are the real mode of moving around, to-from and between islands in this area. The ferry we boarded had about 8 stops and we were getting off at the third stop.   Susanne stated that she anticipates finding all of the Greek islands that we are going to v...

Monday September 23rd.  Knowing this was our last full day, we had several special things left on our list.   Key among these was the Acropolis Museum.  Opened in 2009, it is a remarkable architectural structure as well as a fantastic museum of artifacts from the Acropolis hill and surrounding area.  One of the most interesting features is that it was built over an older part of the city that had been built and rebuilt many times before.  Since they knew that any ground work was likely to discover other archaeological items, they actually started the archaeological dig before they started planning the museum.  Then the building was designed to preserve and to display the artifacts found under it. In the end, the building is a platform on concrete piers with clear space below for viewing the archaeological site below the building.  This is a sample of what was uncovered under the ground during the building of the museum. In the museum it...

Sunday the 22nd was a much more relaxed day.  We took a city bus to the very southernmost tip of mainland Greece to a village called Sounion. (Pronounced soon-yun and not 'so union'.)  Here we found the Temple of Poseidon.  Poseidon was the god of the seas, storms, earthquakes and horses.  Don't know how he got the horses too but that was his role.  Poseidon's temple sits on a high hill overlooking the Aegean Sea and was visible for miles.  From here the ancient Athenians were able to watch and rule the seas surrounding them.  Homer purportedly was the first to refer to Sounion as the ' sacred cape of the Athenians '.  It was a wonderful break from the fast pace of Athens. A small lunch while overlooking the Aegean.  On the left is Dakos salad, the Greek version of Bruschetta and on the right, a traditional Greek Salad. I don't believe that there is a word to describe the blue of the Aegean Sea!  Even the pictur...

The word of the day is august , not the month but the adjective defined as “inspiring reverence or admiration; of supreme dignity or grandeur.”  That is Acropolis hill and the Parthenon. The above is a snapshot from the roof top our hotel.  Needless to say it is awesome. We spent yesterday morning climbing Acropolis hill. I say climbing because it felt like that as we walked up cobblestones that had been polished smooth as glass from the millions of prior visitors.   We heard later from the locals in our hotel that it was a particularly crowded day with many cruise ships in port. But the august feeling of reverence and admiration for the Parthenon, an amazing 2,457 year-old structure, was overwhelming for both of us.   Imagine, with an average familial generation length of 25 years, that is a thousand generations of life that have passed since the opening of the great temple to Athena.   The grandeur of nation-states arising from ...