Our last day exploring Athens up close

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 itself are all of the frieze sections still in Greece.  As mentioned earlier, there are about 50 meters of the frieze in England.  The people of Greece have fought for the return of those pieces for years.  Until now, the Brits have stated that there is no suitable safe place for the pieces of antiquity in Greece.  Well the Greeks have built their new museum and provided not only a safe place for them, but exactly unique spaces for each of them as you will notice in the pictures, there are empty segments on the wall where the pieces go.

The view of the Parthenon from the museum.

Looking down one side of the museum.  

All of the pieces lined up in the order they were on the Parthenon

We then walked over to the Temple of Olympian Zeus.  All that remains are the few columns.  On the site as on other archaeological sites, there were remnants of marble worked into the ground.  Possibly at one time a statute or part of a no longer existing column.  Just random pieces on the ground.  For hundreds of generations, the marble chip has been on the ground, ignored by all who saw it.  But previously it was part of something majestic, we just don't know what.

Greece has been known as the home of the modern day Olympics.  Having been host to the ancient games, it was only fitting that the Greeks would refit their old Panathaeic Stadium for the 1896 start of the modern day Olympics.  Stadium is a word derived from Stadion which was a measure of length comprising 600 human feet.  Since human feet vary, it was hard to have an exact measure.  So one stadion is approximately 180 meters or 600 feet.  I say approximate since the measures varied from venue to venue.  But the length of this field is approximately 180 meters which is why it looks so long from end to end.  With Susanne's dad having coached in the Olympics, it gave special meaning to her.

Oh, and guess who that is on the winner's podium!

We ended our day with a trip to Mt. Lycabettus with its view of the entire region including a view all the way to the Aegean.  Although this view is really the other direction.

All days must end somehow and we could think of nothing better than some yogurt with honey and walnuts.