It's crazy to think that there's so much history there. The Parthenon alone has gone through so much. It has taken on the role of a treasury, a mosque, a christian church, and an ammunition storage area. o_O... That's quite a range of uses for one building.
10,000 people visit the Acropolis a day. That's 3,640,000 people a year. And to imagine the historical figures that must've walked the same area we did? Wicked crazy. Lord Byron apparently scratched his initials into the gateway to the Acropolis. He also fell in love with two teenage girls (sisters) in Greece, which might have explained why so much of his poetry have Greek mythology references. Did I mention he's my favorite poet? I was excited. I also found out the Iranian President went to visit and took a picture there. Persians on the Acropolis again? Is that a Greek nightmare? Greek history kill me now.
The Erectheon, the Temple of Dionysus, and countless other sites are being restored right now. There was so much material to absorb. It was nice that the Professor served as our "expert" tour guide. Apparently another tour guide was telling other tourists the wrong date and he just laughed. I don't know if he went to correct the facts the other tour guide was spewing out.
But... wow did he drag on. He knows his stuff but was it really necessary to make us sit in the sun for 30-40 minutes to learn about the Theater of Dionysus. We could have easily done that in the shade, thankyouverymuch.
We were not happy:
The place where we burned for a while:
The entire time I had this song running through my head...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a61yB0bhU48
I have ionic and doric columns all mixed up in my head and I know way too much about the Parthenon. I could tell you about it all but you could also ready it in a travel guide. Or check wikipedia.
For some reason I enjoyed the temple of Aphaia a lot more. There weren't as many people and it felt more Greek than the Parthenon. Even though the Parthenon represents Greece (just as the Eiffel Tower represents Paris and the Statue of Liberty represents the US).... it wasn't as real to me. When we went to eat at a tabepva (taverna) the waiter asked if we had visited the Acropolis... when we said "yes" he said "it's just a pile of rocks". I think we died laughing when he left, only out of bitterness for being sunburnt because of the Professor's last lecture.
Afterwards we wandered through the streets and looked through the stores. Kerston, there are so many butterfly images. It made me think of you =).
For Kerston:
No comments:
Post a Comment