Continued from yesterday”¦ Once we had gone through the museum, we headed to another well preserved building, the Church of the Holy Apostles. It was built in the 11th century over the ruins of a 2nd century AD building called the Nymphaion. We have no clue what kind of building the Nymhaion could have possibly been, but the name is certainly intriguing. The church was restored in the 1950’s. The church looks pretty similar on the outside to the other churches around Greece we have seen so far. The inside is only partially restored. They found some of the original wall paintings, so the walls are mostly white with big chunks of ornate, but faded, art splashed here and there on the walls. There isn’t much in there by way of furniture, either.

We made our way Continue reading →

Continued from yesterday”¦ we walked a few blocks to the Olympeion, which is a temple constructed to honor Zeus, the god of the sky and king over all the gods of ancient Greece. The site has been considered a holy place to Zeus since 600 BC. In the early days, they simply worshipped in an empty field. Over the years, several efforts were made to build a temple. The work would start, only to have the project abandoned for one reason or another. Many years later, the work would start again, only to be abandoned again. The temple was finally completed in 132 AD, under Roman Emperor Hadrian. It was one of the most impressive temples of the Roman Empire, with 104 columns. There were two enormous statues inside of equal size, one of Zeus and one of Hadrian. In the 5th century BC, the temple began to deteriorate. During the Middle Ages, the temple was converted to a Christian church, and under the Ottomans a mosque was built on the site. By 1852, only 16 columns were left standing. A storm knocked one of the columns over. It was believed that the falling of the columns liberates evil, and an outbreak of cholera at about the same time was blamed on the column’s fall.

This site isn’t anywhere close to being as put back together as the Acropolis is. There is the foundation of the temple in the middle of a field. There are a few columns left standing on the foundation. There is the one column that fell in 1852, still lying where it fell. The building was enormous in its day, very large and very tall. We were fascinated by the fallen column. Standing, the pillars look like they were carved from one giant piece of marble, but really they carefully carved are discs stacked together.

On the grounds is another impressive monument, called Continue reading →

This morning, we went to the Acropolis. It was a pleasant 20 minute walk down a gently sloping hill. We turned onto Dionyssiou Areopagitou Street, nicknamed the “Walkway of the Gods”, which runs along the south side of the famous historical monument. The street is closed to car traffic. Near the intersection, there are quite a few tourist shops, but they quickly give way to private residential buildings with no shops on the first floor. It is clear by the upkeep of the buildings that this street is a high rent district. The walk is lined with trees and plants, and there were several street musicians performing.

We got to the entrance. “Acropolis” means “high city” and it sits at the top of a flat topped rock, 150 meters (490 feet) above sea level. We stood at the base of the mountain, warily eyeing the distance to the top. Our bodies were mad at us from the last three days of serious hill and stair climbing we had done, and we knew our bodies would be even more unhappy with us after this hike up. Why is every holy temple so far up a hill?

The Acropolis (the top of the rock) has been used as a Continue reading →