16th September - Acropolis, Ancient Agora and Kerameikos

 We both had trouble getting to sleep last night after the amazing concert and it was past 1am when I last saw the time. We had the alarm set for 6:30am so that we would have enough time for breakfast and get to the Acropolis for our 8am entry time. We arrived at least 40 minutes before the gates opened and were still about 50th in the line. Lucky we set that alarm!

We raced through the main entrance, Propylaia then on to the Parthenon and the Erechtheion then circled back to the temple of Athena Nike. This was so that we could get some photos without hoards of others in the photos - another blue ski day (we have been so lucky). After taking our initial photos we then went back around to all the sites over the next 2 hours following an audio tour. 

Walking up to the Propylaia

Military exiting after having erected the flag

Roof of the Propylaia

The Western end of the Parthenon

Northern side of the Parthenon

Eastern end of the Parthenon with the morning sun on our faces

The 6 Caryatids of the Erechtheion (they are replicas as 4 originals are in the Acropolis museum and the other 2 are in British and French Museums)

The east end of the Erechtheion

Temple of Athena Nike (completely rebuilt around 20 years ago)

As we wandered around we saw a great deal of restoration work still in progress. It was great to see but very noisy.


See this picture as we made our way back around and the crowds got worse and it was very slow leaving.
Taken at 8:52 and when we left at 10am the number had doubled.

Odeon of Herodes Atticus
On our way out we stopped by the view point of the Odeon to see it from a different angle than we saw it from last night. Then we headed for the hill of Mars where we came across a whole group of people praying and we thought it was quite strange. Then we realised it was a spot where St Paul had spoken to the Athenians.

Next stop on our itinerary was the Ancient Agora which is a huge site containing the Stoa of Attilos rebuilt in the 1950’s by the American school of classical studies which houses the museum, and the Temple of Hephaestus. There is also a small Byzantine church there. We started our tour here by listening to our pre purchased audio guide that came with our tickets. It was very dry and from a historians perspective and it was wearing us out in the heat. I had downloaded the Rick Steves app so checked and found he did one for the Ancient Agora too, so we decided to follow it and it was great to follow along.
Stoa of Attilos
Bronze Spartan shield from 425BC


Temple of Hephaestus 

The church of the holy apostles 

After lunch we headed off to see the Kerameikos which is an archaeological site that was a graveyard from 1200BC through to 6th century BC. It also has the remains of the city wall and gate. There is a museum that contains the original grave markers and funerary artefacts.
Old city wall

Grave markers
It was very hot and we were tired so we headed back to our hotel. On the way we passed Lukumaae which is a very popular Loukoumades (Greek doughnuts) shop. We are now officially on holidays as we have finally had some ice cream! There were many people in the shop photographing themselves holding their purchase. I think it is one of those instagram places and that is why it was so busy.







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