Day #4 in Athens - Seeing More Sights (and the Riot Police)

By the time Wednesday rolled around, it was our fourth full day in Athens. We’d seen quite a bit of ancient Athens: the Acropolis, Hadrian’s Arch, the Temple of Zeus. But it was (and still is) a little astounding to think that we had seen less than half of the great Athenian archaeological sites. When we had been sitting in a café in Singapore planning out our trip, I had thought that maybe we’d be able to hit them all during our four and a half days in Athens, and maybe even have time to take a side trip out to Delphi. By our second day, reality had set in – we’d be leaving Athens with plenty still unseen.

We did, however, want to at least check out the Ancient Agora on this trip. The Agora was, at one time, the major civil, political, and commercial center of Athens. When the Romans took over, they built a new one (which the archaeologists somewhat unimaginatively called the “Roman Agora”) right next to the Ancient Agora, but until then, the Ancient Agora was the heart of the city (I guess you’d call the Acropolis its soul). It was about a fifteen minute walk from our hotel (twenty minutes going the other way because that way's uphill).

For any Singaporeans reading this blog, you’ll be proud to know that my Singaporean instincts kicked in shortly after we paid our entrance fee and walked in. Our first stop? Arguably one of the world’s first shopping malls – the Stoa of Attalos.

Okay, not as big as Takashimaya, but still pretty impressive, no?

Up close, lots of columns and marbles.

These days it’s been restored/rebuilt and now houses the Ancient Agora Museum. But at one time it housed shops, much like you’d find in a shopping mall today (when we blog about Rome, we’ll tell you where to find the world’s oldest United Colors of Benetton store—at least, the oldest building in the world where you can find a UCB store). The museum itself is relatively small, as compared to the National Archaeological Museum or Acropolis Museum. But it afforded a pretty intriguing look at the finds in the excavation of the Agora, and helped explain some of the history behind the area (which predates even the buildings that the ancient Athenians put up in the 6th to 4th centuries BC).

After we'd toured the museum, we started wandering through the Agora. It’s pretty big, certainly bigger than the Acropolis and with more ruins and sites to visit. We weren’t able to complete a tour of all the sites (though we probably covered most of them).  Two of the ones we did see are worth singling out: The Church of the Holy Apostles, and the Temple of Hephaestus.

Church of the Holy Apostles.

The Church of the Holy Apostles was not part of the original Ancient Agora, but was instead built over the ruins of an older building, probably around the late 10^th century (at least, according to Wikipedia). In both Athens and Rome, it was pretty common to just build over ruins and repurpose older buildings for contemporary uses (you know, kind of like how the Turks used the Parthenon in 1687 as a gunpowder magazine). The church isn't all that big, and probably couldn't contain more than 200 or 300 people (and some of them would have to sit/stand behind walls and pillars out of sight of the altar), quite a contrast from some of the larger cathedrals we visited, particularly in Rome and the rest of Europe. Yet, the church was beautiful in its own simple way. What I found especially mesmerizing, was this stucco painting of Jesus looking down on you from above, framed by the light streaming in from the windows all around the cupola:

This was sitting in the garden outside the church.
No idea where it came from or what it used to be,
but the ornate patterns caught my eye.

On the other side of the Agora grounds, on a slight hill, rises the Temple of Hephaestus. This is a much, much older building than the Church of the Holy Apostles, built in the 4th century BC. It is, in fact, one of the best surviving pieces of ancient architecture and was even in active use up till 1934. These days, it's cordoned off while restoration goes on inside, but it still looks pretty impressive from the outside:

The Temple of Hephaestus. What got us, was thinking that
the Temple of Zeus that we'd seen the day before,
could probably swallow up thirty of these, stacked three deep.

And up close. Compare this to the photo in Holly's post on
the Temple of Olympian Zeus, showing her next to the remaining columns.

As with the Parthenon, there are incredibly detailed friezes on the inside
that depict stories from Athenian history and myth.

 And then, in an unmarked opening, there were these:

We posit that these were formerly part of the radical
2nd century BCE sculptures known as
"Homer Eats Some Donuts".

Before we left the Temple of Hephaestus, we did take a look towards the Acropolis. This is what the view looks like:

It must do something for a city's political identity,
to be able to look up from wherever you are and see
the soul of your city, the place that defines who you are.

We'll skip over our lunch for now and deal with that in a separate post. After lunch, we visited the Benaki Museum to try and learn more about Greek history and culture. We didn't take any photos there, but a word to the wise: If you want to see everything and not rush your way through it, plan on spending most of the day at the Benaki Museum. Anyone interested in Greek history and culture definitely should visit the museum though.


On our way to the Benaki Museum, however, we did have to pass Syntagma Square, which is right in front of the Greek Parliament. Now, you may have heard that the Greeks aren't very happy people right now, due to the austerity measures that have been implemented. In fact, there were riots a week or two before we arrived. With that background in mind, we weren't quite sure how to feel when we saw this:

Athens' finest.

Should you feel comforted to know that the riot police are out in force in case things go wrong, or should you be alarmed that they're out there at all? The photo doesn't really begin to do justice to the police presence that was out there that day, from the Parliament building, all the way up the street that went past the Benaki Museum, and up to our next stop, the Panathenaic Stadium. There were quite a number of buses full of riot police (shields, batons, the works), riot wagons, paramilitary police, dogs, etc. Not being savvy as to our rights under Greek law to photograph public officers, we decided to be content with this surreptitious photo from a safe distance. 

Just beyond those officers though, was the Panathenaic Stadium. Essentially a huge sports stadium (it seats up to 45,000), open on one end, and made almost entirely out of marble. From a distance, on a sunny day, it literally gleams. The Athens Classic Marathon (which begins in Marathon and tries to replicate the route of Phidippides' original run) ends in the Panathenaic Stadium - that run is definitely on my to-do list, some day.

Flat Stanley standing on the winner's podium.

By the end of the day, we had walked through half of Athens. Our feet were a little tired, but our hearts and minds were full and happy. The beautiful weather, the remarkable sights, all combined to make for yet another wonderful day in Athens. And we haven't even talked about that day's food. Stay tuned!