Monday 8 October 2007

My First Encounter With Greek Ancient Times

We found our way to Acropolis without getting lost, not bad for first timers like us in Greece..
To get through the Parthenon, we must buy a ticket that cost 12 euros, it will entitle the holder to visit the museums of the Parthenon,Ancient Agora, Romain Agora,the Temple of Olympia Zeus & others, the ticket is valid for four days, I understand later on why.

If you want to see and know everything about Ancient Greece, you must go all the way to the top to see the Temples that dates back to the 4th or 5 century BC, visit museums to see the artifacts during that period and read everything there is to read about it.

The first photo was taken before we started our climb to the top. As you can see, its a long way to the temple high above.

Second photo is my hubby, we are almost halfway to our goal. At the background is the Herod Atticus Theater, a stone structure theater built in 161 AD by Herod Atticus in memory of his wife Aspassia Annia Regilla . Till now, this amphitheater still being used as venue for theatrical, musical and dance festival in Athens during the months of June through September. Fortunately for us, the day was sunny but a cool breeze refresh us during our walk way up.So we did´nt suffer much from the heat of the day.

Third photo, again is the Parthenon, an Ancient Greek Temple of the Godess Athena.

Fourth photo,The Caryatids, the sculpted female figures that serve as architectural support taking the place of a column or pillar as shown at the photo. The Greek term karyatides means " maidens of Karyae" an ancient town of Peloponesse.


The photos above is only to show you the view from the top and again on one side is the Ancient Agora ( public space or place of assembly) At the beginning of radical democracy ( after 509 BC)
the Boule, or city council, the Prytaneis or presidents of the council and the Archons or magistrates all met in the agora.Law courts are located there, and any citizen who happened to be in agora when a case is being heard, could be forced to serve as a juror.

A drainage system, fountains,and Temple to the Olympian Gods were also built sometime in the 5th century BC
We also visited the reconstructed Stoa of Attalos, built by and named after King Attalos II of Pergamom who ruled between 138 BC and 159 BC.

The stoa is identified as a gift to the city of Athens for the education that pergamon received there.
The last two photos above were taken at the Holy Church of the Apostles, an orthodox church, built in the 11th century and restored by the American School of Studies in Athens in 1956 with the permission of the Dept. of Education .
Photos below were from the Museum of Stoa of Attalos.

I have to end from here ,we did a lot of things in just one day . There are still so many things to tell and im also writting this for myself as a memoire of my greek escapade...7 days was not enough, we have to go back again someday to see the islands although we´ve been to three of them in a one day cruise..

2 comments:

Señor Enrique said...

What a very inspiring post! You made me dream of one day traveling to this historic land.

Aura said...

Thanks SE!!You should see Greece! Kami din ng hubby ko ay na surpresa. we keep on postponing this trip cause hubby is not so keen on it. I just gave him a push! Its a very interesting place to visit ! We really enjoyed our stay!