We rearranged our schedule a little today. The weather was quite overcast and a little rain was in the forecast. Rather than be outside, we went to the new Acropolis Museum, which is a stone’s throw from our hotel. As the name implies, the museum is focused on the archeological findings of the Acropolis. The museum, completed in 2009, was built to house every artifact found on the rock and on the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece. The museum also stands over the ruins of a part of Roman and early Byzantine Athens. The old museum used to be atop the Acropolis, but with all the additional findings from archeological discoveries, the artifacts outgrew the old museum space. An additional motivation for the construction of a new museum was that in the past, when Greece made requests for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the United Kingdom, the artifacts Lord Elgin “stole,” it was suggested by some British officials that Greece had no suitable location where they could be displayed. Creation of a gallery for the display of the Parthenon Marbles has been key to all recent proposals for the design of a new museum. The museum is quite stellar, very spacious with wonderful display areas, several audio-visual displays, and the impressive display of the actual relics and recreated slabs of the metopes and friezes from the Parthenon.
There are 3 levels of displays. The first level focuses on the findings in the slopes leading up to the sacred rock. This area was where ancient Greeks lived and worked and so most of the artifacts had to do with cooking vessels, lamps, vases, jewelry and other adornments, and things related to everyday life.
The second level displays are the magnificent sculptures that graced the first temples on the Acropolis. It also displays the votive offerings dedicated by the worshipers. This Archaic Gallery was very impressive. It is naturally lighted through floor to ceiling windows that are 9-meters (nearly 30 feet) high. All the statuary is placed all across the gallery floor so you just wander around lots of statues. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed in this section.
On the top level is the Parthenon Gallery. The relief sculptures of the Parthenon frieze depicting the Panathenaic procession are exhibited in continuous sequence along the perimeter of the external surface of the rectangular concrete core of the gallery. The metopes, the marble slabs with relief representations from Greek mythology that adorned the space around the perimeter of the Parthenon above the column capitals, are exhibited in between the stainless steel columns of the gallery, which are the same in number as the columns of the Parthenon. The colossal figures of the two pediments have been placed on pedestals on the east and west sides of the gallery. The east pediment depicts the birth of the Goddess Athena, emerging from the head of her father Zeus. The west pediment depicts the battle between Athena and Poseidon over the land of Attica.
One really terrific piece was actual pieces and recreated pieces of the sculpture that would have been at the very peak of the east pediment. It would have been like the feather in the Parthenon’s cap, and it probably was seen from all of Athens.
The traffic flow through the gallery is supposed to be one way, and so after seeing the metopes and friezes, you wind your way back down a floor to more displays about the other buildings constructed on the Acropolis after the Parthenon, namely the Propylaea, the temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion. And here is where we get to see the real carytids, the Dancing Maidens from the porch of the Erechtheion. And of course, one is missing, the one that is in the British Museum. Greece wants it back.
There is a restaurant between the 2nd and 3rd level. It has a great outside terrace from which one has a stellar view of the sacred rock, the bastions and the temples of the Acropolis. We met up with Eve in the restaurant for a cappuccino. Eve has been sketching her way around Athens, the museum being a great place for inspiration.
After lunch and a rest, we had another adventure. I had read in some travel material about the Athens tram and a tram route that goes south along the coast to the Athens beaches. I thought it would be fun to take the tram to the end of the line at Voula Beach, see the sunset and have dinner. So off we went via the subway to Syntagma Square where we would find a tram stop heading for Voula Beach. We figured out how to purchase tickets from a ticket machine and waited for our tram, which was actually sitting at the stop while we were looking at the map. Just in the nick of time, we determined that we needed to be on that tram and so we quickly got on board just as the doors were about to close.
The tram is an electrified rail system. The tram itself is about 6 cars long. With it being close to rush hour, the tram was full and filling up even more. Eventually, we all managed to get seats. The tram ride wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned. It made its way through busy Athens streets and neighborhoods and it took about 30 minutes to actually get to the coast. But it is always interesting to see a city via public transport and watch the people getting on and getting off.
The coastal ride, another 20 minutes or so, wasn’t exactly the scenic coastal view that I thought it would be, although we did see several marinas and several beaches, but we were never very close to the water. We passed through a trendy resort-type area and then came to Voula Beach, the end of the line. Well, there’s not much happen at the end of the line, and especially no nice eateries that I had pictured. The tram waits for about 10 minutes, the driver changes from one end of the tram to the other, and off it goes back on the same track. We got back on the tram and agreed to keep a look out for a better area that might be promising for dinner. We did get off and walked around an area and we stumbled upon a pretty perfect place, Penarrubia. This was a large waterfront bar and restaurant that had a huge outdoor terrace. We were in time to see a wonderful sunset and we relaxed with a drink watching the sun sink into the clouds on the horizon. The food was pretty good, a pasta shrimp dish for Christine and me, and a salmon dish for Eve. Eve, the cat magnet, was in her glory because there were several young cats around the terrace begging food. Of course, Eve shared a few bits of her dinner with some of the cats. After dinner we returned to the tram stop for our ride home, which seemed quicker on the return.
So, even though the lovely coastal tram ride wasn’t all that it was advertised to be, we did luck out finding a nice waterfront restaurant that gave us a lovely dinner with a stellar view of the sunset. We all felt pretty happy about that.