Eve’s good friend Shrita, who spent a lot of time in Athens participating in archeological digs, and Eve have been texting back and forth about things to do and see in Athens. Shrita is being a wonderful guide in steering us to fun and interesting things. She encouraged us to go to the Ancient Agora, where she had spent time doing archeological work.
We took a cab to the Ancient Agora, thinking that the driver would get us directly to the entrance like the cab did for the Acropolis visit. Unfortunately, this cab driver did not want to do this for fear of getting a ticket for driving in a restricted area, so we had a bit of a walk to the entrance. But we arrived at the entrance after a few minutes walk through some narrow streets that were bustling with activity.
The Ancient Agora is near the north slope of the Acropolis and was the center of everything in ancient Athens. The word “agora” applies to an assembly of people and by extension marks the gathering place. In modern Greek the term means “marketplace.” The Agora of Athens, being located at the heart of the city, remained in use either as an assembly, as a commercial, or as a residential area for about 5000 years. Consequently, the area has undergone countless building, destruction, and rebuilding cycles. Today this strata of history has been distilled through excavations to expose the Agora’s important functions from Archaic to Greco-Roman and Byzantine times. For the most part, for the visitor today, the Agora is not important for the splendor of its buildings, but for the significance of its history.
Contrasting with the austere ruins in the middle of the archaeological site however, two splendid buildings stand as testaments to its past glory, the humble Temple of Hephaestus, which is the best preserved ancient Greek temple from the Classical era, and the impressive Stoa of Attalos, a building of the Hellenistic period that was rebuilt from the ground up based on its ancient appearance.
The Stoa of Atallos was entirely reconstructed in the 1950s and was carefully built based on archeologically known details. A stoa is a covered walkway, or portico, and this stoa is a 2-story building that must have been something in the 1st century B.C. when it was built. The stoa was “the happening” place for politicking, commerce, assembly and just seeing and being seen. Standing in the stoa stimulated my imagination and I could picture Greeks adorned in flowing robes wandering up and down the portico, going into the shops and businesses along the portico. In fact, the entire area of the Agora site really had a special feel about it even though there are no buildings other than the stoa and the Temple of Hephaestus. But looking out around the grounds and the placement of the ruins, I could really sense what the place might have looked like.
There was a small museum in the stoa containing artifacts from the Agora. There were lots of vases, cups and jugs. I was amazed at some of them that had been put back together again. Often a cup or jug was dozens of pieces that had been painstakingly reconstructed. There was also a lot of jewelry and other personal adornments. I cracked up over seeing a couple of pairs of boots that were made out of terra cotta. Those must not have been very comfortable.
One really interesting thing I learned in the museum was about ostracism. Ostracism was a unique type of voting intended as a means of protecting the city against aspirants to despotic power. The result of the ostracism vote was valid only if there was a quorum of 6,000 present. Each voter scratched or painted on a potsherd, an ostracon, the name of the man he thought most undesirable. The “candidate” with the greatest number of votes against him was obliged to withdraw from Athens for ten years. Ostracism was used through most of the 5th century B.C. In many cases it came to be used as a tactical maneuver between rival politicians.
Here are a few more photos from the Agora site.
We wandered around the grounds separately for quite a while and then met up at the Temple of Hephaestus. This temple is the best preserved ancient Greek temple from the Classical era. We got sight of it on our first visit to the Acropolis down on the northwest side of the slope. At that time, I didn’t know what it was. All I knew is that I saw what looked like a mini-Parthenon, and in much better condition than the Parthenon. It still has its cella roof and all of the frieze from the front and back peristyles around the cella. It’s a very spectacular building.
After our time at the Ancient Agora, we took Shrita’s recommendations to go to a rooftop café for lunch. It was atop the A for Athens Hotel at Monastiraki Square. She recommended it for the view, and wow, did it ever deliver. And a plus was that the food actually was pretty good. We enjoyed our lunch and took in the view.
Afterwards, we bought some fruit from a vendor in the square then tried to get a taxi back to the hotel. We were advised that this would not be easy due to a demonstration someplace that had tied up traffic. So, we went to the metro station and hopped a subway. We bought some sandwiches on the way back to the hotel for a picnic dinner. Eve heard from her taxi driver on the way in from the airport that we should take in the sunset from Mount Lycabettus, so we decided to spend our last night in Athens doing just that.
We took a taxi to the cable car entrance on Mount Lycabettus. The taxi ride in itself was quite a thrill, up and down hills and through narrow little streets. The cable car goes up the mountain inside a tunnel. There are two cars that hold about 10-12 people each. You head up the tunnel on the same track as the cars coming down and halfway through the tunnel the track splits so the up and down cars can pass each other.
The view from the top, the highest point in Athens, is really quite spectacular. We’ve seen Mount Lycabettus throughout our stay in Athens. In several of the photos I took from the Acropolis you will see Lycabettus. At the very top is an Orthodox Church, St. George. It’s a lovely little church with lots of iconography within. Also, below the church are a couple of restaurants and bars. But the real attraction is the sunset. Lots of people come up the mount to see the sunset. We brought our picnic and sat on the church steps enjoying the dusk and sunset. Once the sun set, then the lights of Athens were the star of the show. The Acropolis, illuminated, could be seen. It was a very perfect ending to our visit to Athens with Eve.
Back down the cable car, we then got a taxi. It cost 5 Euros to get there and the lone taxi at the entrance to the cable car station said 15 Euros to take us to the hotel. Eve negotiated the price to 10 Euros, and I think we were satisfied with that since he was the only cab in sight. Back at the hotel, we packed and got ourselves prepared for our flight to Malta Thursday morning.
It has been a wonderful experience in Athens. I certainly enjoyed everything we saw, did, and ate. Eve certainly added to the experience and is was wonderful creating memories together with her.
Now, onward to Malta in the morning.
