Athens, Part 1
April 22nd - 25th, 2017
The Greek Island Hamburger continued with a couple days in Athens.
I’ve been pretty excited to make it to Greece, and specifically Athens, for the mixture of classical and biblical history it boasts. Athens has only exploded in size within the last century and with the economic troubles facing Greece, it sorta curled up it’s gangly adolescent body into the fetal position and hasn’t cleaned it’s room in a while (i.e. it’s dirty). But don’t be mistaken by that description — with the right expectations this city is a satisfying destination.
So what should you expect?
Open and friendly residents. If you get out of the tourist areas, most anyone will strike up a conversation with you. We talked extensively with a hairdresser, kebab business owners, and fellow bus riders.
Lots of immigrants. Like all big cities, Athens is culturally rich with Albanians, Bangladeshis, Turks, and many other regional immigrants making there way there to find work. The recent crises has made that even more challenging, and if you take time to ask questions you can learn lots about the 100s of lives that people live — all of which you likely haven’t experienced.
Countless affordable and mouth watering eats. The upside of visiting areas struggling economically are that things are cheap (and a heavy dose of moral lamenting over white privilege). We found that the tantalizing Mediterranean dishes and tastes didn’t suffer. Typically, we cook several meals but we ditched that norm and ate out as much as possible. €2.60 for a gyros, €2 for a Freddo ( iced expresso loaded with cream — a Greek regular), €7 for an overflowing platter of kebab, chicken and pork skewers, sausage, fries and salad, enough for 4 people. These prices and food were unreal. I’m thinking heavily about our return to Athens and eating my way through every street.
When we weren’t stuffing our faces, we were matching pace with your typical Athenian vacation and trying to hit every historical site the city holds, or at least each one that was included in the €30 pass.
Our tour started with the Ancient Agora of Athens — where the likes of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle discussed philosophy, prodded passersby with questions, and established a framework of thinking that has been rehearsed and revised for generations. It was also the very marketplace where Paul wandered through waiting for Silas and Timothy to join him in Acts 17. His impassioned discussion of the gospel led him up to the Areopagus, or Mars Hill, where he spoke before the Athenian council.
After the agora it was up to the Areopagus and of course the Acropolis, the mountain top holy ground of Athens, where the Parthenon and other ancient structures built to honor the gods still stand after 2400+ years. Apparently they were in tip top shape until the Venetians bombed them in the 1600s and then more recently even worse — acid rain started eating away at them.
Dancing in the rain seems less romantic.
There’s loads more of ancient things scattered throughout Athens. We visited the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Hadrian’s Library (he was a big fan of the Greeks), Aristotle’s Lyceum, and the Roman Agora. Each sparked a deeper appreciation for the concepts and theories produced during that era and prodded us to want more of a classical education for our kids. One comment I found provoking was that the founding fathers knew far more classical history than any of our current senators and representatives — I wonder how much the slide into practical education and politicking contributes to the partisan decline of Washington.
But enough of that. After two days of intense site-seeing (and eating) it was time to set sail for island life!
