Exploring Germany, Greece and England: The Acropolis

We (us and the Gershenzons minus Jonathon who was away for work reasons) hiked up to the Acropolis (the word acropolis actually only means a presidio on top of a sheer cliff) on our first full day in Athens. The hike up was about 20 minutes long but the grand view of the Proplyeae (a fancy word for the gate) was well worth it. During the entire hike I listened to a Rick Steve's podcast describing the Acropolis in detail.

Papa also listening to Rick Steve's guide on the monument of Agrippa (second time I am typing this because Mama did not believe I actually knew this and deleted it) The monument was topped originally by the winner of the 178 B.C. chariot races later Marc Antony replaced it with a statue of himself and Cleopatra on top, however when the Roman general Agrippa conquered Athens he modestly replaced it with a statue of himself.

There used to be a 30 feet high statue of Athena Promachos (the protector form of Athena) but it was moved to Constantinople and was destroyed by a mob who thought it was beckoning to the crusaders (very odd considering it was a Christian city). Behind the statue would have stood the temple of Athena Polias (patron deity of the city of Athens) but it was destroyed by the Persians in 480 B.C.

Kegan in front of the Parthenon

(Just for the record Kegan took an astounding 48 pictures of cats, dogs and turtles while we were in Greece and a pathetic 2 of the Parthenon, both featuring herself I might add)

The Parthenon was dedicated to Athena Parthenos (the maiden). I though the coolest thing about the building was the fact that they understood the illusion that when two parallel lines intersected two other parallel all four lines have the illusion of bending outward. The architects of the Parthenon countered this by giving the columns a slight outward lean to counter the illusion. Inside the temple there was a 3 sided room that contained the statue of Athena Parthenos the statue was over 50 feet tall and gilded with an astounding 1,100 kilograms of gold. The Parthenon was framed by friezes around the top however some of them were destroyed by the crusaders and the Muslims. Later Lord Elgin carried off the some of the more impressive friezes and shipped them back to England where he sold them to the British Museum (the Greeks want them back but it is unlikely that the British government will ever return them).

Us in front of the Erechtheion. This was a temple to Athena Polias and Poseidon and in legend is where Poseidon and Athena gave their gifts to the city of Athens (for those who don't know the story the two Deities competed to become the patron of the city) and supposedly you can see where Poseidon created the spring. On the other side is the Porch of the Caryatids which is a porch with a roof supported by 6 statues of women used as pillars.