Two Hills in Athens

Saturday, September 7

We arrived in Athens, and got picked up by name by a taxi friend of the Airbnb host, who helped us into the apartment.  It was a very compact apartment, complete with a little kitchen, but no room to walk around.  The toilet was located inside the shower.  This is not an uncommon arrangement in tiny houses.  We went to sleep.  This neighborhood of Athens did not look that great.

Sunday, September 8

We woke up and searched the neighborhood for breakfast, finding the Bread Factory which had all of the basics (coffee, tea, orange juice, and pastry).  The location is convenient to brothels.  On the walking street Iasonos, they are the doors with signs that say “open” but with no other identifying information. 

Then back to the hotel, and up towards the Acropolis Museum.  As we went up there, we discovered all of the little breakfast places that we should have gone to.  Oh well, next time.

We entered into the line at a gate among hedges.  It’s like the bridge of sighs, the last sylvan coolness you will experience for a while.  The Acropolis Museum has been open for ten years.  Many artifacts, particularly the decorated elements of the Parthenon, had been weathering badly in the smoggy air and were getting damaged; the museum was built so they could be shown in conditioned air. The entire top floor, the Parthenon Gallery, showed these elements.  Most significant were the gaps, where the museum indicated which of the marbles had been abducted by Lord Elgin.  The Greeks want them back.  I understand their point of view, but I also understand the British point of view as well, that these marbles would by now be stumps of corroded limestone or garden ornaments of God knows who, if they had not been judiciously stolen.  Art theft is a special category of preservationism.

The lower floor showed various statues and pottery and artifacts found on the Acropolis hill and the slopes beneath.  You couldn’t take pictures on one of the floors, which seemed the same as all the floors where you could take photos.  Perhaps Lord Elgin was pissed at some officious curator who wouldn’t let him take selfies.

An additional exhibit which opened this year was the “excavation”, where the foundations of ancient houses underneath the museum were visible.  Houses were built on top of older houses, and it was a bit impenetrable to figure out what was what.  There were diagrams which tried to help, but were often confusing.  AR will go a long way to fixing this; we’ll rent the goggles if we go back in ten years.

We walked back a different way, stumbling on a book fair in a park, though it was all Greek to us.  A website had a list of interesting spots that locals eat at, and we went to “Avli”, and were seated, after some shuffling, in a hallway.  It was tasty, and fun to watch the locals.  Ray was facing in the direction of the stairway cat, who was watching us.

Monday, September 9

We found a place for breakfast in the neighborhood where we’d seen places the day before, after being rejected by some and rejecting others.  It was early, by tourist standards.  We walked back to the Airbnb, and took our luggage to a nearby store operated by the host, to keep until our night flight.

We explored our neighborhood a bit more on our way to the post offices, seeing picturesque junkies passed out with their cell phones in their hands, and another who had shit himself and might have been dead.  After the post office, we decided to go walk up Lycabettus Hill, a very prominent hill not too far from the Acropolis.  It was a good hike, and it had an excellent view of the Acropolis and the entire city.  The weather was hot, and the water at the view cafe on top priced accordingly.

Coming back down, we stopped at A is for Athens’ rooftop bar to get a picture of the hill we’d climbed, and had a pear cider from Sweden and a mastic tea.  The mastic was a sweet goo, sticking to the spoon in the tea.

We were forbidden to take pictures of “Little Kook”, a restaurant designed by a quirkiness consultantcy.

Then we went to a little fish restaurant for locals (whatever that means so close to the Acropolis).  The fish was peppery, something you don’t see much here.  We stopped by another restaurant for its cheese plate, and returned to the store, for our taxi ride back to the airport.