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April 2000

Athens

David Aaronson
2005-09-24 21:50:27

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The ruins around it are the rest of the Agora area. The new version encompasses the streets visible on the top right of this picture and on Sunday it becomes a flea market of enormous proportions. It took us a while to wind our way through it and escape to the north on our way to the Archeological Museum. The National Archeological Museum of Greece is one of the great museums in the world and it compares to archeology the way the Louvre does to art. It is enormous and it contains such an incredible number of Greek, Minoan, Mycenean, Doric and other artifacts that you really can't comprehend it all in a single visit. It covers weapons, statues, jewelry, furniture, household items and there's even a Roman chariot. Among the well-known objects here are a gold Mycenean death mask, the statue of Artemis and Pan, the Discus Thrower, and the bust of Octavius Caeser. It's a long walk from the Acropolis to the museum. Athens has a subway system but it isn't always that useful as the stops are very far apart. We successfully took a trolley-bus back to the Plaka for lunch.

That's about it for Athens except to mention jewelry. Neither of us are big jewelry fans but in Athens the goldwork is of very high quality. We ended up at Byzantino on the main street in the Plaka, which we recommend for exceptional gold jewelry as well as conversations on English, French and Greek literature, philosophy, art, history and just about anything else. Most tourists probably come to Athens, see the Acropolis and then leave, and for once we have to agree with them. Unless you like noise, pollution and dense crowds of course. We left Monday morning, hiking to the metro station and taking the train to Piraeus. Piraeus (6) is the port city for Athens and one of the busiest ports in the world. Coming out of the train station you are presented with a view of about 50 or so enormous ferries in all directions and eight lanes of unruly traffic to cross in order to get to them. Once you do get there, there is an entirely different sort of chaos to master.

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