Our arrival in Athens was unremarkable, but everything after that was incredible and wildly interesting. The architecture in Athens seems to be from all around the mid 1900s, all square white block, packed tightly into narrow blocks towering 8-10 stories high and crowding up the hillside with an amazing blue sea at its feet. The city was dusty and loud with construction everywhere, motorbikes screaming and taxis blowing their horns, and after Paris's cold spring rains the moist heat of Athens was smothering, but still inviting. We wound through the main streets towards our hotel rather nonplussed by the noise and the traffic, only to find our hotel ensconced in construction and more noise, and located less than 100 feet from a busy highway. After we entered the LLissos Hotel the lobby was nice and cool and the building was quiet on the inside. The room at the back of the hotel was also quiet and comfortable. Our hike up to the Acropolis from the hotel was really interesting, and the scenery is so different from anything I had seen before. It reminded me of photos of big American cities in the 50s with small stores in those steel and stone square buildings set back from the sidewalk by big overhangs of steel but nearly no variation except for the type of goods they sold. The streets here were even more narrow than the main arteries, which weren't all that big to begin with if you compare them to the grand boulevards of Paris or New York.
The Acropolis of Athens seems to start about 1/3 from the top of the hill and is surrounded by a shabby walking path and some chain link fence - at least from the direction we arrived. We passed the new museum, which didn't seem to be open yet, and kept climbing up the hill to a guard shack and what appeared to be an entrance. The signs were not very clear, and the 'guard" directed us to a ticket booth back down the hill where we had to buy tickets. As we entered with tickets, he was redirecting all of the other tourists in the same direction. We climbed up the walkway toward the ruins through a shady walk that could have used some landscaping.
I say all this to give you the idea that Athens is not Disneyland, but is better because of the authenticity and the clear conveyance of it's history as a city and as a country - even now. There are no amusement park amenities. The guards whistle shrilly when they want to indicate someone in the crowd is doing something wrong, and then everyone is supposed to look around and figure out what that is. In the meantime, 2000 year old archeological ruins remind one that this was at one time an amazing center of religious worship and government -- and probably very specific order.
There are dogs and cats everywhere. Apparently they have a huge stray animal population, and they are treated with quiet acknowledgement and no attempt to keep them out. One very friendly kitty name Amalia accompanied the guards all around the site.
The renovation of the Acropolis in Greece started in the 1960s as a faded signs reminds us, and then again in the 1980s and I expect it won't end for quite some time. We either read or were told by a guide that a lot of what is going on now is the deconstruction from the earlier "renovations" which entailed the use of poor quality or inappropriate building materials.
That said -- the Acropolis is enchanting. The temples, the view of the sea from the obviously highest point for miles in any direction, the complexity of the 2000 year old ruins indicate a very sophisticated civilization was there long before us. And juxtaposed against the density of the Athenian city that exists now, I wonder about the elegance that was lost.
