Wednesday: Acropolis
May. 30th, 2007 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deirdreWe got up early early today to get to the Acropolis before the crowds arrived. The site opened at 8, and we'd left a few minutes after 7:30 to get there.
The Acropolis, as one might gather from the "acro-" prefix, is fairly high. Those of you who know me know that I walk with a limp some days due to having a weak right leg, though study of yoga has improved my strength and balance. I generally avoid stairs, because I can easily injure myself on them. I can walk longer distances with more ease, but stairs are still problematic because only one of my legs is strong enough to negotiate stairs of average height.
Thus, I had some fears and trepidations about the Acropolis -- I knew there would be a lot of walking, a lot of stair climbing, and I'd hurt a lot afterward -- much like yesterday's trip to Delphi. Worse, because one of my pain medications tends to make me dizzy, I knew I shouldn't take that medication until after I descending.
We set out on foot to the Acropolis, which I figured would help warm up my legs. Even though we're staying in the Plaka district, which is located at the foot of the Acropolis, we're not staying in the highest part. Thus, we had several staircases to climb to arrive on Theorias street, where we entered on the north side of the Acropolis area. As it turns out, we happened to pick the wrong entry, because we couldn't go to the main entrance on the western side from where we were. We could go down and around (which would have taken us to the main entrance), or we could go east, which would mean going all the way around the Acropolis before entering into the Propylaia and ascending to the top.
Normally, I would avoid that route, but I figured it would be more interesting, even though I risked being totally worn out at the end. As it turns out, I'm glad we took that route, because a lot of it isn't traversed a lot.
At the east end, there's a cave dedicated to the daughter of one of the founding kings of Athens, who apparently threw herself off the Acropolis to save the city. On the south side, we saw the new Acropolis Museum (not yet opened) off in the distance beyond the Amphitheatre of Dionysus. The amphitheatre is huge, and is where most of the famous Greek plays (including Sophocles and Aeschylus) were first performed. They have about 20 rows of the original 64 restored; the amphitheatre originally held about 17,000 people.
We also passed a bronze foundry, used for casting statues on-site.
Further along, the Asklepion, dedicated to the god Asklepios, famed for healing, is currently being re-created from mostly new marble (using old pieces where available), and it will look fabulous.
We also passed a later amphitheatre of Roman origin, which is still in use.
After that, and some stair climbing, we reached the Proylaia, which involved many stairs. On top, the Acropolis has very uneven footing, some of it laid down on top of the red-and-black marble that had been covering the site (the Acropolis itself is made from sandstone and limestone, so the marble was obviously imported).
By the time we got there, it was about 9:30 or 10. I headed immediately for the restroom, which involved yet another flight of stairs. I was hot and parched by that point, so washing my face in the cool water felt fabulous. After that, we sat on a bench in the shade for a while, staring at the Parthenon and watching a very relaxed dog sleeping. It wasn't clear he belonged to anyone, actually, but he seemed to be having a good time.
We wandered about for a bit, then descended. Oddly, finding a taxi was problematic; the one taxi we saw was dropping someone off, but was not picking up fares (we were not the only people who asked, either). So, resigned to my fate, I walked back to the hotel.
By that time, it was 12:30, and I was utterly exhausted. I took a bit of time upstairs to recover, then we went downstairs and had a great lunch, and I took a nap.
I'm too tired to visit the National Museum today; we're going to try for that in the morning before we head out to Piraeus.
The Acropolis, as one might gather from the "acro-" prefix, is fairly high. Those of you who know me know that I walk with a limp some days due to having a weak right leg, though study of yoga has improved my strength and balance. I generally avoid stairs, because I can easily injure myself on them. I can walk longer distances with more ease, but stairs are still problematic because only one of my legs is strong enough to negotiate stairs of average height.
Thus, I had some fears and trepidations about the Acropolis -- I knew there would be a lot of walking, a lot of stair climbing, and I'd hurt a lot afterward -- much like yesterday's trip to Delphi. Worse, because one of my pain medications tends to make me dizzy, I knew I shouldn't take that medication until after I descending.
We set out on foot to the Acropolis, which I figured would help warm up my legs. Even though we're staying in the Plaka district, which is located at the foot of the Acropolis, we're not staying in the highest part. Thus, we had several staircases to climb to arrive on Theorias street, where we entered on the north side of the Acropolis area. As it turns out, we happened to pick the wrong entry, because we couldn't go to the main entrance on the western side from where we were. We could go down and around (which would have taken us to the main entrance), or we could go east, which would mean going all the way around the Acropolis before entering into the Propylaia and ascending to the top.
Normally, I would avoid that route, but I figured it would be more interesting, even though I risked being totally worn out at the end. As it turns out, I'm glad we took that route, because a lot of it isn't traversed a lot.
At the east end, there's a cave dedicated to the daughter of one of the founding kings of Athens, who apparently threw herself off the Acropolis to save the city. On the south side, we saw the new Acropolis Museum (not yet opened) off in the distance beyond the Amphitheatre of Dionysus. The amphitheatre is huge, and is where most of the famous Greek plays (including Sophocles and Aeschylus) were first performed. They have about 20 rows of the original 64 restored; the amphitheatre originally held about 17,000 people.
We also passed a bronze foundry, used for casting statues on-site.
Further along, the Asklepion, dedicated to the god Asklepios, famed for healing, is currently being re-created from mostly new marble (using old pieces where available), and it will look fabulous.
We also passed a later amphitheatre of Roman origin, which is still in use.
After that, and some stair climbing, we reached the Proylaia, which involved many stairs. On top, the Acropolis has very uneven footing, some of it laid down on top of the red-and-black marble that had been covering the site (the Acropolis itself is made from sandstone and limestone, so the marble was obviously imported).
By the time we got there, it was about 9:30 or 10. I headed immediately for the restroom, which involved yet another flight of stairs. I was hot and parched by that point, so washing my face in the cool water felt fabulous. After that, we sat on a bench in the shade for a while, staring at the Parthenon and watching a very relaxed dog sleeping. It wasn't clear he belonged to anyone, actually, but he seemed to be having a good time.
We wandered about for a bit, then descended. Oddly, finding a taxi was problematic; the one taxi we saw was dropping someone off, but was not picking up fares (we were not the only people who asked, either). So, resigned to my fate, I walked back to the hotel.
By that time, it was 12:30, and I was utterly exhausted. I took a bit of time upstairs to recover, then we went downstairs and had a great lunch, and I took a nap.
I'm too tired to visit the National Museum today; we're going to try for that in the morning before we head out to Piraeus.