Saturday, January 16, 2016
Hello!
Just back from a wonderful dinner – again, overlooking the
Acropolis with the
Parthenon, so how could it be bad?
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| View from our room as it got darker! |
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| and darker! |
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| Toasting with Prosecco! |
We had reserved a table at the Athens Gate restaurant upstairs for 7 pm, as the restaurant had a
very good rating on TripAdvisor. We got a wonderful table, again looking over
the Acropolis. (I had thought at one point of room service,
but I don’t think this hotel does room service, so did the next best thing.)
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| R's grilled feta |
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| My portobello mushrooms stuffed with feta |
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| R's pork and potatoes |
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| My chicken and veggies |
For starters, I ordered the stuffed portobello mushrooms,
and R their grilled feta. The mushrooms
came with an amazing honey and mustard drizzle.
There were three medium sized Portobello mushrooms, stuffed with feta,
as well as a pile of rocketa lettuce (my favorite!) and a pile of a wonderful
ham from Crete. R had a very nice sized
piece of feta, with lots of different things on top – tomato, peppers, olives
and spices. It was excellent – although
my mushrooms were better.
Then, for mains, I ordered their chicken and R ordered the
pork. Again, both were very different,
and both were excellent. My chicken was
grilled and served on a bed of lightly roasted vegetables, and encircled by a
mustard sauce. Robert’s pork came with
potatoes, and he cleaned his entire plate right up.
For dessert, R had the apple pie (and gave me his ice cream)
and I had the brownie with vanilla ice cream.
Both were good, but the ice cream was outstanding! All the time we were eating, the glass sides
of the restaurant were shaking when the wind blew! Do hope it calms down soon!
More later!
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| R's apple pie and ice cream |
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| My brownie and ice cream |
m
xxx
Hello on Sunday! Hard
to believe that I missed almost all the college bowl games this year, as well
as the NFL playoffs. Oh well! We’ll be home for the Super Bowl!
Up about 7 this morning, and the wind seems to have subsided
somewhat. (Thankfully!) Also, while there was definitely rain
sometime in the night, it’s not raining now.
Lots of clouds racing across the sky.
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| A friend joined us on our balcony! |
Our schedule for today includes the Acropolis Museum, which opens at 9 am … and I mean for us to be
there at opening time! Our hotel is
literally just around the corner from the new museum, so it’s not going to take
us long to get there. Up first to the 8th
floor for a really lovely buffet breakfast.
They have lots of wonderful things to choose from, and they even have my
personal favorites – pound cake (both yellow and chocolate), as well as Nutella, which serves as a great
frosting! (Discovered the wonders of Nutella a few years ago, on our last
Turkey trip!) We had an enjoyable
breakfast, and sat this time facing the Temple
of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian’s Arch. Very fun!
Then, out to the museum about 8:35 am.
The museum gates opened actually a few minutes early, and of course, we
were the first in line. Checked out
coats and up we went!
For some unexplainable reason, the museum has a policy of no
photography on the ground floor and part of the first floor. No explanation, and honestly, it makes no
sense, since they allow photography elsewhere!
And there are so many wonderful things to see.
Truly, we would rank the new
Acropolis Museum as one of the five best museums that we have ever
seen.
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| New Acropolis Museum |
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| Loved the bronze |
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| Top floor of museum with lay-out of marbles |
(And we have seen a
LOT of museums!)
As the museum was being constructed, of
course the contractors struck ancient ruins when they started to dig.
These have since been excavated and preserved,
and the floor of the museum was built with thick plates of tempered glass so
that you can look through and see what’s below.
Then, there is a long, wide ramp leading up toward the first floor, and
it is decorated on both sides and with free-standing displays in the middle,
with stele and votive statuary from the
Temple
of Asclepius on one side, and
Athena
on the other.
Some tremendously beautiful
things to see.
On the first floor (again, where you can’t take photos) they
have a fascinating display about the colors of the statuary and temples.
(We are accustomed to seeing Greek sculpture
as bare stone but, actually, the statues – and the buildings, too – were very
colorfully painted.)
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| Corner Lion from pediment |
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| Excavations still on-going! |
After the
destruction of the
Acropolis by the
Persians in 480 BC, the Athenians gathered up all the debris – votive offerings,
markers, etc. – and buried them in various “sacred pits” around the
Acropolis.
These were later discovered in the late 1800’s,
and when brought to light, displayed brilliant coloring.
Unfortunately, this was before color
photography had really come in to play, so they had an artist come in and do
color paintings of some of the pieces.
This, then, is what the current scientists are using when they try and
duplicate how the pieces really looked.
Lots of blues and reds, and it is amazing what they’re doing now.
Again, really wish we could have taken
pictures!!!
From there, we headed to the top floor, which is built in
the exact dimensions and with the same orientation as the
Parthenon.
Then, they have
filled in, as best they can, with the metopes and frieze pieces that are still
here in Athens.
(Thanks to Elgin’s
marbles, the British Museum is the principal owner of most of the pieces …)
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| My fruit juice creation in process |
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| #41 Nerve Tonic Juice Blend |
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| It actually was pretty good! |
They do have good plaster casts of the Elgin
Marbles, and everything is appropriately labeled.
But it would really be a wonderful thing to
see all the pieces from all over the world reunited (there are pieces in
Belgium, the Louvre, Germany and the Vatican) in this wonderful museum.
[Note from R: I am not at all consistent on
this.
I often feel it would be best to
disburse antiquities to mitigate the travesty caused by the willful destruction
of art by fanatics but, being here again, I really think the Elgin Marbles
should be returned to Greece.]
As an
afterthought, I have to mention that there weren’t many people in the museum
until we were on our way out.
We figured
that either a cruise ship must have pulled in, or the tour buses all came at
the same time.
Wow!
We also missed
ALL of the school groups, who were coming in droves as we headed
out.
Good timing, for sure!
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| Theatre on the way up |
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| View near the top |
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| Erechthion |
After this, we enjoyed a sit down in the café and some great
sparkling water, then we were off to climb
Acropolis
hill to the
Pantheon!
(I have to insert here that Robert has not
been looking forward to the climb, and gently chides me on a regular basis about
how old he is getting!)
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| Parthenon under renovation |
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| Erechthion |
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| Parthenon |
For security
purposes, only the main entrance is open, although you can see the temples and
theatres further down the slopes from the eastern entrance.
We bought our tickets, and up we went – much faster
than Robert ever thought, and suddenly, we were on the top looking down at the
city – with the sea and
Piraeus in
the distance.
The sun was shining, and
so far (knock wood!) no threat of the rain that had been forecast for today.
Just like with some of the other temples I’ve mentioned
along the way, the Parthenon is now
roped off, which I think is a really great idea. Nobody climbing all over the steps and
leaning up against the columns. We were
able to actually see our hotel room from the top of the Acropolis, which was
great fun.
Then, down again, and back to the hotel for a quick minute
and to drop off a few little things that we had picked up at the museum gift shop. Oh yes!
We also had a quick stop at “our” favorite juice place. This time, while Robert had plain old orange
juice, I had the “Nerve Tonic” juice blend.
This included strawberries, blackberries, banana, mint, ginger and
watermelon. It was so fun to see it
being made, and it actually was quite tasty.
I’ve promised myself the “anti-aging” blend tomorrow…so we’ll see what
happens.
Out again and this time, to the Metro station at
Akropoli, one stop to
Syntagma Square.
(This is the square that includes the
Parliament buildings as well as the splendid
Grande Bretagne hotel on the corner, and is where the Greeks meet
to protest on occasion.)
Around the
corner and down the street, past the French Embassy to the
Benaki Museum.
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| View from the top |
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| Looking down on an Odeon |
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| Our hotel is building in center with Greek flag! |
The Benaki houses
the collection of Antonis Benakis, and what a collection it is! The entire first floor basically holds the
collection of Neolithic to Hellenic items.
There are vases, sculpture, and an amazing jewelry collection. Seriously, his Neolithic artifacts rival those
in the National Museum of Archeology,
where we were yesterday. The collection
was donated to the Greek State under a private charter, where it remains to
this day. As Robert said, most of the
collection was acquired before modern
standards, so there is no mention of the provenance of many of the items shown.
Besides the early pieces, there is a floor devoted almost
entirely to iconography and religious art and artifacts, and a final (third)
floor taken up with Greek ethnographic items – dress, shoes, furniture and
there are even several “reception” rooms that were physically moved and
reinstalled in situ.
All in all, a very
impressive collection.
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| Parthenon |
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| Parthenon |
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| And yet again! |
By this time we were museumed and walked-out … and we still
had to get back to the metro to get back to the hotel! However, we managed to catch a not
particularly crowded metro train, and collapse in puddles back on our room. Still don’t know what we’re going to do for
dinner tonight, but I’m sure we’ll find something!
More later!
m
xxx
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