Six Days in Athens 2019

Thursday 6^th June  Awake at six o’clock: blackbird singing; thrum of traffic on Kallirois drifting in; later, bells from nearby St. Panteleimon Ilissos.  Walked up to National Archaeological Museum via:  Hadrian’s Arch and Temple of Olympian Zeus; fine exhibition of photographs by Robert McCabe; and Evzones performing their unique stylised march in front of Tomb of the Unknown Soldier;.  Coffee frappe at café off Plateia Omonias – voluble Greek men and clicking backgammon tiles.

Archaeological Museum full of marvellous things in marble and gold.  Athens Central Market full of blackened meat, silver fish and strong smells.  Beer in the courtyard at The Art Foundation.  Flea Markets around Monastriaki – furniture, books, coins medals, clocks, pictures, glasses, cameras, knives, etc. etc.  – sellers relax disinterestedly in the shade.

Friday 7^th June  Orthodox chapel in the basement of the Mission next to the hotel; the priest explains the four icons on the iconostasis – left to right, the patron saint of the church, the Virgin Mary, Christ and John the Baptist.  Walked down to the National Garden – formerly Royal Garden commissioned by Queen Amalia, 1838 – pines, cypresses, oaks, cedars and glorious jacaranda, symbol of wisdom, rebirth, wealth and good luck.

Benaki Museum.  Starts with the simplicity of early Greece and ascends through periods of increasingly ornate and fussy design, evidence that art, unlike science, is not progressive.  Formal lunch being held for overdressed Greek ladies of a certain age.  Ghika Gallery (studio, apartment and gallery).  No starving artist’s garret, but beautiful and sophisticated rooms full of books, paintings and eclectic objets d’art.  Below rooms devoted to friends from the art world of post-war Greece – discovered two new women photographers, Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari (known as Nelly’s) and Voula Papaioannou.

Saturday 8^th June  To the Acropolis.  Start early, but still don’t beat the crowds nor the heat.  Guides wave their umbrellas; people snap away and pose for selfies; guardians blow whistles.  Difficult to appreciate the original grandeur, beauty and importance; it’s now a scene symbolic of something else.  Why to people being young children?  A box is ticked.  Alpine swifts scream overhead.  Acropolis Museum: fine building, homage to the glory that was; good dakos salad lunch.

On to Ancient Agora.  Serendipity: stumbled on The House on Panos Street, a museum of ‘man and tools, aspects of labour in the pre-industrial world’; honours the status of craft skills and the hardness of past Greek life.  Temple of Hephaestus (449 BC) much more complete and in many ways more satisfying than the Parthenon; the Agora (1950s restoration), sublime rhythms of light and shade.

Sunday 9^th June  To Delphi.  Full coach; guide in purple dress proves to be loud, repetitive and patronising – in both English and French. Good road, part E75; past Thebes and Lake Yliki, Levadhia and Arachova; from city to mountains, from roadside oleander to roadside broom; 190 km.  Distant Mount Parnassus, still some snow after hard winter. Arrived mid-day.  Climbed up past the Treasuries and the remains of the Oracle’s Temple to the Theatre.  Polygonal wall inscribed with the manumission contracts of slaves, who were dedicated to Apollo.  Sweeping view down the valley, across the Tholos and the Gymnasium.

Museum cool, and calm provided we kept two rooms in front of the guide.  Favourite pieces: bronze Charioteer of Delphi, (470s BC), and silver statue of a bull (with golden balls).  Chicken lunch in sprawling country restaurant near Chrisso; mulberries in the garden; steep drop down to the plain, Itea and the Gulf of Corinth.  Photo stop at Arachova.  Halloumi gyros for supper back in Athens, hmm rather than Ummm.

Monday 10^th June  St. Panteleimon Ilissos: early morning sun sending patches of colour across the endless saints and illuminating their halos; lit candles  Through the Zappeio Gardens and Palace to the Panathenaic Stadium – built in 4^th Century BC, restored 1895.  Ancient stadia established the model for all built since.

Cycladic Museum.  Beautiful objects of great simplicity.  This and the Benaki based originally on private collections; both excellent, both have an air of class and privilege.  Across the road to the Byzantine and Christian Museum – severe and intense icons become overwhelming.  Interesting take on this and the culture of ancient stones in an exhibition ‘Broken History’ by Pavlos Samios.  Steep climb then funicular railway up Lykavittos Hill.  Athens sprawling out to the surrounding hills and south west to the Saronic Gulf – about 45% of Greece’s population lives here.  Rabbit for supper.

Tuesday 11^th June   Walked to the ancient cemetery of Kerameikos – underwhelming, apart from large tortoise and bushes of pale purple flowers alive with bees and butterflies.  Blessings of serendipity on the way: the picturesque little church of St Dimitrios Loumbardiaris with its wonderful Byzantine collage walls; and a playground of children in the sun joyously learning traditional Greek songs and dances.

Across busy Pireos to the Industrial Gas Museum – remains of the Athens gas works closed in 1984.  Extraordinary monument to: human ingenuity; harnessing fundamental processes; the blessing of street and domestic lighting; and the appalling working conditions endured by workers for over 130 years.  A rare survival.  Back to conventional archaeology at the Roman Agora and the Tower of the Winds.  Serendipity again: finding peace in the Church of Agios Eleftherios amid the bustle of shopping streets.  Last night – large slice of consoling baklava.