Greece Day 2, Athens - Temple of Olympian Zeus & Nightfall

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27 Oct 2007

After taking the trolley down the yellow line below, somehow I overshot the Temple of Olympian Zeus and had to walk back to the main entrance.

Some walls outside


Hadrian's Gate. It marked the division between the ancient (Greek) and old (Roman) part of the city. This view is from the Roman side (i.e. the Greek side is beyond the gate).


Greek-style columns adorn the top of the Roman-style arch.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus (Olympieion) is the largest Greek Temple ever built and it took more than 500 years to complete! It started in 600 BC and was completed by Emperor Hadrian in 200 AD. It was huge! Compare within the pictures, the size of the remain columns and the people next to it. There were 104 columns of which only 16 remain onsite -- 15 standing and 1 collapsed in 1852.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus!


Most elaborate section still standing. 3 rows of columns adorned the lengths of this rectangular structure.


Details at the top of the columns


This is basically a corner of the temple.


A lone column


Compare these with the humans to get an idea of their size!


The column that fell in 1852, some say earthquake some say gale.


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After walking out of the Temple compound, I walked (purple line above) to the Zappeion that was a very beautiful convention center. The shape of the building is hollow in the center (as seen in the map above).

The Zappeion in its marble glory


The center part


Ceiling decorations

Unfortunately, I did not walk on to one of the impressive attractions of Athens - the Panathinaiko Stadium (red marker in the map). It was an ancient stadium that was rebuilt for the 1896 Olympic games, completely of marble. A panorama view of the stadium from Wikimedia is shown below. Click here for the full sized version.


After checking out the national gardens, which is really nothing out of the ordinary, I walked back to my hotel for some rest and went for dinner in Plaka at Damigoes. A nice old cafe below the street that has a history of more than a 100 years of fried cod-fish. It took me awhile to locate the place. After all it was just a small stair leading to the basement. What is worse is that the signboard was in Greek! But, thanks to mathematics I found the right place.

Yummy dinner time. Wine, bread, and olives


Most unappetizing appetizer. Well it said fried peppers, I was expecting the fat green/yellow/red peppers but no! It is giant green chilli!


Ah deep fried Codfish.

Codfish is the standard deep-fried fish over here. Great dinner except for the appetizers. Dinner cost about 16 euros -- actually cheaper than most of the other eating places at ground level, e.g. 500ml of wine is 3 euros compared to about 4-4.5 euros in some al fresco cafes.

The streets of Plaka at night. I decided to take some night pictures after dinner. The nice thing about Athens is that its ancient ruins are lighted up at night.


Walls of the Acropolis



The Parthenon, unfortunately with the crane.



Odeon of Herodes Atticus by night


Parthenon in the background.


Hadrian's Gate from the Greek Side. It sort of looks cool with the cars and the moon.

I was walking along the Temple of Zeus' parameter to find a good spot to take a picture. Before I knew it, I saw someone doing something beyond the hedge next to the fence. It was another night photographer! Hence I queued up behind him for the perfect spot to take a picture.

The temple by night


The columns look even more majestic at night.


Back to Plaka for a beer.


Mythos beer. Now I know why Tiger is world famous...

Exhausted, I finally decided to call it a night and headed back to my hotel. Tomorrow morning I will attempt to get to the port city of Patras by bus and would not be back in Athens till the day before my flight out of Greece.

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Greece Day 2, Athens - National Archaeological Museum

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To view the previous related post click here.

27 Oct 2007

After spending part of the morning at Kerameikos I decided to make my way towards the National Archaeological museum on foot (via the red line below).

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A Jewish Synagogue


Simple looking church



There are actually quite a number of chinese and indian shops around.

I finally arrived at the National Archaeological Museum after a long walk. After telling the lady at the counter that I am a student from some far away land, I purchased my discounted ticket and went in. There are lots of marble monuments and statues as well as some famous bronze ones with amazing detail.

Grave monument

Asklepios (Asclepius) the Greek demi-god of healing and medicine. He is always portrayed with serpent entwined on a rod which is now a common symbol in medicine. Supposedly he died sometime during or after the Trojan war when Hades got pissed with him for reviving the dead and had Zeus send a thunderbolt through his head. Later Zeus placed him among the stars.

A bust of Antinoos, lover of Roman Emperor Hadrian, note the details of the hair


Boar hunting


Bronze statue of Emperor Augustus, I always wondered how do they shape these things.


Aphrodite, Pan, and Eros


Poseidon, I think his trident is missing


Theatre Mask. I doubt they really carried this around...



Head and arm of a once colossal statue of Zeus


This bronze statue is believed to be either Paris holding an apple towards Aphrodite (to indicate she was the most attractive among Athena and Hera), or Perseus holding the head of Medusa the Gorgon. The latter is more widely believed to be correct.


A wealth (crown)



Statue of Dionysus the Greek god of wine borrowed from the Vatican. It beats me why they would keep this since ancient times.


Eros tugging away at someone.


Greek helmets

Now guess what these are? They were arrow-heads and spear tips recovered from Thermopyle where 300 Spartans & 700 other Greeks faced Xerxes' mighty army. Analysis of the arrow-head types show that they came from different parts of Asia. Thereby confirming that the battle indeed took place against a Persian army comprising of warriors from all over Asia.

Aphrodite


Pottery with the black paint style of Greek warriors.


The more advanced red-paint style allowed more details. Here Heracles (Hercules) is beating up some king and his servants.


Hermes, distinctively recognised by his unique helmet.


One of the most famous bronze statues of Zeus. It is simply amazing as it balances perfectly on its feet!


A Kouros, these were early Greek statues which represented the perfect male youth.


This is a female Kouros, hardly perfect to me.


A write-up of the Kouroi (plural of Kouros). Note the size of the statues found in the bottom of the picture. The largest was 3m tall.


This is the largest Kouros found, it is 3m tall. Imagine a whole street lined with these.


A small statue of Athena, somehow she looks like she is ready to fly to the moon.


Mycenae gold. The Mycenae era is basically one of the most ancient eras whereby much of it is intertwined with myth. The Trojan war took place during the Mycenae era.


Piece containing the Linear B script that is still not deciphered.


The kind of weapons used during the Trojan war.


Ceremonial sword


A really ancient statue, now is this a man or a woman?


Frying pans!


An interesting bear cup

Having had my fill of ancient artifacts the Museum has to offer, I sat right outside for a snack of Snickers and Mammee. Next up was the colossal Temple of Olympian Zeus that took 500 years to build. Being too tired to walk all the way back towards the Temple, I decided to take a trolley along the yellow route (in the map) to speed up my journey.

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