Up early to do the Acropolis before it got really hot. It was a relatively short walk from our hotel and we took lots of pictures. Hal remembers when he came here in the 70's and you could walk inside the Parthenon and actually touch the columns--no longer. In fact everything has scaffolding around it and reconstructive work is ubiquitous at this site.
There are lots more pictures on our
Flickr site which I promise to organize some day... We then headed down the hill to the new
Acropolis Museum. It's lovely and light and houses many of the original pieces from the Parthenon frieze--set into a similarly sized/situated exhibit-- as well as the the remaining actual statues of the Caryatids (the replicas are seen here 'in situ')
from the
Erectheion (translation to Latin alphabet spelling varies) temple on the Acropolis. The Caryatids are beautiful and I was awe struck--as I would be many times over--at the ability to capture the details of
flowing clothes and elaborate hairstyles in stone. One of the coolest things about the museum is that it is situated over a working archaeological site and the floors in many places are glass, allowing you to see the partially excavated ruins under your feet.
We got lost on our way back to the hotel and for the first time of many, struggled with the fact that street signs are in an alphabet different from our own and not resembling anything on an English version of the maps.
