Yes, Athens' Acropolis is wonderful

 

The Acropolis

We just flew our 6^th flight with Aegean Airlines—and we’re impressed.  Every flight until today has been smooth and on time.  Today, the incoming plane had mechanical problems and had to be taken out of service.  Most airlines would have canceled the flight, which was from Rhodes to Athens, but Aegean brought in another plane from Athens, loaded us aboard, and delivered us to Athens only an hour late.  Throughout the delay, I received texts from Aegean telling me what was going on.  I’ve never had such a rapid and informative response from any other airline. 

The Parthenon

I keep reading that Athens’ Acropolis isn’t really all that great, that too many of the artifacts have been removed to other locations.  Well, we went to the Acropolis late in the afternoon and thought it was exceptional.  It is a magnificent site, high above Athens, which had clean air that day, so the views were beautiful.  Everything on the Acropolis is under constant renovation and reconstruction, in part because earlier restorations were done so badly that the structures and stones need to be stabilized.  So the Parthenon has scaffolding covering the front and heavy equipment inside, which I think it also had all those years ago when I first visited.  I still loved it. 

women of ancient Athens

The next morning, before our flight to Tirana, Albania, we went to see the Ancient Agora, the site where Athens’ democracy began and flourished.  There is one temple there today, but lots of eroding statues, stones and columns and one beautiful Corinthian capital.  It is all in a garden, so it’s easy to stroll around imagining what it was like when the men of Athens debated the great issues of the day right in this place.

The Tholos, a round platform that was the foundation of an unusual, round meeting hall, is particularly interesting.  The leaders of Athens would meet there to make decisions.  Some of the men would spend the night in the Tholos in case an important decision needed to be made in the middle of the night.  Each group of leaders would use the Tholos for 35 or 36 days, after which another of the 10 tribes of Athens would send their leaders for 35 or 36 days.  That way, each of the 10 tribes had an equal amount of time to rule Athens. 

the Tholos with schoolchildren

Our hotel is in a very upscale neighborhood, with lots of high end shops, but also a lot of crumbling buildings.  Everywhere you can see empty stores and partially constructed buildings that look like they’ve been partial for a long time.   At the same time, the restaurants are busy.  Our hotel is on one of a series of pedestrian streets, which are filled with people.

Temple of Hephaestus and cat

But, it’s clear the economy is not thriving.  One business owner we talked to said she was a resident of the UAE, even though she’s Greek and owns a business in Greece, because she doesn’t want to pay Greek taxes.  Her attitude, which is common, is one of the reasons Greece has such big economic problems—people don’t pay taxes, so the government doesn’t have enough money to provide basic services and resorts to borrowing.  Only now it can’t borrow like it used to.  There are a lot of people living in poverty and looking for jobs.  And a lot of young people leaving Greece for other EU countries where their opportunities are better. 

Athens on a clear day