Athens and Beyond

Wednesday 11 June

This morning we began the tour routine - early wake up call, bags packed and outside the door for collection, buffet breakfast (nice selection and great coffee) and then onto the bus with our 30 fellow travellers, Nikos the driver and the irrepressible Lisa who manages everything with charm and skill.  Our group is truly international, representing Australia, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia and the USA as well as a wide range of ages including two Singaporean schoolgirls.  The Divani Caravel in Athens is within easy walking distance of the main square, Syntagma, but this morning we visited various sites in the city by bus.  First stop was the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, located just below the Acropolis, and constructed over a period of 600 years from the 6th century BC.   Today the 15 majestic Corinthian columns that remain give a good idea of how impressive this temple must have been.   Our local guide, Maria, was very knowledgeable and we were well informed about life in ancient Greece and about the amazing feats of design and construction that went into completing such monumental structures.  The temple ruins are situated in a large field surrounded by olives, cypresses and other vegetation which largely block out the sights and sounds of modern Athens.

Temple of Zeus, Athens

At one corner of this site is Hadrian's Arch, an impressive portal which is Roman in orgin. 

Hadrian's Arch

Following the obligatory group photo we drove through the old Plaka neighbourhood to the Acropolis. From the bus park it was an easy walk up through the olive groves to the entrance gate of the Acropolis.  Although there were plenty of visitors, the crowds were not overwhelming  and as entrances go this one is pretty impressive and beautifully maintained.  Whilst the ancient marble ruins are breathtaking, so too are the 360 degree views from this famous vantage point.  Once through the gates, we were quite in awe of the magnificent Parthenon which even as a ruin so completely dominates the city of Athens.  Maria's interesting and expert commentary added to the enjoyment of our visit.  Her passion for Greek history was certainly evident and her fluency in English is admirable.

Parthenon

Today the Acropolis basked under a clear blue sky and we spent a wonderful hour exploring the various aspects of the Acropolis as well as discovering the layout and extent of the city, its surrounding mountains and seaside location.  Lisa had joked that the ancient Greeks built beautiful buildings and the modern Greeks now build ugly ones.  To be sure the square, white apartment buildings that cover the hillsides are not individually attractive, but somehow the uniformity of design results in a homogenous scene which seems to  blend with the landscape when viewed from above.  A fantastic experience!

Athens old and new - view over the Odeon on the Acropolis

Following a good browse around all that the Acropolis has to offer we descended to our waiting bus and enjoyed some comfort and air-conditioning whilst being driven around the streets on a city tour.  We did stop briefly at the ancient Olympic Stadium of Athens which was restored for the first modern Olympics in 1896.   Athens from a  bus is mildly interesting - one needs to venture into the tiny streets of the Plaka district which are only friendly to tiny cars and scooters in order to see charming old houses dripping with brightly coloured bougainvillea.  We will have time to explore this area on foot when we return to Athens in a couple of weeks.

 Leafy streets of the Plaka

Our final visit this morning in Athens was to the New Archaeological Museum which houses many treasures from the Acropolis, including of course what Greece has left of the so called Elgin Marbles.  It is quite criminal that they are still held in the British Museum and hopefully one day they will be returned to Greece.  In the meantime these fantastic carvings are replicated in a massive life size model of the Parthenon.  There are just a few pieces which are original - the rest are copies - so sad.  The Museum is brilliant and very well worth visiting with its stunning views to the Acropolis.
We took a vote and decided to head out of Athens instead of staying for lunch in the Plaka district - Lisa was keen to avoid the traffic build up so off we went on the motorway towards the coastal town of Lamia which is to the north of Athens.  The first part of the drive took us through suburbs and then agricultural lands before we descended to a bayside route with high mountains ahead, to the east across the bay and to the west.  This was the first indication to us of the extensively mountainous nature of the country. 

Mountains and sea - Central Greece

 By-passing Lamia we climbed over a mountain pass where the road was lined with bright pink oleander bushes and sullphuric yellow broom.   The rugged hills are dry and quite barren with low growing vegetation  and a lot of Mediterranean pine trees.  There was no evidence of agricultural activities up here.  Once over these mountains we descended to the Thessaly plain which is rich and fertile and covered with cotton and wheat farms as well as huge banks of photolytic cells producing electricity.  The Greeks certainly make very good use of the high sunshine hours.  The plains are vast and  very pretty, again with mountains in the distance.  A quick look at the map shows many peaks reaching well over 2000 metres and they are often very jagged looking.  Today in the hot sun they appeared hazy and blue in the distance.

Descending into the beautiful region of Thessaly

Our lunch stop was at a very swish and modern truck stop in the middle of nowhere - but lots of tasty food and good coffee.   As well travelled further north towards Trikala the agricultural land started to look scruffy and less cared for and the villages we passed through showed many signs of the financial difficulties being faced in Greece - abandoned shops and commercial buildings, half constructed buildings with weeds growing through them, uncollected rubbish - in fact a general air of dereliction.  At the end of a long drive the mountains suddenly were right in front of us and we were able to get our first glimpse of the remarkable rock towers of the Meteora.  Our hotel for the night was another of the Divani chain located in the pretty little town of Kalambaka.  There was time for a stroll around the town, a bit of a thunderstorm and then a typical "tour" dinner in the hotel - moussaka, souvlaki etc etc.  What a day of contrasts!