Athens, Greece

View of the Acropolis from the city center
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The ship docked in Piraeus, a major port and industrial center of Greece.  That morning, Dad and I walked to the Metro and took it into Athens.  It was hard to imagine that right in the middle of the busy and modern city center is a large hill holding the Acropolis.  The combination of modern and ancient times in this city is simply amazing!

The city is pretty condensed as well, a short distance from the Acropolis is the Hadrian's Arch and Temple of Olympian Zeus.  You have to pay to walk among the remaining pillars of the temple, which was frankly quite a rip off since only a few pillars remain.  You can easily see everything from outside the fence as you can see from the pictures.  Both were constructed in 132AD by Roman Emperor Hadrian - the arch was to be the gateway between the ancient city of Theseus' Athens and Hadrian's "new" Athens (he called the "new" city Hadrianopolis - but he was no more egocentric than any other Roman emperor).  The temple to Zeus took seven centuries but only 13 of the 104 columns survive.

The combination of modern and ancient times in this city is simply amazing!

Hadrian's Arch
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Dad and I walked the city - pretty much taking in the sites.  In the afternoon, all three of us took an excursion that drove by the 1834 site of the first modern Olympics and the tomb of the unknown soldier.  The tour ended with a stop at the Acropolis, which holds the Temple of Athena Nike, Parthenon, and Erectheion - the Parthenon was dedicated to Athena and built between 470 and 432 BC.  Look closely - though the form appears to be a perfect rectangle as a result of its gentle upward slope and appears to have perfectly spaced pillars - they are not.  Unfortunately, the entire Acropolis was under construction, which is controversial - will all things from the ancient world become "renovated"?  How can an ancient building retain its magnificance when half of it is made of current material?