October 19, 2009: Athens, Greece

Athens was a stopover for me on the way to my rock climbing destination, Kalymnos, and I figured it was just another chaotically full city with history to spare, heavy with the odors of its people and attendant smog. Not to mention plugged with tourists. It's a rare day that I readily enter a tourist scrum so I wasn't counting on seeing much the day and a half I was in Athens. Especially with jet lag. Ancient Athenians were scrappy in their day, but the outcome to several key battles may have been slightly different if they had been under the influence of jet lag.

All it took for me to change my mind about sightseeing was the view of the Acropolis from the roof deck of my hostel (any lesser sight, however, and I would have ventured out only to get my shwarma or kebab fix).

Those ancient Greeks were onto something with their design aesthetic and it is still impressive to see the grand structures. Even with a crane in the middle. If anything, the crane made me appreciate even more the amount of effort it would have taken to do repairs before the advent of modern machinery. These are the musings that plague my mind.

So I rallied myself for a partial day of taking in the sights. One "borrowed" guidebook from the hostel lounge later and I was ready to hit the tourist laden streets. I was pleasantly suprised to discover that Athens has built a lovely, wide promenade linking together a number of the major sights, negating many of my crowd issues. I could stretch my arms to the side and not touch anybody! It made for a pleasant stroll trying to figure out which nubs of smooth-worn rocks were historic versus the nubs of smooth-worn rocks that could have been oversized skipping stones. Luckily, there was usually some sort of plaque around.

Reflection of the Acropolis on the side of a museum:
The reality is that parts of places like Pnyx Hill could simply be grassy fields with some boulders because most of the structures are so well-worn or missing. It was easier to imagine what things looked like, however, than try to determine the purpose of some modern structures.

As you can see, nobody has been using the door:At least the hill made for nice views of Athens.
One of the things I love about having no agenda is stumbling upon places like Tom's Place. An expat squatter of mysterious origin, Tom creates an ever changing structure on his corner lot from objects he finds. Call it art or call it a shanty, his political views were on full display.
Despite being inspired by the sight of the Acropolis to step out of my hostel, I never actually made it to the Acropolis. There just wasn't time to check it out because an hour wouldn't suffice. I figured I would take a couple more days on my way back from Kalymnos but those couple of extra days disappeared in the excellent rock climbing on the cliffs of that island. That just means I have an excuse to go back to Athens.