Day 5

We had booked a walking tour of Athens, including the Acropolis, for today. Despite an ominous forecast and unusual flooding around the country from heavy rain the past couple of days, we lucked out as it had only rained for about 15 minutes right before we began. We walked past the national library, university, and Academy of Athens and were able to witness the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Parliament. We continued on to the national gardens where we were able to take a glimpse inside the Zappeion mansion, often used for political events. Zappeion was wealthy and offered up the money to build the mansion, but passed away before seeing its completion. His wish was for his head to be hidden in the walls of the mansion. There is a plaque on the wall showing where it is. We walked to some ruins and saw Hadrian's Arch, which separated Old Athens from New Athens. The walking tour concluded at the Acropolis. Our tour guide was fantastic and took us around to each monument, describing them in full detail and giving the history of each site. We wore our Nike-inspired "nice" shirts in front of the Temple of Athena Nike, the goddess of victory. The Erichtheion monument had an interesting story behind it. It is dedicated to both Poseidon and Athena, but mostly honors Athena. They battled over whose name should be used to name the city. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident (it is said that three marks can be seen in the ground next to the monument), causing salty water to spring out. This was his offering to the townspeople. Athena planted an olive tree (the first olive tree) and this was her offering. The townspeople chose Athena's olive tree and that is how the city of Athens got it's name. The Parthenon was very cool. It is certainly the most recognizable monument of the Acropolis. We even have a good view of it from our balcony! This site interested me because our guide informed us that the entire monument lacked proportionality. From a mathematics standpoint you would think that they would want each column to have the same measurements, but in reality they purposely designed it so that each column is unique. This was to account for optical refraction and so the monument would look aesthetically pleasing from a distance as well as close up. Each pillar curves inward a little and the pillars nearest the corners are closer together than the ones towards the middle. These qualities that make each column unique are not visible to the naked eye. It was a neat connection to math. I also learned that much of the monument was destroyed in a bombing. A bomb was directed towards the Parthenon during a war from the hill across the way. While the Parthenon had been converted to several different things over the years, at that time it was being used to store gunpowder for the war. Clearly this had a devastating impact on this national monument. It was amazing to think that these marble structures were built thousands of years ago with such limited resources. The second-leg of the tour was a bus tour to Cape Sounio. We drove along the coast the entire time, observing beautiful scenery along the way. The final destination was the Temple of Poseidon. It had many similarities to the other monuments and was positioned perfectly atop a hill. Some of the columns had fallen during an earthquake, but restoration crews are actively working to preserve all of the temples for many years to come. We finished our day by walking through the Plaka district, a collection of cobblestone streets with many shops and restaurants.