Friday, November 2, 2007

Photos from Athens...

Yesterday I went to visit the Acropolis. It was a mess. The Parthenon is covered in scaffolding, and there is rubble lying everywhere. Amusingly enough, none of the tourist signs mention that part of the reason it's so ruined is that the Greeks were using it to store gunpowder in a war and it blew up. After visiting the Acropolis, I can understand why the British won't give back the Elgin Marbles.

The six maidens on a temple next to the Parthenon... or copies of them. Five are in the Archaeological museum and one is in the British museum.

The Greeks love their rows of parallel columns...


The Temple of Hephaestos in the Ancient Agora (market place) is very photogenic, and nearly the only thing left standing.


The Temple of Olympian Zeus was really impressive. You can't really get a feeling for how tall it is from the photo I guess, but it's HUGE.


Slightly less faux-arty viewpoint of the Temple. One of the columns fell in the late 1800s (foreground) - I wonder how they stay up with just those cylindrical blocks resting on top of each other.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

All lies... it was the Turks who were storing their gunpowder there (after they conquered Greece), not the poor innocent Greeks.

Vicki and Stephen said...

Poor innocent Greeks my arse, I don't see them blaming it on the Turks!