Athens – Shuffling through History

The guide said that some days there are only a couple hundred people at the Parthenon.

That was not today.!

With seven cruise ships docked at Athens this morning it was always going to be busy. And it was.! By the time we got out at 11am the wait to get in was over three hours long.

I’m not even going to pretend that I absorbed much of the information the guide provided today as there was just so much to take in. I think I was just walking around in awe. In awe of the buildings they built so long ago. In awe that they could engineer such structures and construct them. And in awe that some of it is still standing today.

How many of today’s structures will still be standing in 2+ millennia.?

Or are they even significant enough that anyone would even care?

Today we slap up a structure knowing it’ll be ripped down in one or two decades. We don’t seem to care about a lasting legacy.

A large chunk of today was getting to the Parthenon and having a look around. I am not a crowd person and jostling through with thousands of others was just not pleasant. It reminded me of Pompii. A place that demands you sit and take it in. To ponder it’s significance. To get your head around the time period. To grapple with how it was made. But instead I’m feeling that I’m just ticking off an item in a list of must do’s. I feel a bit robbed.

Don’t get me wrong it was still amazing, I just would have liked more time to just sit and soak it in.

Just to give you an idea of the crowds this is the line to get out – looking forwards and backwards.

From the Parthenon we did a bit of a drive around taking in a few of local structures, like the Athens Olympic stadium constructed for the 1st modern day Olympics in 1896. The stadium was made out of marble … and isn’t going anywhere for some time.

On our way through Athens we watched the hourly changing of the guard at the monument to the unknown soldier. It is quite a choreographed event and their slow march is quite unique.