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| Temple of Hephaestus at the Ancient Agora |
I don’t remember breakfast, but we were out of the hotel early. It was about 7:30 on a Sunday, so many things were closed including the subway. We asked the hotel to get us a cab to take us down to the Agora. He started on a direct route but was blocked by construction. He asked if we wanted to drive a long detour to get there, but we opted just to get out and walk. We'd barely gone a quarter mile before getting out.
We walked past whatever was blocking the road and started working our way toward the Agora. We passed through several public squares with people gathering in them. I’m not sure just what they were doing, maybe going to brunch or to church. We did pass several churches, but the doors were closed and I didn’t see anyone go in.
We wanted to grab a soda, but everything was still closed so we kept going and finally around 8:30 we spotted a little corner store that was open. After buying our sodas we walked to a nearby square and found some shade to sit and drink them.
We reached the Agora by 8:45. We had planned to arrive as it opened at 8:00 but this was close enough. We bought tickets and headed into the Agora.
The first place we went was to the museum which was modeled after the Stoa of Attalos. In ancient times there would have been shops set up under the roof. I'm not sure why we didn't take any pictures inside — apparently photography was allowed. Maybe we just weren’t inspired that early in the morning.
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| The Ancient Agora Museum |
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| Another view of the Ancient Agora Museum |
After the museum we headed straight for the Temple of Hephaestus that we’d been able to see yesterday from the acropolis. It was the most complete ancient building in the area. We took a lot of pictures. You couldn't go in so we walked around the building admiring the workmanship.
The Temple of Hephaestus was built about 400 BC. Then about 700 AD it was converted into a Christian church and used until the mid-1800s. That’s why it is so well preserved, it has been a site of active worship since its construction. Next it was used as a museum for 100 years, and finally it’s been preserved as an ancient artifact. Remarkable that something so ancient could be so well preserved.
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| Temple of Hephaestus |
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| Ancient Agora of Athens - Ruins of many temples |
One kind of odd moment was while walking around the temple, the local mosque began calling the morning prayers. It was just across the street, so it was very loud and continued for several minutes. We were looking at a Greek god’s temple that was converted to a Christian church and listening to Muslim prayers. Surreal.
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| Standing in front of the Temple of Hephaestus |
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| Looking deep into the Temple |
After leaving the temple, we walked around the ruins surrounding the Agora. We saw the foundations of Apollo’s temple and Ares’ temple. We read many signs and histories, but it’s all gone from my head now. I mostly remember that the Agora was the center of daily life for many of the inhabitants of Athens.
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| Many Temple ruins in the Agora |
After 90 minutes we left the Agora and walked over to Hadrian’s Library. I don’t think we could get in because I have no pictures of the library. We did walk to the roman forum and saw the same tower we had stumbled on last night. It was called the Tower of Winds or the Horologion of Andronikos Kyrrhestes. In ancient times it had a bronze arrow on top that spun to point in the direction of the wind.
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| Part of the Roman Forum |
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| More of the Roman Forum |
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| The Tower of the Wind |
It was getting to be lunch time, so we thought we’d catch the subway over to the Athens Museum, but the subway wasn’t running, nor was the bus. I don’t remember the exact order, but we walked to a hotel so we could hire a taxi. We found one but he didn’t want to take us either. I think he finally did but he dropped us a few blocks away, maybe he wasn’t supposed to be in the area.
We looked around for somewhere to eat (at least I think we ate after the taxi ride). We found a little restaurant and got something. Obviously, it wasn’t very memorable.
We walked the short distance to the museum and saw a long line to get in. It turns out that the museum has free entry on the first Sunday of the month, which was this day. We got into line and waited 45 minutes to get inside.
This was another museum that didn’t allow photography of many exhibits, so we didn’t take many. I had an audio tour by Rick Steves, so we got our earbuds out again. It led us on a very nice tour of the museum pointing out some of the most important displays. I especially loved the miniature of Athena with Nike in her hand. It was supposed to show what originally stood in the Parthenon. We walked around for two hours.
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| The Mask of Agamemnon |
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| A miniature of the Statue of Athena bringing Victory in her hand |
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| Re Created Statue of Athena in Nashville Tennessee (2024 trip) |
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| A pot, not sure why it's special but we got a picture of it |
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| A Bronze Jockey statue recovered from a shipwreck |
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| The Statue of Augustus Caesar |
When we found out about the free entry to the museum, we also found out that we could go back to the Acropolis for free. I’m sure we got a taxi back to the Acropolis because it was 3 miles away. The lady at the gate admitted us but warned that it would be closing in less than an hour. So, we walked around the lower portions of the grounds.
We saw the Theatre of Dionysus. They still held performances in the theatre but because it was off season, they weren’t doing them at the time. We walked around looking at other ruins, then left when they announced the grounds were closing.
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| The Theatre of Dionysus |
Instead of getting a taxi to the hotel we decided to walk back and look for dinner on the way. We walked through the back streets of the Plaka scanning menus and looking for something better than what we’d had for lunch.
Eventually we settled on sushi for dinner. I don’t remember what we had but it was good. I also remember we watched a table of college students eating near us. When the bill arrived, they all looked at each other, then slowly started pulling cash out of their pockets. It took them over 5 minutes to come up with enough cash to pay the bill.
As we walked back to the hotel, we kept getting pushed out onto the main highway. It was another high-speed road with no sidewalk. The third time we found ourselves on the highway, we took a hard left back into the heart of the Plaka. It was a very long walk back, I was tired and my knee was aching when we arrived. Thankfully, there was no protest going on when we got to the square.
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