The Acropolis, Agora and Rioting

CAMERA charged and at the ready, I was all prepared to head towards Athens all too frequently closed sights that slipped through the net yesterday.

This morning I was prepared to do some serious sightseeing as I planned to take in the Ancient Agora area, the Acropolis and all it's monuments before heading to the National Archeological Museum later today.

First of all, I do find it a little ridiculous that things find it necessary to close so early in Athens. I realise that it isn't quite peak season, and perhaps it has something to do with the strikes in Greece at the moment (I'll come to them later) but with sights like the Acropolis and the Agora closing at 3pm each afternoon, it makes it a really big struggle to see everything that you want to within the limited time that you have.

In terms of what it has to offer, I can only liken Athens to Paris, or even London. There are plenty of landmarks and museums to visit, and in four days there are no chance of me getting to view them all without the aid of Bernard's Watch. So far I have loved every second of my time in Athens so I certainly have no problem with returning in the near future should it be necessary.

This morning I found it rather easier to navigate my way to the station and follow the road from there. It proves that once you become familiar with an area, you soon become confident, and don't even find it necessary to check road signs as you just KNOW you're going the right way.

What wasn't all together reassuring this morning was the large group of protesters lining the street adjacent to the one that my hotel is on, and then half of the roads being closed off to traffic with police lining the streets. I discovered (only when I returned home later) that there was actually a national day of strikes in Greece because of budget cuts by the government. There was a planned protest with around 30,000 people involved and it probably explains the heavy police presence in the last few days. There's something a little ironic about people protesting because of cuts to vital things like education and wages, then discovering that people aren't going to work and all the schools being closed. Anyway, I digress.....

With no cars on the road, the streets were pretty quite of people this morning, which is a shame because I always enjoy Athenians trying to do as many things as possible whilst driving a vehicle. I have noticed that pretty much like everywhere but the US and UK, helmets whilst riding on a motorcycle/scooter seem like an option. It also feels like traffic lights are a mere suggestion of stopping and now that I have been here a few days I have realised that you get about five seconds to cross the road, if you're lucky, with no courtesy time when the light is about to change.

I now feel as if I have accustomed myself to the Greek way of life, and all the hustle and bustle of the pavements, so this morning it was a bit weird to be walking outside and for the to be no traffic. I do wish, however, that I could speak or read a bit of Greek so I could have understood what the protests were about at the time. Of course, I am not expecting myself to be able to learn an entire language before traveling to a new country (I'd never get anyway), but even being able to know simple things like 'please' and 'thank you' in the native language would be beneficial. It's a good job that people here have a good knowledge of English or I would be very stuck!

Walking past Omonia station this morning and towards Monastrassiou it was almost as if there was an air of expectation surrounding the protests. Police seemed to be everywhere, and now I discover that many people were actually on strike so that could explain why there were more people than usual milling around in the various squares. I turned down towards Thissou station and decided to head up to the Acropolis first whilst the sun was shining and before I got myself some dinner.

As the only well signposted thing in this city, the Acropolis entrance wasn't too difficult to find (and considering it's standing on a massive hill, I shouldn't have had any problems!) You begin to walk up the Acropolis before you come towards the gate to get inside the structure, and on the way up there you can stop off and see the Odean of Herodes Atticus, which is a large Greek style stadium that was used by the countries ancient ancestors for theatre and sport. It's quite impressive, and still largely in tact but you get a better view of it from higher up, which is where I then decided to go.

Even though there is only one structure that you are heading up to, the route to get up to the top is still pretty confusing. There are so many paths up to the Acropolis and it's not always easy to judge which ways go up and which go down. It is also senseless following people, as they have just about as much clue where to go as you yourself! Eventually you find the right set of stairs and head up towards the centre of the structure. At the entrance there is a temple structure which gives you a feel of what you are about to experience, but I don't think anything can compare you for the view that you are about to get.

I thought that the whole structure was called the Acropolis, but that is the name given for everything put together, all the temples and the stone foundation it is built on. The tall temple in the middle, probably the most famous part of the structure, is called the Parthenon. Last night when I looked on from Pynx Hill I was pretty confused by the amount of scaffolding that was resonating from the structure itself but reading a sign close-by I discovered that it was part of the restoration of the Parthenon itself.

My first impression was pretty much 'wow'. Just like when I saw the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben for that very first time, I find it hard to comprehend that something which you see in books or on the television is right in front of you. You're able to walk all the way round the Parthenon, and as well as the temple itself there are some exception views of the area around it which only helped to make the experience even more special.

To say this is one of the most recognisable places on the planet, it wasn't very busy up there, and with entry only being about 5 Euros a person, it is easy to see why many people choose this as a destination to visit in the summer when the weather is much better. I was astounded by the columns and the temple itself, but also the view of the rest of the city over the edge of the wall surrounding the Acropolis is pretty incredible.

Looking around for about an hour or so I then headed in a different direction and went towards the Theatre of Dionysos which is another structure that was used for theatre in Ancient Greek times. Again, the fact that this is still standing blows my mind, after all these years it's pretty difficult for us to comprehend that it is still in place. I have always liked the way in which the structure of these theatres looks and even from a few rows back you get a distinct sense of vertigo as they didn't mess around with these structures and tried to fit as many people into them as possible.

I took a brief walk from back towards the Acropolis and headed back down towards the Agora area.

Once again, the Agora isn't greatly signposted and I only found the way to get there having retraced my steps from yesterday and basically looked for the gates which were closed after I returned from charging my camera battery.

This time thankfully the gates were unpadlocked and I was able to have a walk around the structure. The Agora was a marketplace in Ancient Athens and is probably the second best archeological sit in the city after the Acropolis. In the corner there is a museum which shows you a number of artifacts that have been found in the area, and there are also some statues which were constructed and then dug up when archeologists came along in search of clues about the area.

Walking around the grounds of the Agora you can see how everything used to function and where the different areas of the marketplace were. In the corner there is another well kept temple, this one belongs to Hephaistos and was built around 449BC. In the opposite corner there is the fantastically named Stoa of Attalos which is a two-storey building constructed in the second century. It has been restored due to it's age, but I think it is still a fantastic structure.

Sadly the Agora and its Ancient area were beginning to close to I headed back towards the National Museum of Archeology where I had planned to spend the rest of the day. I had been a little alarmed by the number of loud explosion type sounds I had been hearing during the day, and it would be no exaggeration that from the top of the Acropolis you could hear the protesters loud and clear throughout the day. Still. With trepidation I headed back towards Omonia only to discover that the who district had basically been shut down. The metro was closed, banks were shut, shops were unoperational, the only thing that was open was MacDonalds, but even a cockroach can survive a nuclear holocaust......

As I started to walk down the main street towards the museum, it seemed as though there was heavier and heavier police presence as I got closer to my hotel. All of the side streets leading from the main road in Omonia were closed off and very few pedestrians were walking down them. Any 'normal' person at this time would realise it might be a good idea to go back to their hotel, but perhaps it was the journalist in me that encouraged me to carry on towards the museum.

At one of the side streets I saw a number of confused looking pedestrians and almost immediately as I passed the road I saw the sight of a massed herd of people and behind them what looked like a couple of vehicles in flames. As I walked past the next street I saw some more smoke and also a couple of fire engines which were clearly tackling the blaze.

Once more I pressed on until I saw one of the major roads leading to the museum, and up on front of me I saw what looked like the Museum of Archeology, even from a distance I could see that nobody had entered and with the number of people around I figured that it had been shut for the same reason that most of the shops around me were closed; safety.

I sat and contemplated if there was anywhere else that I could spend the day before returning back to the hotel, but the sound of another explosion, this one close by, persuaded me to return back to my safe haven. Since then I haven't heard of much trouble outside of my window, but I also haven't seen many cars traveling down my usually busy road. I presume if there was some problem then I would have been informed of the immediate danger, but fingers crossed the trouble has passed.

I read the BBC News website when I returned 'home' to discover that as many as 30,000 people had marched towards the capital building today to protest about cuts in public services across the city. What had actually sounded like explosions were petrol bombs, and the police had been required to fire smoke and tear gas to disperse the protesters.

Tomorrow I have plans to travel into the city again, and rather ironically I will be heading near the buildings that the protests were aimed at today, fingers crossed those who were on strike are back at work tomorrow and not lining the streets once again!