I swore never to show up in Athens again without a reservation.
I swore not to pack so much.
I swore not to eat a cheese pie every day.
I’ve heard that a lot of people will skip Athens entirely and head straight to the islands, especially if they’ve visited Athens before. Maybe it’s due in part to my bad memory, but I always find it difficult not to spend at least three days in Athens. The Acropolis still takes my breath away and the sense of living history makes me want to linger.
When I walk through the agora, it’s with Socrates; in Keramikos, Pericles is still giving his famous eulogy for fallen soldiers; and Aeropagus Hill holds the echo of Paul’s “Sermon to an Unknown God”.
This time around, I visited the good works of a Roman emperor named Hadrian, who loved Athens at least as much as he loved Rome. Hadrian’s legacy includes a beautiful library, a Tower of the Winds, a Roman market, and the completion of the largest temple in Greece — the Temple of the Olympian Zeus — that took 700 years to finish.
Athens just wouldn’t be the same without Hadrian.
© 2010 – 2011, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved.
Cool pictures. Where did you stand to get that vantage point for the 3rd one? (or is it just a very wide angle lense)?
I miss cheese pie…
Hi Alex. You know the wall with the wrought iron fence that surrounds the Roman Agora? I stood on the wall and stuck a 24 mm lens through the fence.
Ok, I’m gonna just say this, ‘cuz you know me and I just say what needs to be said. When you got home last year, you looked positively radiant and not an ounce heavier. If you want to eat a fucking cheese pie every day, eat a cheese pie every day!
Yet another reason to love Sarah.