Ithaka Bound

Night in Athens

My first night in Athens, I walk the pedestrian promenade to keep myself from falling asleep too early.
Children play ball on the marble walkway, as they have for millennia, their voices ringing out in laughter from the shrubbery of the southern slope of the Acropolis.
A tightrope walker manages the distance between two trees, ten feet [...]

Sing to me of the Man, Oh Muse…(III)

Emboldened by their new prosperity, prestige, and power, Pericles and the Athenians began to pursue empire.  Despite their protestations to the contrary, they began to treat their allies as their subjects.  Ideologically committed to their own form of radical democracy, they saw it as their mission and their right to foster, or if necessary to [...]

A Case of Joshua Bell

The musicians playing in the video below are some of the best street musicians I’ve ever heard.  I have to state that outright because the sound quality on the 25 second video is very poor, and you’d never guess that their music could set a heart soaring simply by watching the video.  They stopped me [...]

Greek Police

I really wish I’d had a longer camera lens with me in Greece so that I could have snuck a shot of the police in Athens.  My lens only extended to 100mm, and I could not have done justice to the rosy-cheeked gangs of teenage youngsters who patrol the streets of Athens without getting an [...]

Sing to me of the Man, Oh Muse…(I)

Pericles.
Every father’s favorite son.
Every historian’s favorite leader.
My secret ancient crush.
© 2009, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved. Photos and text are copyright protected.

E-mail from Athens Metro

On my way out of Athens, I decided to take the metro from Omonia station to the airport.  The automated ticket machine offered only two options for tickets: a .50 Euro ticket or a 1 Euro ticket.  This seemed a tad too good to be true, so I walked to another ticket machine to see [...]

Athina

It’s no fun seeing that last post pop up as the first page on this blog, so I thought I’d add a post about my last day in Athens before leaving for a week in the midwest.

© 2009 – 2010, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved. Photos and text are copyright protected.