The Money Shot

This is it, folks.  The moment you've been waiting for.  One of the most iconic sites in all the world, and certainly the most visited and culturally important place in Greece.  The Acropolis, our first tour, led by our excellent professor of Monuments of Ancient Greece, Michael Wedde.  I'm not giving you all the pictures, of course--who has time to wait for that upload, and besides, there are plenty of better pictures by professional photographers available on the web.  These are just a few of my favorite moments.

Starting with waiting outside in the heat while Michael stood in an endless ticket line with our ID cards.  After a while I went to stand with him, to ask questions and keep him company, but first I took a few pictures.  Apparently it is not only American humans who were somewhat enervated in the heat.  I don't want to poach on Annabel's territory--she's compiling a two-part photo-essay called Cats of Athens and Dogumentary--so don't expect a lot more pictures of cats and dogs from me.  Suffice it to say that there are lots of strays, both feline and canine, and the dogs at least are collared and tagged to indicate that they are officially sanctioned strays.

Even once we had the tickets, there was quite a press of people approaching the gate.  Michael told us that the huge formal entrance would have been even more impressive to ancient worshipers than the Parthenon or other temples on top.  While we waited I took this shot of the Nike temple that perches on the corner of the Acropolis like a shy younger sister.

Shy and beautiful.  It turned out that this was the only view we would get of this temple--it's not receiving visitors, despite being only one of four ancient structures remaining on the Acropolis.  We did, however get to approach the building in the background of the next shot--perhaps you will recognize it?  This is my entire student body, all seven of them, plus the Fitts-Heyne contingent.  Being such a small group helps us squeeze through crowds, a skill we had some practice at today, and it also makes it a lot easier to get everyone in the picture.

I will take more pictures of and from the Acropolis, no doubt, when we go up there with visiting family, and I anticipate better light.  The blinding September sun was almost too much for my camera, or at least for my skills with this camera.  But sometimes when I pointed it at the ground, for instance straight down the walls of the Acropolis, I could moderate the light somewhat.  And perhaps even catch a pair of amorous tortoises moving easily as fast as I've ever seen a tortoise move.  At least, one of them was amorous--apparently the other was not in the mood, hence the hare-like pace.  That is the remains of a sanctuary to Aesclepios, Greek god of healing, in the background, at the base of the Big Rock.

 

We spent the afternoon at the museum, but cameras are not allowed in there, hence all these pictures are from the morning, which actually extends somewhat past noon to the lunch hour, not quite as late as in Spain but certainly after 1:00.   I took pictures of the other building, the most important historically, but apparently it was not the most important bloggorically.  It was merely the older and more important temple site, including the place where Poseidon's trident came down to strike water (unfortunately salty), with holes left in the roof and floor to mark its passage, and an olive tree growing where Athena's original gift grew, beating out Poseidon's salty water in the competition to be boss god of the Athens polis.  Instead of pictures of that temple, I offer a piece of wall that was hurriedly reconstructed out of whatever materials happened to be available (old statuary, leftover pieces from temple construction) while Athens' war chief was stalling in Sparta to allow time for the re-fortification.  Not the sawed-off column chunks sticking out at the bottom, like incorporating log-ends from house construction in Alaska into the fence around the property. 

As we rejoined the stream of humanity exiting the massive gate, I could not resist a picture of one off-kilter column, and another of one of the guards whose job is not to protect us, but to protect the Acropolis from us.  They have whistles they blow at offenders, as they did while we were entering at someone who crawled a little too far up one of the walls.  I think they look good in their non-uniform street clothes, artsy and unofficial, as guards at an international cultural landmark should look.

The ominous black shape in the bottom-left of the upper picture is Patrick's shoulder.  We were a little crowded exiting, as you can see in the bottom photo, and there was no way for me to get the crooked column in without including a body part.  I kind of like it, though, as there's precious little blackness in these sun-drenched shots.

And finally, the part that Annabel had been waiting for:  the Theater of Dionysus, where she could sit in the place where Antigone was performed more than 2000 years ago.  Of course, she'd have preferred to be on the stage, but it was cordoned off, and she had to settle for a seat in the house with the rest of us spectators.  I felt Michael deserved another acknowledgment at this point, as he had been providing us with a fascinating commentary throughout, and in case you couldn't guess, he was holding the camera for the group shot with Parthenon.  I figured he'd been in a few shots of the Parthenon during his career, and wouldn't mind wielding all of the cameras for this shot.  But he was always there leading us, staying true to his method of "see first, talk after," and giving me a much richer experience than I'd have had on my own.  Efcharisto, Michael.