Friday, May 20, 2011.

Breakfast was outside on the roof of the clubhouse with an awesome view of the Acropolis! They had tables with umbrellas, planters with 18" tall olive trees, 12" tall rosemary and shrubs planted all around the exterior walls. This breakfast comes with the room and it is sort of a continental breakfast.
This morning we walked to the market where they actually butcher the meat with cleavers right in front of you to your specifications. There are no electric saws or blades. The chickens are hanging up by their feet with their heads still on, but no feathers!!! We saw pigs' feet and a small pig hanging up also. Many lambs are hanging up by their feet without their wool, but still having their heads with their eyes staring out! Creepy! At the seafood market there are every variety of fish you can imagine! Also, clams, mussels, shrimp, oysters, squid, calamari, octopus, eels, etc. Pigeons and very well mannered dogs walk all around. None of the dogs are skinny.
Then we started the extremely long walk up to the Parthenon built for Athena with several stops up the steep slopes! There are cafes along the way offering respite! The Parthenon is actually cordoned off; you are not allowed to walk on or touch the marble! When Daddy was here in 1971- 1972 during the Vietnam War you could walk all over the Parthenon. He was really disappointed! You can see the Myrotoan Sea and the harbor of Pireus where our ship had docked from up here. In fact, Acropolis in Greek means the highest point in town. The cost of the Acropolis was 469 times the cost of a warship! The Parthenon was originally built as Athenos Parthenos in 447-432BC.The one building on the side of the Parthenon has statues of Greek women and a huge olive tree that might be from when it was built since olive trees live forever.
We stopped at the Elixiras restaurant where they advertise meals made fresh from the countryside from old traditional recipes. I ordered Dolmades, which are grape vine leaves stuffed with rice and fresh minced meat sprinkled with dill. It was delicious! Then we walked back to the hotel to rest. It's been a long day only because of walking the steep hills. It was amazing to see how large the Acropolis is. The stadium we could see from the top of the Acropolis was the Theater of Dionysis. The Acropolis has not been rebuilt since it was bombed when the Turks stored their munitions there. You can still see the buttresses supporting the wall around the Acropolis! On our tour we have seen 9 cats, 2 kittens and many dogs. The dogs are always asleep in the shade.
Greece has the most ancient archeological sites with the Acropolis in Athens, the amphitheatrer of Epidaurus, the rebuilt palace of Knossos on Crete, the caldera of Santorini and the gray pinnacles of rock of Meteora. The sun rises above the Aegean Sea and sets over the mountains. Athens borders the Myrotaon Sea which flows from the Sea of Crete and the Aegean Sea. The Ionian Sea only flows into maybe 1/10th of it. We sailed from the Mediterranean Sea to the Adriatic Sea through the Ionian Sea to the Aegean Sea back to the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt and back through the Ionian Sea to the Sea of Crete and then Athens. The Delphi is the oracle near Mount Parnassos and Olympia on the island of Peloponnese. Homer's "Iliad" praises the Greek expedition to recapture the beautiful Helen of Troy led by the Mycean King Agamemnon. Troy fell as well as the Myceans to the mysterious invaders called Dorians!
A Greek politician said "a pot of basil may symbolize the soul of a people better than a play of Aeschylus." Every house has several pots of basil; they are displayed on every table in a cafe or restaurant too. They are clipped in perfect ball shapes and there are more pots of basil in Athens than there are cell phones!!!
The National Garden archway is covered with many tiny white roses climbing all over. There are also acanthus flowers, which they have carved into the columns, bridal wreath, pittosporum and many palms. The shrubs, trees and flowers are from all over the world. On the side of the National Garden where they needed to excavate for the Metro, they found the ruins of a Roman bath. They have left part of it visible for everyone to view. The rest will remain under the National Gardens.Then you pass by Hadrian's arch. In front of the Olympian Terrace is Zeus' Temple with only 13 columns remaining. They are of Corinthian style and some are just laying on the ground. You can see how they pieced the column together with each one a tiny bit smaller than the one it sits on. Olympia is surrounded by a tall wall. You can only see 3 columns no; but the excavations are still going on, and they will uncover more.
The following is a history of Greece to provide a basis of understanding for the present country and culture: Greece is the cradle of Democracy and the nursery of western art and archeology. Greece consists of 15 provinces or states: Thrace, Macedonia, Zagori, Epirus, Thessaly, Sporades, Central Greece, Ionian Islands, Peloponnese, Saronic Gulf Islands, Cyclades, Dodecanese and Northeast Aegean Islands and Crete. From 1453-1832 Greece was constantly occupied by Turks, Venetians and Franks. In 1832, the Great Powers (England, France, Italy and Russia) gave Greece their independence and sent a Bavarian princelet, Otto, to be King of the Hellenes. At the end of the 19th century Greece made Athens its capital, but most of what today is Greece was still ruled by the Turks and Italians. The Balkan Wars in 1912 allowed Greece to annex Epirus, Macedonia, Thrace and the large islands of Samos, Chiros and Crete. After WWI Greece attacked the Turks, but failed and the slaughter was called "Catastrophe". Greece and the Turks agreed to a population exchange: 1.5 million Greeks had to return to Greece and 500,000 Turks had to leave Greece. Now a small Greek Muslim population lives in Thrace.
The simple Greek megaron became the temples and basilicas of later civilizations, and our football and soccer stadiums mimic the Greek stadiums. The theater layouts of stage, wings and orchestras are all descended from the Greeks. Our shopping malls are designed like the Greek side by side shops. Even our pot and pan shapes are derived from the Greeks. The frescoe walls and red tiled roofs are all Greek in origin.

700,000-3000BC. Stone Age. Stone & obsidian knives & tools; human remains in Macedonia
3000-1500BC. Bronze Age. Anatoli(Turkey) invades; bronze workings and 1st palace found
1700BC. Huge earthquake on Crete destroys Minoans
1600-1100BC. Rise of Myceans; Dorian invasion
1450BC. Santorini volcano erupted; destroys as far away as Crete
Geometric Archeological period
1000-600BC. City-states formed;writing, coinage and trade invented
776BC. 1st Olympic games
700-500BC. Tyrants rule
525-485BC. Athenian democracy; Euripedes and Sophocles; marble & bronze building
490-480BC. 1st Persian Wars; Xerxes- emperor of Persia invades Greece; burns Acropolis, written in Herodotes
461-429BC. Under Pericles, Athens rebuilds Parthenon
Mid 5-4c. Classical era Rise of Philip of Macedonia; ancient Greek monuments built; Greek democracy born
431-404BC. Peloponnesian Wars, Athens and Sparta spar, Athens falls
430-428BC. Great plague kills 1000s and Pericles; Sophocles sentenced to death, drinks hemlock
4-1 century. Hellenistic era. Rise of Philip of Macedonia's son, Alexander the Great
338BC. Battle of Chaironeia, Greece defeated by Philip of Macedonia
336BC. Alexander the Great reigns over all from Egypt to India at age 23
323BC. Alexander the Great dies; Babylon successors squander his kingdom
146BC. Rome defeats Greece
2c-3cAD. Rome rules Greece, Egypt, Europe, North Africa, Asia Minor
168AD. Rome conquers Macedonia
50-200AD. New Testament written in Greek, John wrote Revelations on Patmos
324AD. Constantine moves capital of Rome to Byzantium on the Bosphorus; Greece belongs to Roman Empire
Made Christianity the favored religion
328AD. Roman Empire and Constantine the Great
Late 3cAD. Roman Empire divided into east and west
4c-15cAD. Byzantine era
1204AD. 4th Crusades, moves capital to Byzantium
1453AD. Constantinople falls to the Sultan of Turkey; 350 years of Turkish rule
1571AD. Turkish fleet destroyed by Italy, Greece, Sicily and Spain