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Today marks the end of our first week in Greece. I arrived a day before everyone else in the program with Liam. We stayed a night at the Socrates Hotel, which was interesting to say the least, but we were blessed to have ordered the best Souvlaki we have had so far. From a small restaurant called Grillaki. The following day we met up with the other members of the program to move into the apartments. We that evening had once again another amazing meal filled with many Greek dishes.
On Wednesday we met up for the first time to visit the Acropolis. As I love photography I will be using this blog to highlight our travels along with associated pictures I have taken. I had yet to see the Acropolis up until then, so it was amazing to see the Parthenon in the distance as we walked to it. We started our walking tour at the south slope and first looked at the theater of Dionysus where the ancient Greeks would host performances and events. I thought it was interesting how when they would host theater festivals the director awarded with best show would be able to build a shrine for themselves showing their feat. Some of these shrines remained at the base of the upper city walls which was very interesting to learn about. We then continued up the hill where we came upon the Odeon of Herodes Atticus which can be seen in the second photo. This amphitheater was truly incredible to witness and interesting to learn that it was not always open to the air instead it once had a cedar roof covering the entire amphitheater which at the time would have had to be imported from other areas of the Mediterranean as the tree does not grow in Athens. The amphitheater continues to hold performances today so I hope that I will be able to catch one before the program ends.
We then continued up the Acropolis into the ancient city where we finally were able to see the Parthenon in its entirety. The entrance to the upper Acropolis was beautiful and although you approach the Parthenon from the rear it is just as breathtaking. Learning about the friezes around the Parthenon was really interesting and they can be seen in the fourth photo. The photo of the frieze I included is of a centaur fighting. It was just as interesting to learn about the cult building still standing in the city. Especially how this building was more visited than the Parthenon itself.
We finished our visit and moved on with orientation. The following day classes begun. I had two of my three classes, and both seem like they are going to be super interesting. The following day we went on our first trip to the Mazi Plane.
The trip to the Mazi Plane on Friday was amazing. We first started at Oinoe, a classical deme site of Athens that had been besieged twice and was first attacked during the first Peloponnesian war. It was interesting to learn about Oinoe as it was one of Alex’s recent archeological sites that he had been excavating. The site was filled with plenty of sherds and even had a couple of roman graves. It was interesting to learn from Sam how although the Greeks lived at the site there was a large amount of Roman pottery since they used methods of mass production making their pottery all look similar and widespread. This both makes it easy to identify but also leads to over estimation of Roman presence.
We then visited the fortress of Eutherai, this fortress sat on the hill in the distance from Oinoe looking towards Boeotia. Its position would suggest that the fortress was Athenian, but this is refuted by the fact that the other direction is a cliff making the need to fortify that side from attack not needed. This along with an inscription and artifacts found at the site lead more recent study to believe that the site is Boeotian rather than Athenian.
Our final stop on the trip had the most breathtaking views so far. We visited the Ancient fortress of Aigosthena. The fortress was dated to being built roughly around 340 BCE. This fortress had recently been fully restored after an earthquake that happened in the 1980’s. This is only fortress of this age to be fully restored and it was incredibly interesting to learn about the restoration process.
It has been a great first week in Greece and I look forward to all the adventures to come.
