Poseidon's Temple

After we left the Acropolis, we continued our tour with Dominic. 

Short history lesson paraphrased by Ruth: After the Greeks defeated the evil Ottoman Empire and ran them out of town in the early 1800's, they were like, "What do we do now?"  

So those in power at the time fetched some dude from Bavaria with a royal bloodline and made him their king. His name was Otto. I interrupted Dominic and asked him, "So you just got rid of the Ottomans and you made some guy named Otto as your king?"

He didn't see the irony.

Otto liked Athens and, despite there only being a population of 9000 people at the time, he made it the capital of Greece. The population swelled a few times -- after WWll and after the civil war in the 1950's.  Now there are roughly 4 million ppl in Athens - almost half the population of Greece.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a war memorial located in Syntagma Square in Athens, in front of the House of the Greek Parliament. It is a cenotaph dedicated to the Greek soldiers killed during war. The tomb is guarded 24-7 by the Evzones (Presidential Guards)

We got there in time for the changing of the guard. I videoed the whole thing, but if I showed it, you would be sitting here for 15 minutes. I kid you not. Here is a sample…

This is the original building for the University of Athens, the first modern university in Greece. And tuition is free! King Otto made sure of that. This used to be the only building of learning and it's beautiful. Lovely frescos. I dashed out of the car in the rain to get a picture but we didn't stay. 

The Academy of Athens is Greece's national academy, and the highest research establishment in the country. It was established in 1926. Unlike Plato's Academy which was started in 387BC and was probably in some field someplace.  ??

At the entrance are 2 statues. The dude on the left is Socrates. The orange tree is obscuring the statue of Plato on the right. He looked angry, anyway. Not the greatest picture but I was blinded by rain. 

In case you think it's all old buildings, here's a pic of downtown Athens. 

We continued our tour down the coast and saw some upscale communities by the sea. In the sea itself were scuba divers and wind surfers. 

Other pretty places along the way.

Dominic got all creative and did the panorama trick shot. 

Vouliagmeni is a beautiful and upscale suburb of Athens by the seaside. It has a freshwater lake right beside the sea with sulphur springs - with healing properties. I had been thinking we should go here to soak but it might be a bit frigid for that. 

We kept going south until we got to Sounio and the Temple of Poseidon. The temple is built with Doric columns. This temple has been rebuilt at least three times. The version there now was built of local marble from the same quarries as the original on top of the destroyed archaic temple. 

This place used to be beautiful and has all kinds of historic significance but, due to hunger and jet lag, I didn't really care at the time. All I wanted to see was a giant statue of Poseidon with his Trident. No such luck.

They are still uncovering ruins. The whole country is basically an archeological site. 

 

Random stray dog at Poseidons's Temple. There must be a story there. He steered clear of us. (Carla, no dogs were harmed on this visit. And Clara was friendly.)

The Temple of Zeus  (124-132 AD) used to have 100 columns and once housed the chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Zeus and the statue of the emperor. Sixteen of the temple's columns survive today, thirteen of them, on the east side, intact. Of the remaining three on the west side, one collapsed in 1852. They call it the sausage. 

That's your history lesson. We didn't actually pay to go in. I was cross-eyed from fatigue and nauseated by Dominic's driving. Pick a lane!

But I took a picture from the gates surrounding the area. 

We stopped on our way back for some fruit and Rik went down the street to a pastry shop but we might just sleep for the rest of the day. That was a lot. Especially for a young lady who isn't feeling well. Clara is a trooper!

- Ruth