Up the Acropolis

 

My daughter Mairi and I visited Athens in early November and of course one of the highlights was a visit to the Acropolis. Although it was November the weather was very pleasant and the site was quite busy. 

I won't bore you with all the facts about the Acropolis as they are easily found on Wikipedia, but suffice it to say that this hill has been fortified and occupied since the 6th millennium BC and there have been other temples built and destroyed before the existing Parthenon was constructed under Pericles (460-430 BC). Now the Parthenon, the main temple on the Acropolis and dedicated to the goddess Athena, is under constant renovation and much of it is covered in scaffolding.

We came onto the Acropolis through the lesser used southern gate and could immediately see the Odeon built by  Herodes Atticus in AD 161. This was rebuilt in 1950 and is used every year for the Athens Festival.

We walked up the hill until we came to the entrance gate of the temple mound, the Propylaea, flanked by the graceful Temple of Nike.

Through the gate we came to the plateau of the top of the Acropolis which was landscaped in 500 BC to give a flat base for the buildings. Here is the classical picture of the Acropolis which gives you little appreciation of the amount of work going on, or the number of tourists.

Here you can see the scaffolding and ongoing renovations.

And here are the tourists, a lot of them had tour guides. I can't really comment though, as we were doing exactly the same thing, but not with quite so many selfies.

Here is our selfie

Next  pictures of the pediments of the Parthenon, and a dandelion!

There are other temples on the Acropolis site including the Erechtheion (421-406 BC) which was built on very uneven ground and has a very complicated plan to minimise this.

Walking back down through the gates of the Acropolis we passed the great wall which runs around the whole site and was first built in 1300-1200 BC. In the shadow of the wall is another temple, the Sanctuary of Asclepieion, founded 419-418 BC and dedicated to the god of medicine, maybe as a response to the plague which was epidemic at the time. It acted as a rudimentary hospital.

Under the wall is also the Theatre of Dionysus. In this picture you can see how immense the wall surrounding the Acropolis is.

We had a great time on the Acropolis and left the site by the main gate which is opposite the Acropolis Museum, our next agenda.