One Last Day in Athens

Our final day started mid-morning, with a trip to the Acropolis. As the sunlight spilled around us we wandered through the dusty ruins of what might be the greatest pantheistic temple in the world, and is certainly one of the most prolific and lasting architectural masterpieces from ancient times.

After the Acropolis, 80 and I returned to the hotel, grabbed our clothes, and set out in search of a laundry we had found the previous evening. There we were greeted by the owner (or a lady out to make a quick buck, whatever) who greeted us and took our laundry and did it while we waited. With nothing to do we wandered Athens, eating lunch near a small chapel and eventually winding up near Hadrian's Arch, where we sat and basked in the sun until our clothes were ready for our return.

A funny note about Hadrian's arch. It was built in a section of the city that was developed heavily during Hadrian's reign, but it was built by the local Athenians to "honor" their emperor.

It is interesting then, to consider the inscription. On the side that faces the Acropolis and the heart of Athens it reads, "This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus", on the other side, facing away from the Acropolis and out towards the suburbs Hadrian developed, the inscription reads ""This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus."

"Honor" my foot, the real meaning seems clear. "Rome may claim to be our rulers, but we know better than to think that just because they rule they are part of our culture. Don't forget that our city is the city more ancient than any of Rome's emperors."

It is a defiant and charming message hidden in obsequience, and I like it.

Later on that afternoon, we wandered back to the hotel and found the rest of our group, eventually, then headed out to the highest point in the city to see the sunset on Lykabettos hill, the highest point within the city of Athens. Delayed by a grumpy guard of a lift system and a few extra pauses on the many, many steps to the top, we missed the sunset itself but arrived just after the sun had disappeared behind the hills. Instead we savoured the last few moments of light and the brightly coloured sky and grabbed a few more pictures of all of us together. Since my group was getting on a plane to Rome the next morning and 80 was heading for London that evening, it was the last night we would spend together, and the trip had certainly been wonderful, if at times quirky.

There is a picture that will be hopefully be uploaded Tuesday that is one of the last pictures of the two of us taken on this portion of our travels.

On our return we walked down to Monastiraki, dropped the kids at the hotel, and five of us, 80, myself, my parents, and Oh-Oh! all went out to a nice proper sit-down dinner at the taverna in Psiri of which 80 and I had grown so fond. We had a lovely meal and it was a very pleasant evening.

We returned to the hotel and discovered QoD in a state of euphoria over her day, during which she'd gotten to meet the equivalent of her Greek family--the people that were their closest friends when she was just a tiny scrub of a girl growing up in Greece, before they moved back to the States when she was four. She reminded me of my EKG when she would get properly happy about something going her way and people liking her, and it was quite contagious.

Almost the entire group wound up in the open-air rooftop bar area, sharing laughter, new spirits, renewed joy, and a sense that we had touched history and been touched by it as well. It was a nice way to end our time in Greece, and the brightly lit Acropolis that overlooked the goings on there atop our hotel was a constant reminder of the majesty of history and the power it has to change the world, and each of its students, if proper attention is paid to it.