Athens and an Awesome Acropolis

Tuesday October 1, 2024

View from the Acropolis

Fun Facts about Athens

• With 148 theatrical stages, the city of Athens has the most stages in the world, beating out London’s West End and New York’s Broadway. It’s fitting for Athens to hold this title since it’s the place where the art of acting and theater was born.

• Athena is the Patron of Athens, and also the Goddess of warfare, strategy and wisdom

• With a history of more than 3,000 years, Athens, is the oldest inhabited city in Europe.

• The first Olympic games took place in Olympia, not Athens, in 776 BC. Winners were awarded laurel wreathes. The modern Olympics began in Athens in 1896.

Last Night - as mentioned in our blog yesterday we went to a Lobster Dinner on board. We are so glad we decided to go because it was delicious!

Then we went to a ship event that included honoring the entire crew. The crew on Viking ships is one of the reasons why we love to travel on Viking. The crew is always exceptional, and this trip was another example of that. Below is a picture of the whole crew, and a picture of our wonderful room steward (Tijo) who takes excellent care of us. After the recognition of the Viking Sea crew, we were entertained by the Viking singers performing a special show - The ABBA Songbook! We were singing along with almost every song!

We arrived in Athens this morning, and we will be staying here for three days. Athens is a beautiful city, next to the Mediterranean Sea and surrounded by many islands. As with many cities in this area of the world, there is an old town area, called Plaka. For many tourists the highlight of Athens is the many ancient buildings, temples and other ruins that are spread throughout the area. Our tour today included time to visit the ancient buildings and ruins, along with time to enjoy walking through the Plaka district.

Athens is also known as the birthplace of democracy, where the system of governance was established in the 5th century BC.  Aristotle and Solon helped craft the laws and write the original constitution for this new model of government called democracy.

The Acropolis.

Acropolis means "high city", and refers to the area on the top of the highest of Athen's seven hills. This was important because the buildings on the Acropolis are usually temples to the gods, so being on a hilltop is closer to those gods. At the Acropolis the Parthenon was a temple honoring Athena. As we travelled to the Acropolis from our ship we could see the it from a distance, standing out on the top of the hill.

Parthenon: The building is still being restored. If you look carefully it is possible to see places where new pieces (they look cleaner) have been added, or reinforcing pieces have been added. If you are interested in column design, these are Doric columns.

Also on the Acropolis is the Old Temple of Athena/Nike. (Nike is another name for Athena.). The six statues are replicas of the originals, most of which are in museums. The column is in ionic style.

Other buildings below the Acropolis: the Ancient Agoura (left), and the Odeon (right) which is a gathering place for events or government meetings.

Tomorrow we will not be going on an excursion, and will take a day to relax. So, no blog post tomorrow. We will be back in 2 days.