Athens
Slept in today! After being up and in the car every day by 6:30, we decided to snooze. Jacob was especially grateful!
Our first stop today was the Roman forum. The Roman forum was built 19 - 11 BC, when the more ancient Greek Agora was full and commerce spilled over into this adjacent neighborhood. The two large entrances (propryla) were donated by Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus. This would have been a busy commercial area during Paul’s visit.
The next stop was Hadrians Library, a later construction from AD 132. The most interesting part of this complex are the ruins of a 5th century tetraconch (4 shells) church.
We walked a few streets of the famous Plaka neighborhood and finally made it to the entrance of the Ancient Greek agora. There were huge long colonnaded buildings (stoas) that had covered porticos and shops at the back. The central part of the agora contained many temples and monuments and theaters such as the Odeon of Agrippa. There are the remains of the tholos - which is where elected representatives worked. The temple of Hephaestus is a well recognized monument that has survived almost entirely intact.
The church of the holy apostles was built in the agora in the 10th century… at that time the area was largely in ruins and people had begun building houses and using bits and pieces of the temples to build more modern buildings. In the 1940s excavations of the ancient ruins began and people were cleared out and their homes taken down. The church is the only “modern” structure that was allowed to remain. There is quite a bit of iconography in the church referring to Paul.
After the agora, we walked to Syntagma ( translates to constitution) square where we watched the changing of the Evzone guards. They wear traditional uniforms of elite Greek soldiers and stand guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier and presidential palace.
We then took a long and very steep walk to Lycabettus hill where we rode a funicular up to the top for a view of Athens and a look at St George’s church at the top. Amazing views!
Our last site was the Athens Archeological Museum. We certainly did not do it justice - but we did get to see nearly everything we had on our list as major items in this beautiful museum.
Totally exhausted! Tomorrow we take our PCR test, saying our prayers that works out, visit two more sites and then move to a hotel near the airport and get ready to fly home!!
