Well, let me begin with yesterday (Thursday)…
We left Athens at 7:30 am to drive around the Attica
countryside to look at sites.
Map of
Attica: http://www.in2greece.com/mappages/stereaellada/attica.htm
The first site we hit was Brauron where we saw and ancient
temple to Artemis.
Info about Artemis: http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Artemis.html
They’re not exactly sure what the temple was used for and I’m
not going to go into all of the theories.
Next we went to Thorikos where we had the chance to see a
tholos, which is a tomb built by the Mycenaeans of Greece. First we had to hike up a steep hill in a
crazy amount of wind (windy enough to lose your balance at times). A tholos is
a HUGE hive shaped burial sites and they ancient Greeks place large cylinders
into the ground and then dug the dirt up (which they saved to then cover the
burials) and then the built it using rocks.
There was no scaffolding needed for the top of the roof because the way
they designed it created enough pressure for the roof to hold itself up. Then we went to see where the silver and lead
mines in Thorikos were and we saw the foundations of the areas used by slaved
to sort the metal out from the dirt.
Tholos
Finally we headed to Sounion to see the Temple of
Poseidon!!! The temple is located on a
hill (because it’s so much easier to protect yourself on a hilltop, much of
ancient Greece is located on a hill) overlooking a beautiful harbor.
Temple of Poseidon
After a long bus ride back I quickly showered and rushed
over to a Fulbright reception where I met the US Ambassador to Greece, which was
pretty cool.
Then I headed to
Loring Hall for a late bedtime and some packing because this evening (Friday)
we leave on an overnight ferry for 6 days on Crete!!
Today we started a bit later than yesterday and hiked up to
the acropolis and then to the Parthenon, where we got to go INSIDE!! It’s been closed off for years due to restoration
projects. We had a chance to learn about
the history of the Parthenon, previous restoration efforts and the current
restoration effort (most of which is being paid for by the EU). It was really neat to see how the restoration
was being done and to further my knowledge of Greek architecture (dad, would
you like to pay for another child to get a degree in architecture?!?!). Quick fact on the Parthenon (and other Greek
buildings, sculptures): they were painted in bright colors.
Parthenon
Then I spent the afternoon in the (air-conditioned) library to
do research.
Okay, time to head off to Crete!!
No comments:
Post a Comment