A Short Story of a Long History

In the span of one week, I walked along the paths of Greek gods and Roman emperors, essentially tracing the development of Western civilization as we know it, and still made it to class on time. Don’t ever try to tell me I’m not ambitious.

Last Wednesday morning, the pre-dawn of Amstelveen was lit up by two small beacons in the distance: the headlights of our Uber driver, and not far behind the single light from Ted’s bike, his suitcase hung from the handlebars. Together with Kayla, Amber and I, we constituted the Canadian foursome out to conquer the world, armed with tickets for an early morning flight to Greece and Adele’s new song on a constant loop. The sun started to rise just as we made our ascent out of Schiphol, bound for the south-east pocket of Europe.

Much of Greece as we know it is a myth. I mean that in a very literal sense—the cast of characters of Greek mythology have always been, at least for me, synonymous with the actual place. Stories of the one-eyed Cyclopes, Zeus governing the gods from Mount Olympus, Heracles performing his Twelve Labours—they permeate a fascinating place of our collective consciousness, even if we only know bits and pieces of the stories. Athens itself is a not-so-subtle tribute to Athena, the goddess of wisdom and justice. That puts Athens in a bit of an awkward position, as it is considered a world city but also a place that cannot fully embrace a cosmopolitan vibe, because it has this classical image to maintain. 

Wouldn't you know it, Kayla and I ended up sitting next to a girl from New Brunswick on the flight (her dad was from Glovertown—someone reading this almost definitely knows them), who joined us for the first part of our stay in Athens before catching a boat to Paros, one of the many Greek islands (incidentally, we reconnected a few days later, and she slept through her port of call and ended up on the wrong island. That’s an actual problem that can happen in Greece). Unfortunately, that was mostly reduced to the oh-so-dull part of figuring out the train into the heart of the ancient city, and finding our Airbnb as the pot of gold at the end of the transit rainbow.

This was my first time doing the Airbnb thing—renting out a part of someone’s private home was totally not a thing when I first started globetrotting. Neither were selfie sticks, and those are also a big part of the travel landscape these days. Uh oh, I’m starting to sound old—almost as bad as Ted.

Despite being a good haul from the airport, most visitors to Athens don't make that trek four times in as many days, and so the location a few metro stops from the Acropolis was pretty ideal. We had a spacious basement apartment between us, with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms—split four ways it was a complete steal, and a lucky find.

Somehow, it had already been a long day by the time we got to put our bags down, but we only had a short stay in Athens, so we decided not to waste any time, taking a tram to the base of the Acropolis. If you sat down to draw a picture of what you think of when you think of Athens, it would likely be a crude rendition of this spot, on a rocky hilltop overlooking the city.

October 28 is Ohi Day in Greece, a public holiday commemorating the Greek refusal to let Mussolini and the Axis forces enter the country in 1940. So we ended up twice lucky in Athens: our rooms were cozy, and the Acropolis Museum was free for the day.

In a modern, open concept building are housed the artifacts collected from the Acropolis, a sizable collection that ranges from everyday items to statues of the gods. The Acropolis was, after all, much more than the Parthenon—early Mycenean people likely constructed on this hill, and where the Parthenon now stands there was originally the Hekatompedon, replaced by the Athenians with the Older Parthenon, which in turn was destroyed by Persians in 480 BC. Besides for that, the whole flat hilltop was a citadel of sorts, constituting a host of temples. In other words, there were a lot of things to be found from a long and varied history, once Greece emerged as an independent state from the Ottoman Empire in 1827 and began directing serious attention to the preservation and excavation of the Acropolis.

After the museum, we took a stroll along the southern edge of the Acropolis, stopping to rest at the Theatre of Dionysus. What remains, in relatively good condition, is a white semi-circular stage, surrounded by mounting aisles of seats. And this is not small venue for intimate one-man plays, either—some 17,000 people could have sat here in its heyday, watching Greek tragedies when they were brand new.  Let’s put this into perspective here for a second. Remember reading Oedipus the King in high school, that Sophocles yarn about the dude who marries his mother and gouges his eyes out? (If I just spoiled Oedipus for you, you need to emerge from beneath your rock.) Well, Sophocles might have sat on these seats and seen his play performed, here in Athens, and watched as people got surprised by the plot twist. That’s the kind of place this is.

Dionysus, by the way, he was the cool deity—the god of wine, pleasure, and festivity. 

After a long day of travelling across the better part of Europe, none of us were in the mood for making the rest of the climb to the Acropolis, especially since we dressed for the balmy summer and the late-afternoon sun had other plans. Greece was warm during the days, but it was still the end of October after all. After flicking through a few cheap tourist shops, we headed back to our Airbnb, with one essential stop along the way.

Picture pita bread, still steaming. Throw on slabs of freshly shaved, seasoned chicken, pork, or donair from a rotisserie, topped with onion, tomato, and lettuce. Slather the whole thing in tzaziki sauce, and you have a gyro, the thing I didn’t realize was missing from my life before now. Not only are these Greek treats delicious and filling, but at two euros a pop they’re the budget way to experience the tastes of Greece. I won’t tally the number of gyros we ate during our week in Greece, but let’s just say that wasn't our only one.

With a gyro and a beer as a nightcap, it was bedtime in the room with the blinds drawn so tight it felt like we had ventured into a bunker—in other words, we slept like four rocks with the curious odor of raw onions floating above our heads.

We had another trip to the Athens airport to look forward to the next evening, but that left us with the full day. With the sun decidedly putting up a greater effort today, we retraced our steps to the Acropolis, and went up to the top.

Literally translated, acropolis means “upper city,” and the ancient buildings assembled overlooking Athens must surely have been a bustling hub in antiquity. But to get there, we had to walk up winding pathways, shedding layers of clothing as we made our way up the southern slope, each turn presenting a wider view of the massive city.

It’s a bit hard to imagine that it was only as a recently as the post-WWII years that the population of Athens really spiked to the urban sprawl it is now. That might have something to do with the sense I described earlier about the difficulty in moving a city forward when so much of its identity depends on the ancient past—it definitely doesn’t help things if instead of being able to control that progression, urbanization is forced on you. Crowded, congested streets that must be a nightmare in the peak tourist season, children begging for money, and swarms of stray cats and dogs wandering the streets are the telltale signs.

From the well-worn steps of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, you can overlook some of these imperfections, buy your souvenirs and come home out of it. But like a reconstructed Greek vase, the lines are fairly visible if you look up close.

The first stop on our ascent, looking back down, was at the Odeon of Herods Atticus. This is another amphitheater, and though it could only seat a fraction of the people as could have been crammed into Dionysus, it is much better preserved—so much so that a long list of contemporary performers had channeled the muse here, from Frank Sinatra to Elton John.

An imposing wall, on the edge of a multi-layered staircase, stands in the way at the entrance to the Acropolis proper. That’s the Temple of Athena Nike, looking down on you, and the epic staircase is the Propylaea. With these last few steps upwards, you pass through the entrance gate and onto the plateau of the ancient Greek Acropolis.

Ahead of us, atop the gravel radiating the heat of the midday sun, was the Parthenon on our right, and smaller temples to the left. Directly in front is a huge Greek flag, fluttering on the breeze at a perch visible throughout Athens. Allegedly, in 1941, a Greek guard at the flag was ordered by German soldiers to raise the swastika in its place; rather than comply, he wrapped himself up in the flag and jumped from the heights to his death. Like all the best stories, you’d be hard pressed to say whether that actually happened or not, but this might be a case where the story is more important than the facts anyway.

The Erechtheion, to our left, was constructed after the Persian attack, in tribute to both Athena and Poseidon. Look at those columns a bit more closely—the draped women constitute the Porch of the Caryatids.

Most significant in size and importance, however, is the Parthenon. This really is the Crown Jewel of classical Athens, and I don’t think there’s any hyperbole in saying it is one of the most iconic human constructions of all time. A temple for Athena, it’s an enduring testimony to the ability of Athenian society, and has fundamentally shaped our perception of ancient Greek ascetics and culture.

As you can see though, it’s not intact—the restoration work, a highly delicate, political issue still dominates portions of the structure.

Seeing the remains of the Acropolis, and in particular the Parthenon, raised some really big questions about tourism and what people expect to see when they visit a historical site. Best case scenario, the thing actually survived intact—but when you’re talking about something that was around centuries before Jesus, it’s not likely that the original architects had an overly sophisticated contingency plan (and even if they did, war and weathering get in the way as the millenniums lapse). In that case, what do you actually want to see: the relics as they are, slick reconstructions adhering (as best they can) to historical accuracy, or some hybrid of the two? From the city walls of Dubrovnik to the columns supporting the Parthenon, we’ve been constantly re-evaluating the negotiation that inevitably happens in historical tourism, as reconstruction efforts try to preserve, replicate, and make sure there are well-lit emergency exits at the same time—I won't say much more on this topic, since my much-more-articulate co-writer happens to be grounding her PhD on these kinds of questions, but suffice it to say that our visit was one part standing in awe of these ancient mega projects, and another part questioning the role of scaffolding in such a place.

By the time we retraced our steps down the Acropolis and reclaimed our bags from the Airbnb, it was time to hanker down for the hour-long trek across the city to the airport. Don't worry—we didn’t come all this way just to go home the next day, and though we only got a limited glimpse of the hectic, somewhat claustrophobic pulse of the Athens heartbeat, we were secure in the fact that we would get another day to explore it, after this next little detour. For the first time in four years, we found ourselves in a partitioned boarding hall awash with the abrasive yellow of Ryanair.

Ahead of us, on the edge of the Greek twilight and a short flight, waited a tiny island in the Aegean Sea. Santorini, with its blue-capped, whitewash houses, gyros, and even (dare we dream) a few beaches was the next part of our Greek adventure.

Cheers,

rb