The Athenian Acropolis, amazing!

It is hard to describe the splendor and magnificence of the Athenian Acropolis. First of all, there is a hill to climb so when you arrive at the top the view from above is breathtaking.

I have known about the Acropolis since my school years, growing up in Panama, dreaming of visiting these exotic far away places. So you can well imagine my excitement on seeing with my own eyes such a marvel. Even our daughters have commented upon seeing the pictures, how they can't believe their parents are doing this.

I have taken considerable number of pictures (here are a few) and you can view them all at my Facebook account by copying and pasting the following link:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?id=1499168312&pid=31165921#!/photo.php?pid=31165922&id=1499168312&fbid=1477119456834


I won't bore you with technical details (which I don't know very well) but apparently the original friezes and sculptures were painted in bright colors, so one can well imagine the striking effect they must of had.

We also visited the recently opened Acropolis Museum which helped fill in the gaps and gave a more complete picture of the building.  The museum is located on the bottom of the the Acropolis hill, so you can view the museum and glance at the real thing at the same time.  It is also built on top of an archeological site and upon entering, you walk on glass, allowing the visitors to view the dig under our feet.  We had a snack in the cafeteria with a view of the Acropolis. See photo.



In the design of the museum, the inside display area is built to the exact dimensions of the Parthenon in order to display the friezes, sculptures and statues in their original position.  When they don't have any preserved pieces, they leave a gap and when the pieces have been "stolen" by other countries and are displayed in some foreign museums (ie. the British Museum) they have a cast mold of the originals.  Greece continues to lobby to other countries to get the pieces back, with little success.  For example one of the statue-pillars is in England while the rest in the museum, but the Brits refuse let the statue join its sisters.  See picture.

Here is a picture of an old Greek guy, who upon seeing my camera, promptly turned his back, he figured his front was worth 3 euros.  I liked his backside better than his sour face.



The rest of sight seeing day in Athens was spent it in a bus tour.  Here are a few pictures.