I was up at 3:30 AM Monday in Dallas to shower, shave, and otherwise make the absolute last packing for the trip. The Super Shuttle requested I be ready 15 minutes before the scheduled pickup time. As it turned out the shuttle was 30 minutes late.

The flight to Denver (I know, this made no sense) was on an Air Canada Airbus 320. While not quite the sardine can the last time I flew American Airways or US Air, the economy seats are not designed for someone who is 6’1” and has long legs. Nor will the drop down tray work with my thighs.

When I got to Montreal we went to a room where there were at least a thousand people lined up for customs and immigration. Yes, we had to go through immigration and to fill out a customs declaration – even though we were simply changing planes. They did have a shorter, faster line for those of us with connecting flights. Then there was one of those electronic boards that informed me my plane was leaving from gate 61. Of course then there were no signs pointing to gates more than about 54. So I headed toward the ascending numbers. Wrong – 61 was the other direction.

The flight to Montreal was on an Air Canada Airbus 319. (I don’t have any idea how these numbers work). It was far more accommodating. I got selected to be in the last group to load. Before our group was allowed to load it was announced there was no more room for carryon luggage and it would have to be checked. I played deaf (not hard for me) and didn’t check my backpack. There was plenty of room for it in the overhead bins, but not just near my seat.

The flight to Athens was on an Air Canada Rouge Boeing 767/300. Sardine time. Not only were the seats too close together and the tray too close to the seat for a guy my size, but there were vent boxes under each aisle seat, which meant that only my left leg/foot could extend under the seat in front of me. More fun – there apparently was a problem with the planes maintenance log (or so the pilot informed us) that took an hour to resolve before we were cleared for takeoff. We were rewarded with free earphones.

So on Tuesday I arrived in Athens an hour later than planned. No real problem as the ‘check in time’ for the hotel was 2 PM. I decided to take a taxi to the hotel. That eliminated the hassle of subways and changing subways and a walk from the subway to the hotel with my baggage.  Good move; the walk would have been uphill.

When I went to the hotel desk they said they had a problem with the reservations system. They were putting me in another hotel for one night. They provided taxi fare to and from that hotel, coffee and scones while I waited for the taxi. This one night hotel is quite modern. It has one of those neat key card things that unlocks the door, turns on the electricity (and air-conditioning) and opens a safe in the room. My sixth floor room (actually seventh floor because in Europe C programmers number floors, with the ground floor being 0) has a balcony with table and chairs and a view of the Acropolis and Parthenon.

Taxis in Athens are yellow. The drivers are insane. The taxi driver from the airport to my first hotel insisted on look at me and talking has he zoomed down the toll road from the airport to the city and in the city dodged cars and motorcycles in very congested traffic. Some streets are very narrow; and the wide one are rendered narrow by double, triple and even quadruple parking. The driver of the second cab from the first to the second hotel talked on his cell phone as he dodged motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, cars, trucks, buses and street cars. I have concluded I need to be very attentive while walking – looking especially for yellow taxis and motorcycles.

Tomorrow I’ll shower, shave and have breakfast at this hotel and the transfer to the other hotel. I had planned on taking a stroll around the Acropolis (not climbing it). But I noticed one of those double decker tour buses – so I may try to find one and take the tour. I’ve learned from Paris and Rome that is a good way to get oriented to the cities.

The photo journal for today is at Canicus Modius in Greece – 10 September 2013 – Athens

Canicus Modius

Rome may be the ‘Eternal City’ but Athens has been around longer. According to tradition the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC. Archeologists have found remains indicating that the Palatine hill was occupied around that time, making the city around 2,700 years old. There is some evidence of earlier occupation, but the clear evidence of a permanent existence would seem to support the mid-eight century founding and the beginning of continual occupation down to the present.

However, Athens seems to have been occupied for 7,000 years. It was an important Mycenaean city in the 15^th century BC. There are traces of that era found on the Acropolis. When Rome was founded, Athens was a major Mediterranean power and had colonies on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and in the Italian peninsula.

The Roman Republic traditionally began in 509 BC with the overthrow of the monarchy. Nearly a century earlier Solon had given the city a constitution and laws which would provide a foundation for later democracy. In 510 BC Cleisthenes was establishing a democracy in Athens. The Persian King Darius angry over the Athenian colonization of the western coast of Asia invaded Greece but was repelled in 490 BC when the Athenians defeated his army at Marathon.

The great classical period of Athens was from 508 to 322 BC. This was the era of Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Sophocles, Euripides etc. that we associate with ancient Athens. Athens was the dominant Mediterranean economic and naval power of the time. Meanwhile Rome was slowly extending its power over the surrounding areas of the Italian peninsula. Rome had yet to fight the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars (264 BC to 146 BC) establishing its dominance over the Italian peninsula, Sicily, northern Africa and Spain and beginning involvement in Greece and Asia.

Athens is named after the goddess of wisdom and war, Athena, who, according to the tradition, sprang full grown from the head of Zeus. Homer consistently calls her ‘owl-eyed Athena’ and she was consistently associated with an owl. The ‘Athenian owl’ was a silver coin widely used in commerce when Athens ruled the seas. The obverse of the coin showed the helmeted head of Athena and the reverse an owl. The reverse also featured an olive branch, olives being is major agricultural product which was (and still is) greatly prized among connoisseurs of olives and olive oil. The coins also featured a waning moon – a political dig at the rival Sparta. When Darius had invaded Greece, Athens had sent to Sparta for aid in repelling the invasion. But Sparta declined because the moon was waning and they could not religiously fight until the new moon. Athens stopped the invasion at Marathon without Spartan help.

I do not anticipate blogging on Monday. I’ll be in airports and on planes. I may tweet (@canicusmodius) if I find free Wi-Fi for my smartphone. My laptop will be in my carryon, but I don’t anticipate using it.

P.S. The graphic I am using is not in Greece, it is in Italy. It is, however, a Greek temple dedicated to Poseidon located in the Greek colony of Paestum. I took the picture last summer when I visited.

Canicus Modius

In my travels to Europe I have encountered occasions in which some of what I came to see was covered up by scaffolds and barriers erected for the restoration and preservation of the artifact. I could not view the medieval stained glass at Salisbury and Chartres due to this. In Rome temple  façades and even entire temples were covered. In Venice part of the  façade of San Marcos Basilica was covered.

Since ancient times buildings have been subjected to natural damage. Earthquakes have collapsed some of them. Parts of the Coliseum in Rome have collapsed in earthquakes. Lightning strikes have damaged buildings. Some, like much of ancient Alexandria are now under water. Fires, a regular occurrence in ancient Rome, have destroyed buildings and art. From earliest times, armies have leveled ancient cities. These include Troy, Carthage and Corinth.

Then, as now, ‘urban renewal’ leveled parts of cities, with new buildings erected on the ruble of older buildings. Not infrequently the good building materials of old buildings was stripped and used in new buildings. The exterior surface of the pyramids and Coliseum were stripped and the underlying stone, brick and concrete exposed.

For centuries ancient site have been robbed and the art removed or, in the case of gold, silver and bronze artifacts melted down for their metal.  The Romans regularly raided Greek and Asian sites for their artwork. For centuries beginning in the Renaissance artwork from ancient Greece and Rome were stolen and placed in private royal collections and museums. I have never been to Greece before, so I have never seen the Parthenon. However I have seen the frieze that ran around it. That is in the British Museum in London. The damage to the Parthenon is partly due to the natural elements, but the major structural damage was caused when the Ottoman Turks used it for an ammunition dump and the Venetians shelled it. Good thinking guys.

Also on the Acropolis is the Erchtheion, famous for the Porch of the Caryatids. There are six large statues serving as pillars upholding the roof. The statues there today are copies. Five of the originals are in the Acropolis Museum; the sixth is in the British Museum in London. The Greeks want it back.

In some respects the removal of the original stonework, such as the friezes of the Parthenon and the Temple of Poseidon in Paestum, and major artworks to museums, such as from Herculaneum and Pompeii to the Museum in Naples and from Rome to the Vatican Museum, are good because they are safer from the corrosive effects of the modern industrial atmosphere. Industrial emissions and the exhaust of internal combustion engines is bad for the health not only of humans but buildings and art. Much of the restoration and preservation work seen in England, France, Germany, Italy and Greece are to address the deterioration caused by petroleum fuels and to prevent further damage.

Getting from here to there.

The itinerary that Expedia came up with to get me to Athens is odd. I leave DFW at 7:55 AM to take an Air Canada flight to Denver. Denver? That is northwest of Dallas – Athens is east. They’ll want me at DFW 5:55 AM which means leaving home at 4:25 AM! At Denver I’ll take another Air Canada flight to Montreal. I suppose that will mean that in Denver I will have to claim my checked baggage and go through security again as I am changing from a domestic flight to an international flight.

At Montreal I suspect I’ll again have to claim my checked baggage and go through security again before boarding a third Air Canada flight, this time to Athens. I’m wondering. In Montreal will I also have to go through Canadian customs and immigration? But once I’m on the plane to Athens I’ll not have to mess with that checked bag and security again until I get to Athens, reclaim my bag for the third time and go through Greek immigration and customs.

Once through all that, I have to get from the Athens airport to my hotel. I’m currently debating. The least expensive way would be to take the train that connects to the Athens subway, take the subway to downtown Athens, transfer to another subway to get within a few blocks of the hotel and then walk to the hotel – lugging my luggage all the way. The easiest and most expensive way would be to take a taxi.

And back again.

To return I am booked on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfort, Germany. That flight leaves at 6:15 AM! That means checking in at 4:15 AM!! Rather than leaving my Athens hotel at 3:15 AM I decided to spend an expensive few hours at the airport hotel that night. I’m guessing these red-eye flights were scheduled so as to be cheaper.

I imagine that I’ll have to claim my bag and go through security again at Frankfort. At least I shouldn’t need to go through customs and immigration, as Athens and Frankfort are European Union countries. At Frankfort I’ll take another Lufthansa flight to DFW.

The Greeks didn’t (and don’t) call themselves “Greeks’ or Greece ‘Greece.’ That comes from the Latin Graecia.  In Greek Greece is Έλλάδα (Hellada), Greeks are Έλληνες (Hellenes), and Greek is Έλληνικά (Hellenika).

Historians sometimes debate when history begins. There was a theory that history begins when there are written records. So the Stone Age occupants 12 millennia ago don’t count. Besides those peoples aren’t the ancestors of historical Greeks.

Another civilization flourished in the area in the 34^th through 21^st centuries – the Minoans (of King Minos fame).  The 21^st century BC is as far removed from the advent of the Christ as we are.

Around the 21^st century BC the Mycenaeans moved into the area. They were ‘Greek speaking.’ The center of this civilization, which dominated the eastern Mediterranean was Mycenae in the Peloponnese, that part of Greece that extends south of the Gulf of Corinth which nearly divides northern and southern Greece. I hope to do a day trip from Athens to visit that site, famous for its walls and Lion Gate. There are some early written records, but they consist mostly of inventories and tax records. And some are in a script which hasn’t been deciphered yet.

That civilization was followed by the Early Iron Age, sometimes referred to as the ‘Greek Dark Ages’ – mostly because we don’t know much about it. During this period writing seems to have disappeared.

In the 8^th century BC Greece began to emerge from that ‘Dark Age’ into an age known as ‘Archaic Greece.’ Written records reappear.

The major period that interest most of us is known as ‘Classical Greece.’ This is a roughly 200 year period in the 5^th and 4^th centuries BC. This is the era of the philosophers Socrates and Plato; of Greek tragic and comic drama, of the famous politicians such as Pericles and of democracy. It began with the Persian Wars in which the Greeks successfully repulsed the attempts of Persia to conquer the Greeks. Herodotus is generally credited with writing the first history – an account of the Persian Wars. (Marathon and Thermopylae are the famous battles.) Toward the end it saw the Athens controlled Delian League that dominated the Mediterranean. Toward the end of the period Greece underwent a kind of civil war (war among different Greek city states) known as the Peloponnesian War – recorded by another early historian – Thucydides.

Classical Greece came to an end with the conquests of the Macedonian Alexander the Great. That era is known as ‘Hellenistic Greece’ and the influence of Greece in that period is known as ‘Hellenization.’ (There are a couple of words deriving from the name the Greeks used for themselves coming into our language. In this period the Greek Greeks really do fade into the historical background as the focus of history shifts to Asia and Egypt – the areas conquered by Alexander.

Greece proper was drawn into the growing empire of the Roman Republic in the 2^nd century BC. Roman domination of Greece continued into the 4^th century AD. During this Roman period, Athens was sort of a ‘university town.’ Romans went there for advanced education. But it wasn’t all that important politically and certainly not militarily.

In 324 Constantine the Great divided the administration of the Roman Empire into Roman west and the east governed from his new capitol, Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey). Greece went with this eastern area and we refer to this as ‘Byzantine’ – Constantinople having been built on the site of the previous city, Byzantium. The Byzantine Empire finally fell to Islamic rulers in 1453. Greece was as much a victim of the Crusades as the Middle East. The Crusaders did more to weaken the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire as the armies of Islam that finally ended Byzantine rule.

This was followed by domination and control by the Ottoman Empire that lasted until 1821 when Greece won its independence for the first time since the Romans made it a province of their Empire. Modern Greece suffered during both World Wars. Liberation following WWII resulted in a communist regime and eventually civil war. A democratic government was established in 1974 which continues today.

I have transferred the blogs from the old website to this blog.

Canicus in Italia: Day 4 (3 July 2012) about Herculaneum is out of order. Sorry about that. After I had transferred everything else I noticed that I had missed that blog.

The photos from my previous travels are in the archives at http://canicusmodius.com/.

I will actually depart from DFW on Monday and the first blog from Greece should be sometime Tuesday evening. There will be a few preliminary blogs from Dallas before I leave; this is one.

Athens is 8 hours ahead of Dallas. In other words 8 PM in Athens is noon in Dallas.

My hotel has an outdoor swimming pool and the highs in Athens should be perfect for swimming. The online reviews also say that there is a rooftop terrace with a spectacular view of the Acropolis. Right now that plus a nap looks like the plan after a hotel check in hotel Tuesday afternoon.

The photo journals will be using the JavaScript webpage I wrote and used last year. I may post a few on my FB page. I’m guessing the free hotel WiFi will be slow and it is faster to FTP to my website than to create albums on FB.

The camera I will be taking is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200. It takes good HD videos as well as photos. So if I find some interesting action I may do some videos. Those probably will go on YouTube, if I can tolerate the slow upload. Otherwise they may wait until I return and can upload faster at home. Right now the only ‘action’ I can think of is the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Things like the Parthenon tend not to move around much.

I have set up a Twitter account — @canicusmodius — I’ll try to tweet some. Don’t look for much political commentary on my FB page, here or on Twitter. I’ll be focused 2,500 years ago. But then, Athens was the birthplace of democracy then.