{"id":277,"date":"2013-09-11T14:59:30","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T19:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/?p=277"},"modified":"2013-09-11T15:00:42","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T20:00:42","slug":"277","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/?p=277","title":{"rendered":"Canicus in Athens: Day 2 (11 Sept 2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Breakfast at the old hotel, shower and shave and transfer to the new hotel. The old hotel room was nicer and had a better view than the new hotel. And the key card opened the safe in the room. The new hotel room is smaller, but adequate. It has a balcony, but the glass retaining wall triggers my acrophobia. While the room in the old hotel was nicer the neighborhood was very seedy. The new hotel seems to be in a better neighborhood.<\/p>\n

After arriving at the new hotel I took time to unpack my bags, hang clothes in the closet (which is illuminated with LEDs. It also has partially glass doors. Strange.<\/p>\n

After getting settled in my room, I asked about the Hop on \/ Hop off bus at the hotel desk. They gave me a map and sold me a two day ticket. They drew a squiggly line on the map to show how to get to the stop and simple verbal instructions. Which did not include forks in the road, etc. So I managed to get lost. I eventually ended up on the Dionissiou Areopagitou, which is a broad pedestrian walkway that encircles the Acropolis. But I was east of the stop the hotel sent me and I was walking east. I came to the New Acropolis Museum. The map said there was a stop there. (There is also a metro stop which is where I would have ended up had I taken the train\/metro from the airport.)<\/p>\n

Still not having located the bus stop I replaced my Italian cap with a Greek cap and paused for a curious mixture of cinnamon gelato and Nescafe. Quite good as it was warming up. I got instructions to go around the corner for the bus stop and then I was off on the circuit. Most of the photos today were taken from the bus.<\/p>\n

I did get off the bus at Syntagma Square because I had spotted a place where I could get a Greek SIM care for my smart phone. So now I have a bunch of messages on my phone \u2013 in Greek. Syntagma Square is the center of Greek government; the parliament building is there as well as a number of other government looking buildings. I had a Greek salad at a restaurant just off the square.<\/p>\n

The Acropolis<\/h1>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Acropolis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u00a0<\/em>mentioned earlier, I have a mild case of acrophobia. Heights (like balconies) tend to make me nervous. \u2018Acrophobia\u2019 comes from the Greek \u1f04\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd (height) and \u03c6\u03cc\u03b2\u03bf\u03c2 (fear) \u2013 i.e., fear of height. The \u201cacro\u2019 part of \u2018Acropolis;\u2019 the \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03c2 part is the word for \u2018city\u2019 (as in \u2018metropolis<\/strong>). So the \u0391\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03c2 is literally, \u2018High City.\u2019 It is on a high hill which may have served as a defensible fortress for the early Athenians, and also was a \u2018high place\u2019 where the \u2018high gods,\u2019 especially Athena, were worshipped. The picture is viewing from the north. On the far right there is a slope which was used to access the top of the Acropolis. At the top of this slope are a group of buildings and temples that served as the gateway to the flat summit of the Acropolis. The Parthenon is the main building on the summit today. It is, by the way, not a temple. Never was. It is a \u2018memorial\u2019 celebrating the victory of Athens over the Persians at Thermopylae. In that war the Temple to Athena was destroyed and never rebuilt. The foundations are all that is left and the ground was regarded as sacred. The other curious thing is that you approach the Parthenon from its back, not its front, which faces that very steep cliff on the east where a Greek flag flies today.<\/p>\n

\"Greek<\/a>
Greek Flag on the Acropolis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is a story behind that flag. It was there when the Nazi\u2019s took over Athens. A Greek soldier was ordered to take down the Greek flag and raise the Nazi flag. The soldier took down the Greek flag, wrapped himself in it, and then jump off that cliff to his death. It was the beginning of the Greek resistance to the Nazis.<\/p>\n

Today’s photo Journal is at my website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Canicus Modius<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Breakfast at the old hotel, shower and shave and transfer to the new hotel. The old hotel room was nicer and had a better view than the new hotel. And the key card opened the safe in the room. The new hotel room is smaller, but adequate. It has a balcony, but the glass retaining … Continue reading Canicus in Athens: Day 2 (11 Sept 2013)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281,"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions\/281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.canicusmodius.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}