Day 3: last day in Athens

While a top tier destination in Europe, with monuments and museums that rival anywhere in the world, Athens is also a great place for a shorter trip.  By the end of day 3, my final day, I felt like I seen all the major things the Athens offered, and experienced everything I was hoping for.  

One of the best ways to see the major sites really is to get there as early as possible.  Just like with the Acropolis, I arrived just after opening to the temple of Zeus, followed up by visiting the Roman forum and then the Ancient Agora.  Outside of the Acropolis these were some of the major hotspots of Athenian life.  From politics to mercantile endeavors, taxes, laws and religion.  

The ancient agora is a can't miss location, there has been a phenomenal job of restorating the area, and the temple of Hespestius is one of the best conditioned temples of it's kind.  The Agora is a huge town center, full of the needs of everyday life like the official weights and measures, am extremely sophisticated water clock, temples for various gods and so on.  Offices for officials, buildings for government.  The agora museum shows the history of the area, with habitation going all the way back to the bronze age.  

There's a sense there of what it may have been like, bringing goods to market, discussing politics or philosophy, seeing a play at the theater and offering sacrifices to the gods.  It helps to walk around these ruins and imagine them in their hayday, and see how human nature has both changed and stayed the same.  It must have been a hustling place for centuries.  

Following up I made my last stop of the trip, to the National museum of archeology.  Unlike the other more specialized museums on this trip, the national museum has a collection including sites from all over Greece and the Aegean.  From stunning statues in marble and bronze, to wall paintings from the ancient Mycenaean civilization that predated the classical Greek civilization.  Rooms and rooms of pottery full of different advancements and stories of mythology.  

I was fascinated by a room full of different gears and mechanisms used by the Greeks.  Including an incredible astrolabe capable of calculating the movements of the moon and stars based on inputs of the date.  Found in a shipwreck its considered the most advanced computational device ever created until the 1800s.  A ridiculous achievement of gearwork, which modern watch makers recreated from the parts found to incredible results.  

A phenomenal statue of a horse racer in motion, created in bronze dominates one room, while another contains part of an absolutely collosal marble statue of Zeus.  Gorgeous life like marble statues of the beautiful Aphrodite, with flowing robes are stand outs.  They must have looked divine pained with colors and adorned with jewelry.

There's so much beauty in the Ancient World.  Their art, plays, poetry.  Their mythology.  Always more to learn and see and understand.  While I feel like I've seen  enough of what Athens has to offer, I feel the pull of Rome as my next trip.  To see the legacy in so many ways of the Athenians continue thru Rome's integration of their culture.  There are stark differences, especially in how Athens and Rome viewed Women and homosexuality, as well as their place in the world.  How much was Athens shaped by their worship of Athena vs Rome's more militaristic worship of Mars?  I say it at the end of every trip, but already I can't wait to travel again.  

Now it's back to NY for a few days, the Met, MoMA and Whitney await.