Agoraphilia
Mar. 5th, 2010 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatarperegrineThis was supposed to be the "We're in Delphi!" entry, but alas, we are not in Delphi. Instead we are in Bus Terminal B, or the Lissiou KTEL Station as it is known in Greek, leading me to wonder why the guidebooks insist on giving it a name sure to baffle taxi drivers.
We were to take the 5:30 bus, but it appears that protests have started up again, and thus our local bus TO the station never arrived. We eventually hailed a taxi, but he had to detour around the protests outside Athens University (extremely anemic --a couple dozen people milling around with one sign among the lot of them!), and thus we pulled up at the station just as our bus to Delphi left. The next one's in 2.5 hours, so overall, not a disaster. Justin said he's mostly annoyed that we don't have a cooler story for why we missed it, so I promised to tell you we ran over some protesters.
We had a great last morning in Athens before the bus debacle. We walked around the Temple of Zeus, then up to the Theater of Dionysus (where Sophocles et al's plays would have premiered) and then down the Areopagus Hill (where Paul preached the cool sermon about the temple to the unknown god) to the Agora. The Agora was definitely my favorite thing in Athens. It's basically a park that's full of awesome archaeological detritus amidst nice paths through trees. You can pretty much wander around at will, except for a couple specific areas (like the temple of Hephaestus, the most complete Doric temple remaining). When I got to the stoa where Socrates is said to have hung out a lot, I just jumped over the stone wall and wandered around the stoa, peeking down wells and investigating nooks and crannies. It was pretty much everything you'd hope an archaeological site would be.
We got so carried away with our morning itinerary that we never made it to the archaeological museum. Oops. The one downside of coming in the off season is that most sites close at 3, so there's really only so much you can see in a day.
We were to take the 5:30 bus, but it appears that protests have started up again, and thus our local bus TO the station never arrived. We eventually hailed a taxi, but he had to detour around the protests outside Athens University (extremely anemic --a couple dozen people milling around with one sign among the lot of them!), and thus we pulled up at the station just as our bus to Delphi left. The next one's in 2.5 hours, so overall, not a disaster. Justin said he's mostly annoyed that we don't have a cooler story for why we missed it, so I promised to tell you we ran over some protesters.
We had a great last morning in Athens before the bus debacle. We walked around the Temple of Zeus, then up to the Theater of Dionysus (where Sophocles et al's plays would have premiered) and then down the Areopagus Hill (where Paul preached the cool sermon about the temple to the unknown god) to the Agora. The Agora was definitely my favorite thing in Athens. It's basically a park that's full of awesome archaeological detritus amidst nice paths through trees. You can pretty much wander around at will, except for a couple specific areas (like the temple of Hephaestus, the most complete Doric temple remaining). When I got to the stoa where Socrates is said to have hung out a lot, I just jumped over the stone wall and wandered around the stoa, peeking down wells and investigating nooks and crannies. It was pretty much everything you'd hope an archaeological site would be.
We got so carried away with our morning itinerary that we never made it to the archaeological museum. Oops. The one downside of coming in the off season is that most sites close at 3, so there's really only so much you can see in a day.
