We managed to visit the Acropolis for a few hours despite Michael’s headache.

It’s impossibly ancient and awesome in the original meaning of the word. There are so many historical layers. Everything is worn away; the marble on steps and ground surfaces slippery smooth from who knows how many footsteps. The place is stewn with rocks, huge building blocks, some lying around apparently where they fell, some stacked – hopefully in some order – for completing the task of assembling them again like some gigantic jigsaw puzzle. Grass, wild flowers like poppies and other plants grow sparsely among them all, and white dusty stony paths for the teaming multitudes of tourists wind among them.

When you see tv shows where the presenter breathlessly stands looking up in awe from within the Parthenon, like Joanna Lumley in her lovely series on Greece, it is not the usual experience; this is out of bounds, one keeps to the perimeter tracks, while much building renovation work – cranes and scaffolding takes place inside and out.

It also feels biblical. The look and feel – the blue skies, white stony ground, dusty olive trees, the heat, all evoke recollections of images from biblical stories. I found myself thinking about the act of stoning.

I’m not sure what to think about the restorations. They are invasive and perpetual, attempting to recreate the past – but for what exactly? Previous cultures made additions. I wonder if it would be better to leave it as is, to time. Is that ignorant and sacrilegious? The friezes are almost indistinguishable, broken and eroded blobs. I found out the statues of the six maidens, the Caryatids, on one side of the Erechtheion are replicas, and felt a little fooled; the originals are in the Acropolis Museum down the hill. If things are rebuilt and replaced with replicas, what does our experience become? Likewise if we only see the real things in museums?

Crane and scaffolding on the west side of the Parthenon; more inside it:

Innumerable stacked blocks:

The Erechtheion with the replica Caryatids:

An worn pillar along the entrance:

Ancient writing on theTemple of  Rome and Augustus:

Looking down to the Theatre of Dionysus:

The smaller Odium of Herodes Atticus:

The eastern side:

Michael in the shade of olive trees.

Looking out towards Lykavittos Hill (I think?). It would be cool to look at the Acropolis from there.

Temple of Olympian Zeus in the distance – must be enormous!:

Further down from the the Acropolis looking to the Roman Agora:

We arrived in Athens on the overnight ferry from Samos early this morning and are here for the day, catching the night ferry to Crete later this evening. The Acropolis is just up the road! But we’ve retreated to a Starbucks for a while because Michael has a bad headache, and it’s a good place to take refuge.