Athens
Greece
The home
of Greece's great archeological sites
Athens is the capital and pre-eminent city of Greece. It's
also Greece's main arrival destination. No city mixes history
and a chaotic energy better than Athens and you will know that the
moment you arrive.
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The city of Athens
Despite its chaotic energy, smog
and overcrowding, Athens is one of the most interesting places to
visit, not the least being the capital of Greece - home to some of
the greatest thinkers and philosophers, democracy, and both old and
modern Olympic Games. |
Athens City
Athens is city with stunning archeological sites, colorful
neighbors, overcrowding and smog like you’ve never seen it. For
many travelers, the general impression is one of a poetic chaos.
Roads are packed, taxi drivers are nuts and shops seem to spill off
the sidewalks and into the middle of roads. Yet, in the middle of
this chaos you’ll find peaceful places such as the Acropolis, even
though it is packed with tourists.
Greece's Historical
Sites
You can’t mention Greece without talking about the Greeks impact
on civilization since two and a half millennium ago. The city is
littered with sites of extremely important significance. This is
not the place where you’ll stand in front of an old structure where
Sir so and so fought Sir so and so to the death in a duel that
established something faintly important. Instead, you’ll stand in
front of monuments where civilization took a quantum leap forward,
the cradle of democracy.
The Acropolis is the dominant archeological
site in Athens. It is one of those rare locations you can visit
where the massive number of tourist do not diminish the impact.
Towering over Athens, the Acropolis has seen better days until you
consider how old it is. The Pantheon and Erechtheion are the two
standing structures and both are impressive.
While contemplating the Pantheon, one can’t
help but be impressed by the ability of the Greeks to build such a
towering, stone structure when much of humanity still considered a
hut a luxury. The Erechtheion is amazing because
it contains the famous Caryatids, the columns molded into the form
of female figures. Standing upon the mount, you’ll have a view of
Greece that will reveal the chaos and a sense of the age of the
city.
There's more to
Athens
Athens has much to offer beyond the Acropolis. Books have been
written on the subject. Large books. I’m not going to try to cover
them here, but you should try to get over to the Tower of the
Winds, where the Whirling Dervishes got their start.
Walking through Athens is like walking through history. They say
time travel is impossible, but Athens seems to suggest otherwise.
Don't wait too long to experience this both chaotic and
spectacular city.
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