Last Minute Athens

Shortly before I left Athens, I started to panic in a vaguely irrational manner. "Oh no!" I remember saying. "I only have two weeks left in Athens! There are still so many things I want to see! Oh dear! I'm leaving so soon!" Shortly afterwards, I told myself quite sternly that people manage to see most of the sites of Athens in considerably less than two weeks, and I would have plenty of time to see everything I wanted. (Then the riots started, and my sight seeing was a bit curtailed.) But there were a few days in there when I wandered around Athens snapping pictures like there was no tomorrow. Here are some of the products of that panic.


This is the Temple of Olympian Zeus- I had been there before, but hadn't taken any pictures from up close or from inside the actual enclosure. That's the Zappeion- it is a building that houses conventions and exhibitions and stuff. I walked by it frequently for several months before figuring out what it was. I... still don't really know what it is. Other than in a vague sense.
Signs on Amalias. Note: The centre is less than a kilometer away. Peiraias is about 7, the Acropolis is very nearby. Thessaloniki is... about 6 hours by car, I think.


One of these things is not like the other...
Hadrian's Arch, Athens traffic. I think I was glad that I left Athens when I did- I was getting way too comfortable crossing Athens streets. And that is a bad thing- to quote Harry Potter, Athens street require constant vigilance.
The Choregic Monument of Lysicrates. Back in the day, wealthy Athenians were required to perform public works (leitourgia) sort of like a tax. Some of these works involved financing the navy, (which, for Athens, was obviously a big deal) but some of them were religious in nature. One of these was to be the person who financed productions of drama for the religious festivals- and if your production won, custom was to set up one of these monuments to display your tripod. This is one of the most complete ones extant (possibly the most complete one- certainly the most that I saw.) and it is in Plaka.
Then I went to the Kerameikos- but since there were a lot of pictures from there, I think that one deserves its own separate post.