Day 8 - Athens, Greece

One of our last stops was the birth place of democracy, Athens and the Acropolis. Athens was named after the Goddess Athena. The story goes that Athena and Poseidon were fighting over who the city belonged to. The people living in the city decided that they should each give them a gift and whichever gift they liked the best would have the privilege of having the city named after them. Poseidon struck the ground and water flowed. Athena struck the ground and an olive tree grew. They picked Athena because if you have an olive tree you have food and heat, you have a source on income and you have free time because while the olives are growing there is nothing to do and so you can spend time philosophizing. The olive tree above is at the Acropolis in honor of that story.

The word Acropolis means high place and this was basically the main part of the city and where they would go if they were being attacked. The above picture is the Parthenon. This amazing structure was built in ten years. Which is amazing because most of the other ruins we saw took hundreds of years to build. This building was built to represent the people working together for a common goal. One of the greatest symbols of team work. It was built by the people for them to use and is basically the birth place of democracy. It is where the people in Athens would come to discuss their ideas.
This is another temple that is up on top of the hill. I can't remember what God this temple was built for.
This is a view from the top of the Acropolis. The structure you see in the middle of the picture you might recognize if you have ever seen footage of a concert at the Acropolis this is where they are held.

This is a ceiling that took 14 years to restore. That gives you an idea of what a task it is to restore these structures. The dark pieces are original pieces and the white pieces are ones they had to make. The black stuff is from a fire that burned when the Acropolis was attacked and they can not get that damage off.
This is a view of the city of Athens from on top of the Acropolis. Athens was a huge city and it was made of 8 story high cement builds and was very dirty and just not a very pretty city to drive through. But it looks cool from this view. There are a few old neo classical building that they have kept in good condition. You can see those further down.
This is the stadium built for the first modern Olympics in 1896. It has absolutely no parking and so when they just recently had the Olympics in Athens they held the archery competition in there.
Here is one of the old neo classical building. They are used to house government offices.

It was getting towards the end of the trip and we were all running out of steam.
This is a statue symbolizing the unity of Greece.
Here is another piece of art we saw in the city.

This is a running man made from sheets of glass.
Here is a picture of some great thinkers of our time.

The Acropolis and Athens was such a cool place to visit and have a glimpse of that part of history.

One more day of pics left.