Packing Day

Athens in one day is too much of a challenge, so let's just call this Packing Day. Our hotel is next to the beautiful New Acropolis Museum, so Dwight and I decided to wander over there and see what it had to offer. It was built in 2009 and for the first time in Greece we found a gimp-friendly space with ramps and accessible restrooms. It was also air conditioned. Those two things in themselves made us fans, but it was the displays that kept us there. This new ediface was built speciallly to store and display the statuary from the Acropolis. At the entrance, visitors are routed up one side of the museum to the fourth floor and then directed down the other side from the top. Along the way, you read about Greek history and the evolution of its art and are shown examples from the different periods and different buildings of the Sacred Area. I had tears in my eyes when I saw The Calf Bearer; it is so beautiful. The top floor is completely given over to the Parthenon. They first orient you with a video showing the history of the great temple and introduce you to the stories told by the pediment and metope statuary. The entire floor is a rectangle containing within it the same dimensions as the Parthenon, but with the metopes in place so you can walk around and study them individually. Steel columns replace the marble. In the places which should be occupied by the marbles stolen by Lord Elgin, plaster replicas remind you of what has been looted. They make it quite clear that they consider the marbles in the British Museum to have been stolen. I agree; the stolen statuary should be returned to take its place in this marvelous museum. Photos are not allowed, even if you don't use a flash. I don't know why. Bureaucracies exist to make rules. I'm not sure this all makes senseit's now late on our last night, but the museum is worth the visit. Michelin 3 stars. I visited the Acropolis itself on my first visit to Athens in 1972, and it was such a heightened experience, I still have clear memories of the visit. I really didn't want to replace those memories, so the museum was a welcome addition to them.

Later, I walked around the base of the Acrpolis looking for shops to buy something...couldn't leave Athens without proof of our presence. I found things to buy; it was not too difficult. We had a pleasant last dinner with Ron and Marilyn at a little restaurant under an arbor. I'm tired, ready for bed, and look forward to the cool mountains of Colorado. San Juan Mountains or Bust.