The Oldest City In Europe

Armed with our copy of The Lonely Planet's Greece in hand, Emily and I decided to tackle Greece by attempting to follow their walking tour from our centrally located hostel. (And please do consider this an unabashedly shameless plug for their glorious publication.) We meandered up cozy ("Narrow," Emily later corrected) cobblestone streets, attempted to decipher Greek street names (I have yet to confess aloud that my newfound comprehension of the Greek alphabet makes me feel like a secret agent), and ended up in the main square of Athens before officially ditching the tour in favor of finding the Akropolis. The square was unimpressive, aside from its history for housing demonstrations that led to: the king's granting of Greece's first constitution in 1843, the beginning of Greece's civil war in 1944 (after open police fire, cool!) and the union of Greece with Cyprus in 1954. As you read this, you can pretend that you totally knew about Greece and Cyprus already, it's cool.

In this bustling square, Emily and I also happened upon our roommates from the previous night playing cards in the grass. Unfortunately, we had not actually met them, persay, as they we arrived after they'd already fallen asleep and woke after they'd already left. We stood there for a moment, debating how likely it was that they'd recognize our faces since we were on the top bunks (clearly not very), or just how awkward it'd be to waltz up and join them anyway. Knowing ourselves as well as we do, we wrote off the certainly awkward encounter and trekked on in search of The Most Important Site In European History.

One set of directions (from a quite friendly man in a car rental shop) told us to ride the metro. Now, building an underground transportation system under any major city is going to be a nauseatingly difficult undertaking. Digging, tunnelling, excavating under a thriving metropolis? Yeah, no thanks. But when a city like Athens attempts to tunnel under their thriving metropolis, they encounter the countess remains of millenia of other thriving metropoli. So think of Boston's Big Dig and add a few more years, a few more billions of dollars, and actually legit excuses. What they're left with is an effective beautiful new system with museums of baller archeological relics at each station. Man--other cities dig and hit cumbersome rock enbackments, but Athens digs and hits terracotta aquaducts, graves of Homerian-era soldiers and ornate mosaic floors. I was totally geeking out down there.

I should probably take a minute to admit our obvious tourist-status. Armed with our passport wallets slung across our shoulder, backpacks in tow, camera straps attaching our cameras to our bodies (when they're not glued to our faces) and Greek phrasebook in hand, we unabsedly trek our way along, our earnest faces seeking our adventure (or our weary ones, seeking shelter). As silly as I might feel, taking pictures of mosaic floors or sleeping dogs in the curb, I figure I'm only here once and my dignity is well worth the momento.

So all of Athens is in a valley of sorts, surrounded by mountains to the north and the ocean to the south, but right in the middle of the sprawling city of 5 million is a towering mountain visible from almost anywhere in the city. As you walk up, you pass ancient landmarks--the temple of Athena Nike as well as the Theater of Dionyseus where the plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Eurypedies (thanks, GTL!) were performed in the 5th century BC--and you can feel how spectacular the view is going to be. (And if you're like Emily and I, you may well keep squealing in anticipation as the view gets better and better.)

All the buildings on the mountain comprise what we know as the Akropolis, which means "high city". Through the 6th century BC people actually lived up there until it was deemed exclusively for worship and government affairs around 500BC. You really break a sweat hiking up that thing on a August afternoon, but all of a sudden: It's There. The giant Parthanon stands looming atop this breathtaking (get it?) mountain, its giant marble pillars supported by an extensive iron rod infrastructure which seems well worth its unsightly toll to me.

You stand there, torn between staring at it or at the view of beautiful white and yellow homes and buildings stretching for miles. Blue domes peak out between the red rooftops with craggy mountain ridges in the background. You could stand and marvel at how in Zeus's name they lugged countless tons of marble up this mountain thousands of years ago, or you could wistfully stare, head cocked just slightly, at the sparkling mediterranean, just in the distance.

Odds are, you'll spend 30 minutes fruitlessly trying to capture the beauty on film before finding an English-speaking tourist to take a photo of you with your hair blowing in your face--or, if you're me, before realizing sunscreen has leaked all throughout your bag and trying to salvage your possessions by wiping off the sunscreen onto your gritty skin (and getting yelled at for getting some onto an apparently valuable block of marble you've chosen to sit on).

However you do it, the experience will rock pretty hard. Especially if you are a student and do the whole thing for free.

All in all it wasn't so bad for an unintended day in Athens, and before we could even reflect on it, we were off to our ferry to begin our time in the isles.