2018 Greece 06

BLOG NOTE: I began this blog in 2009 when I rode across the country.  This consisted of my photos, my thoughts and impressions.  But now, riding with Brenda, we tend to go places that beg for description.  I’m not a good note taker and surely can’t  take notes and photographs at the same time.  But Brenda is a good note taker and remembers far more details than I.  So she now writes a lot of the blog text. So look above! The blog is now titled JOHN & BRENDA’S BASICALLY BORING BICYCLING BLOG.  I’m so glad the alliteration continues.

When we returned to the hotel at 7:00 pm yesterday we were pretty  tired.  Four days of exploring antiquity, including 3 11-hour bus tours, were taking their toll.  We returned to the Phillipos hotel where we began and were given the only room on the seventh floor. We were excited to see a private balcony large enough for a party and with a direct view of the  Parthenon. Then we opened the door to the world’s smallest hotel room.  It made the small French hotel rooms look large. There was not enough room for our suitcases; these spent the night on the patio.

 

Photo at left from our balcony.  Today is Sunday, a day of much-needed rest.  We did laundry in the morning at a very nice laundromat which had a table for working on the blog.  Then we went to the Acropolis Museum, one of four in the city.  When the Olympics were in Athens for the second time in modern history (2006), the city used this as an excuse to do major infrastructure projects like highways and a public transportation system.  As part of this was the Acropolis Museum which didn’t open until 2009. 

There was an ulterior motive here.  Many of the Greek historical artifacts are in the British Museum, taken last century by Lord Elgin.  Of course Greece wants them back.  But  the Brits have maintained there is no sufficient museum in Greece.  Now, this is no longer true. So come on Brits, give back to the Greeks what is rightly theirs.

The museum maintains visual contact with the monuments of the Acropolis, exhibits the Parthenon sculptures in their entirety (same size as the original and same orientation), and adapts the building to the archaeological excavation that extends across i0ts foundation.  See photo from the museum in the upper right and some of he evacuation below.