Acropolis Museum and Evzones Changing of the Guard

Today, we’re going to avoid the things that caused upset yesterday

including hunger by stopping by the beautiful café at the bottom of the Crystal City hotel that is a block from us.  Yes, that apartment that I was concerned is in a bad part of town is one block from 4 star hotels like the Wyndham Grand, I just didn’t know that Athens views graffiti as 

decoration instead of gang signs….We catch the Metro again and head to Syntagma square for the changing of the guard, a McDonalds, and several churches on our way to the Acropolis Museum.  Something for everyone on this trip since we’re walking 

through the Plaka and shopping district to get to the museum.  Got to have a nice talk with a Parliament Police Officer who wanted to talk to Oscar and find out where he was from.  Then got to watch the Evzones do their thing.  We got to watch 

them not only march, but these must have been guards in training because they were getting corrected by their superior occasionally.  It’s training day and even though they look amazing, there is always something that their

 superior officer has to say about it.   Oscar starts marching all the way down to McDonalds and we grab a happy meal to go and head down to the first few Eastern Orthodox churches that we can visit as we go through the Plaka area.  We’re on our way to the Acropolis Museum

 because rain was forecast for today, but we took too long getting there and are caught out in it at times. We stop and have some crepes to fuel up before the museum and then get there and in before the real downpour starts.  Oscar is free at all of these sites because he’s 5 and

only at the Ancient Agora did I have to whip out his passport to prove it….He’s bored within seconds because we made the mistake of calling it the “m” word, but I distract him with making him find the things that are listed to see in the museum guide.  Now, it’s a game and he gets mad if you find something before him.  Kritios boy is in the first room, but we can’t take

pictures.  But you can take pictures in the rest of the museum.  All of the Kores are in the first room too.  They do a good job of showing you what the statue would have looked like with the colors on it.  The real Caryatids are on display here, with the missing spot for the one that is in the British 

 Museum.  We take a break in the café and let Oscar watch a show, call his class to let them know where he is.  He enjoys seeing them and his teachers, but only his teachers care of understand that the Parthenon is over Oscar’s shoulder the whole time we’re doing the

  video call.  He gets to ask a classmate if they can have a sleep over when he gets back to America and we get to the top floor to see where Greece would put the marbles if they ever come back from Britain.  The video says how they were “violently” taken from here by

    Lord Elgin, and it was shocking to see how many of the metopes, pediment statues, and frieze parts were labeled “BM” for British Museum.  The man took about everything off the building.  The top floor is cool because it is laid out in the dimensions of the Parthenon, with windows looking out to the Parthenon on three sides and the marbles laid out like they would have been seen around the structure.  I’m seriously

starting to look forward to going to Nashville to see the Parthenon there, the lego rendition that a University did shown above was amazing.  I want to know how much of this they recreated and get an idea of how it must have looked in it’s heyday.  Because even with all of this work, restoration, 

excavation, recreation, artist’s renderings and displays doesn’t give a good idea of what this would have looked like.  We succeed in getting down to the bottom ramp excavations even though it’s 30 minutes before closing and have to get the doors unlocked to get back into the museum to get out stuff out of the coat closet.  All in all, a very good day and we’re heading home on the metro to get some food closer to home and call it a night.