Athens - Acropolis

Monday morning it was finally time for the highlight, something we had all looked forward to, our visit to the Acropolis! The kids were pretty excited, especially Lucas who plays the ancient Acropolis world on one of his Playstation games and was looking forward to seeing how it looks for real.

We decided to walk up the south slope of the hill.

This gave us the opportunity on the way up to also explore some of the less visited parts, like the Theatre of Dionysos, from 342 BCE.

 

And further up, the Theatre of Herodes Atticus, from 161 CE.

Amazing views already from here - and what a day it was! It was quite windy, but sunny and lovely!

Then we got up to the Propylaia, the entrance itself:

Here seen from the other side, together with the Temple of Athena Nike (Athena of Victory) which was built to commemorate the victories over the Persians.

And then there is was - the majestic Parthenon!

There is constant restoration projects going on up here, in the different areas. Hard to get a good picture of the temple with all the scaffolding, ha ha!

We so enjoyed the views from up here! Athens seems to go on forever.

We loved it!

Finally the Erechtheion with the Porch of the Caryatids. We had seen the original statues the day before in the Acropolis Museum, these here are only casts which are not so sensitive for pollution and climate. Erechtheion is said to be built where Poseidon left his trident marks in a rock, and Athena's olive tree sprouted in their battle for the city.