Acropolis Athens, Doris Visits with friends

You're not going to be able to visit the Acropolis without climbing some steps, maybe even some rocks. So rule one, good footwear. If you've not booked a ticket online or in advance, this is the queue. Opposite the Acropolis is some high rocks where you can climb up to a vantage point. Acropolis means high city and you can see why. I firmly believe that visiting a site like this is best with stories. So you either need a guide or to have done your homework. It doesn't matter who's telling the stories, it really doesn't matter if they're true, because most of them only have an element of truth. Her voice is not as good like Maria Callas or Pavarotti that performed here in the past. So I'm going to invite you to look at the scaffolding around these buildings. Obviously the Romans didn't have scaffolding. They're credited with a lot of engineering, but you know the engineering here came from the Egyptians, from Rameses, maybe even before and it was done with mud bricks. They would put down a section of wall or pillar, build up the ground with mud bricks. Then at the next section, build up the ground with mud bricks and go right to the roof. When the building was finished, they'd remove the mud. I explain that in the blog on Doris Visits. Do check out our website and all the blogs. Did you knock at the door? So this is the top of Areopagus hill. If you want to take a picture of the Acropolis, the best place to take it is from the top of this hill, because when you're up there, it'll be very hard to get the whole thing in the frame and it'll just look like a load of old rocks. So here's another story you can share. If you're going up to the Parthenon in the Acropolis village or space, the high city of this hill and that's the Elgin marbles. Well, what are the Elgin marbles? They're actually statues and the first statues were destroyed during the conversion to the Christian faith in the 6th century. Then the rest of the statues from the Parthenon were taken by a nobleman, a Scottish nobleman called Elgin, and we still have them in Greece and Greece would like them back. Skinny and tall. They went on a diet to be stylish. In style. From children. Yeah. These are Spartan women. All the Spartan women exercised and so they all voted for her and she became the patron goddess. Right. Then you see the highest hill of Athens, Lycabettus, with a church to Saint George. You can see the sections of the columns quite clearly and you can imagine the ground being raised up after each new section is fitted and then when the ground level hits that section they come in and put another column piece on then raise the ground again. It's quite simple when you know how they do it. So this is where the tragedy of Aspius, Sophocles, Euryptides, and the comedies of Aristophanes were held. Then next door was the medical center. That means down there, there's very few people for business there. They all come here for Athena. So Athena was the most powerful goddess? Goddess. For Athens. But who? Zeus and Olympia. Yeah. Apollo in Delphi. Aphrodite in Corinth. A different goddess in every city state. So the Acropolis is a great place and you should see it once but maybe not twice which is why I hope you'll forgive us for using old footage from 2006 mixed with some stuff from our recent visit when we made some guides for cruisers as we do on Doris Visits. Have a great cruise.