Church of Panaghia Kapnikarea

This church is located right in the middle of a very busy shopping street (Ermou street) of downtown Athens. It is a Greek Othodox church and one of the oldest in Athens.

No posing in Greek museums

I encountered a strange rule in the Athens National Archaeological Museum (and other Greek museums like the one in Fira/Thira): no posing allowed in front of the statues or collection. You are not allowed to take photos of a statue or museum item while someone is also visible on the photo. This rule is enforced strictly and the guards will shoot “No Posing!” when they do not like it.
Before contemplating on the reasons for having such a rule, let me show you some illegal photos:
 
Zeus or Poseidon of Artemis

 
Greek philosophers (check out how the left statue is keeping an eye on things)
The reason for the “no posing” rule is not clear. Perhaps they want to stop tourists from imititating the statue’s pose.  Some people say that the statues are considered holy and therefore you should not take photos of them.

Athens Tower of the Winds

The Tower of the Winds is a clock tower on the Roman Agora in Athens.

The clock tower has eight sides. Each side contains a sundial.

Here you can see some of the sides.

Besides the sun dials, it also used to contain a water clock and a wind vane.

Athens National Archaeological Museum

The Athens National Archaeological Museum is the largest Museum of Greece and is devoted to ancient Greek art.

We show you some of the pieces we liked:

The Mask of Agamemnon

Vase with a sad octopus

A Dipylon amphora

A Kouros (this is a male youth, not a female!)

Kourio (multiple versions of a Kouros)

Boy jockey and horse

Boy Jockey and horse

Mask

Marble sculpture

Athens Modern Art

Do you know what this is?
Scroll down for the answer…



It is a photo of the new Acropolis Museum entrance…

 

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The New Acropolis Museum

The New Acropolis Museum is located near the Acropolis. After our visit to the Acropolis, this was our next stop. Photographing inside the museum is not allowed, so we are not able to show you photos of the maidens (or caryatids). The upside is that you can stand very close to them and admire them.

What we can show you is the very interesting entrance.

The museum is built right on top of an archeological site. The excavation can be seen through glass plates and from a balcony. The excavation below ground level continues.

When the excavation is done, visitors will be able to walk around on the lower levels of the museum.

Visit to Greece – Athens and the Parthenon

This holiday we decided to visit Greece. Our main interests were:

• the Acropolis
• Delphi
• Meteora monasteries
• the island of Naxos
• the island of Santorini

In a series of blog posts I will tell you more about the interesting things we saw. First stop: Athens

Athens
We flew with Olympic Airways from Schiphol to Athens airport. The flight takes about three hours. Olympic Airways did not provide on board entertainment, but they did serve a free lunch! We stayed at Arion Athens City Hotel, located right in the old center of Athens.

A few minutes walk from the hotel is Monastiraki Square. Here you can see Hadrian’s library, the Roman Agora and the Tower of the Winds – but more on that later.

Our first visit was The Acropolis. We made sure we were there when it opens: 8 o’clock in the morning. The light is right (not too harsh) and more importantly the busloads of tourists have not been dropped off yet.

First you have to climb the steps at the entrance of the Acropolis – the Propylaea.

Don’t forget to look up when you walk through the entrance.

And after a few steps you have your first view of the Parthenon.

We were lucky that most of the scaffolding was taken away. For the first time you could see the side of the Acropolis without any obstruction.

Next to the Acropolis you can see the Erectheum and it’s porch of maidens.

 

Some wise guy decided to set up his office there.

Note that these ladies are copies of the original. The originals are in the New Acropolis Museum.

The columns of the Acropolis are very special. Notice the sides run not parallel to each other, but they are slightly curved. One wonders how they have carved it like this out of marble.

Here are some details of the upper part of the Parthenon.

A side view of the Acropolis

We had the place for ourselves until about 9.00. After that it becomes more and more crowded. This is what you get if you visit the Acropolis later in the day. We are going down, the busloads are climbing the entrance.

Photos for Wiki Loves Monuments

This september is the month to take photos of old Dutch monumental buildings and make them available for the Internet community. Wiki Loves Monuments is under way and you can see the results in the Flickr group wikilovesmonuments.

I have been on holiday, so my contribution is not as substantial as the first initiative ‘Wiki Loves Art’. So here are my pictures of monumental buildings in Teuge, Twello and Leerdam.