Spent several hours this morning and afternoon at the world famous Acropolis. Aptly named when you come upon it as it juts out of the landscape as a huge outcrop of solid rock.
Sadly, the best place to see the remains of the Pantheon is in the British Museum where the best of the structure was removed 200 yewars ago. The remaining is in very bad shape and the whole building is just about framed completely with scaffolding for restoration work. My image of the structure must have been based on pictures taken many years ago because there wasn't much of the granduer laft now.
But there are many more sites to explore around the top of the Acropolis and then down on the slope and floor of the area below. Many temples and gates and ancient sites of democracy being conceptualized and executed. Only one building in really good shape that still has all its columns and roof still intact. It is a Temple to Hepha..... and it sits on a small hill with a very good view of the Acropolis.
Good thing I went early to see the Parthenon as when I was leaving the crowds from the cruise ships were arriving and they were overwhelming with their constant poking in the air of obnoxious pink umbrellas with alpha-numeric codes so you wouldn't lose your group leader!! Mass Tourism at its worst!
But the other areas were much less congested and I ran into a troop of young girls dressed in red that gathered at an ancient spot and twirled some very large plastic balloon figures at the end of long poles in some kind of acting out that had no explanation or context that I could figure out...but which made it all the more pleasing.
Should take in several museums tomorrow and then off to the Isles the next day.
