Athens is a filthy industrial slum. I’m not exaggerating, nor am I bitter, even though I stepped in a big, steaming pile of Athenian dog crap yesterday. The truth is that while places like Paris and Rome are dirty in their own urban way, they are filled with opulent palaces and classical ruins, and have an age-old, historical feel; the fading stones and greying walls are charming and fill you with a sense of respect.
Not so for Athens. Athens, whatever you may think, is a very modern city. In the early 1800’s, when Greece became independent (in the modern sense) Athens had 4,000 people. It was a fishing village. So all the buildings in Athens, which have been built since, are very modern, very dirty, and very industrial. Athens is a filthy industrial slum.
The Acropolis is pretty cool, but like everything else in this country, it was under reconstruction, with big steel girders and scaffolds jutting out of the marble and looking just god-awful. But it didn’t detract at all from the coolness of the experience. The Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike (Nike, besides being the name of a multinational corporation of sports-whores, means “Victory”) and some other buildings were build on this tall plateau, over 100 metres up, overlooking the city. It was ringed with walls, and really made me wonder how an invading army could possibly have taken the Acropolis. It’s like attacking a castle with 100 metre tall walls.
Yesterday we hit Delphi. Now, Delphi is just another ruin strewn field, and all ruins start looking the same after 3-4 weeks. (Back in the day, it was a place sacred to Apollo where an Oracle would sit and give out prophecies. She would sit in a cavern where the vapours would get her HIIIIIIIGH and give her whacked-out hallucinations.) Anyway, overlooking Delphi were a series of tall heights… sheer rock faces that shot a good long distance into the air. 80 metres, maybe? 100? Maybe higher. Anyway, despite a a big sign near the rock face that said “DO NOT PASS”, we decided to climb up it.
Going up was fun… doing a hike on trails is nonsense compared to ripping your shins to shit going nearly vertical through nettles and thorns and what have you. We were were also scampering up the mountain in full view of tourists, and more importantly, security guards. One started yelling at us when we were 50 ft up, so we just booked it as fast as we could, and after a while, being a typically lazy Greek, he stopped caring and went back to his felafel.
I have great photos on the top. But going down had some pants-shitting moments. At one point, we hit a sheer drop. No hand holds; smooth rock going down 20-30 ft. We decided to rope it down, having stolen some rope from our last hostel. Now, scrambling down a rock face holding on to a rope that probably served as a clothsline was a fun experience; at one point, the rope gave out and I fell about a foot before the rope became taut again; I found out later that it had snagged on a branch. At the time, I thought the rope had snapped completely, and that I was going to plummet down, hit Kieran, and then plummet some more to paralysis or death. But it was all good.
Anyway, we are now on Santorini, where I will go watch the sunset over a sunken volcano.
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