Do you believe in Athens?

Airstud · Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:20 am

I might have mentioned that whilst cleaning my apartment I found my long-expired passport, which means it is finally possible to apply for a new passport without the embarrassment of stating on the form that I childishly "lost" my previous one. :sorry:

There are reports that Athens is an inexpensive place to visit, and I casually noodled around some Athens type travel sites and frankly I have a few quarrels:

LonelyPlanet reports that Athens has a Museum of Islamic Art. However, a Islamic Art museum should be in a more heavily Islamic country, like Egypt or Tunisia. What's it doing in Athens? Do they have a Greek Art museum in Cairo?

(...wait, do they? :boggled:

)

This site here https://travel.usnews.com/Athens_Greece ... ion_63524/ says that there is a temple/shrine in Athens to someone called "Erechtheion."

For real? I'm supposed to believe that in Greece of all places they didn't think twice before building something whose name starts with "Erecht?"

The same site says that some of Greek cuisine consists of moussake and/or tzatziki. I don't know what either of those things are but I do know what the word "spanakopita" looks like and those ain't it. (Very soon after I first tried spanakopita, I formed a principled objection to foods that aren't spanakopita.)

And finally, Athens is reputed to have a Metro system, which I think is a fine thing for a city to have, but

A) how did they build it without doing serious damage to the area's archaemalogical treasures, of which there must be legion; and

2) the system's official map ( http://www.ametro.gr/?page_id=4449&lang=en ) is unsatisfactory: It is all freeform and squiggly, when Metro maps really ought to follow the Harry Beck principle of straight horizontal, vertical, or 45° diagonal lines.

So.... it's kind of a coin toss. Do you believe Athens is a go, or shall I be deterred by silly metro maps and the possibility of non-spanakopita?

fr8mech · Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:51 am

So many questions. I was in Athens for a brief visit with my dad just this April.

Airstud wrote:
LonelyPlanet reports that Athens has a Museum of Islamic Art.

Why shouldn't Athens have a Museum of Islamic Art? The whole of Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire. Alas, I have not visited the museum.

Airstud wrote:
temple/shrine in Athens to someone called "Erechtheion."

Why? It was the guy's name. You'd think when you're honored with a temple, the would name it after you, right? "The AirStudium"

Airstud wrote:
moussake

It's an eggplant and potato "lasagna" or casserole. I like it, but some feel it's an acquired taste.

Airstud wrote:
tzatziki

A cucumber & yogurt dip. I make a mean tzatziki...the friends and family call it my "crack" dip.

Airstud wrote:
"spanakopita"

Spinach/cheese pie with fillo pastry. Nummy. You should also try tyropita. Same thing...no spinach.

Airstud wrote:
A) how did they build it without doing serious damage to the area's archaemalogical treasures, of which there must be legion; and

They preserved what they found, when possible. Caused all kinds of delays. The station at Syntagma has a kind of museum that depicts a bunch of the stuff they found and describes some of the precautions taken.

Airstud wrote:
the system's official map ( http://www.ametro.gr/?page_id=4449&lang=en ) is unsatisfactory:

It is unsatisfactory, but utilitarian. The Metro is nice. Clean and on-time, in my experience. Crowded at the time of day that you'd expect it to be crowded. I understand that it is still expanding...just like the universe.

Airstud wrote:
So.... it's kind of a coin toss. Do you believe Athens is a go, or shall I be deterred by silly metro maps and the possibility of non-spanakopita?

Don't go in the summer, it is beastly hot. Though, my dad says it's unseasonably cool right now. I like Athens, and the islands in the Spring. You may not get into the water, but the crowds are greatly reduced.

My suggestion: spend a 2 or 3 days in Athens, then hit an island or 2 for the remainder of your stay. The city of Athens is, after all a city. I prefer to vacation in places other than big cities. Of course, if you're into ancient architecture and art, spending more time in Athens may be worth it to you.

JJJ · Thu Jun 21, 2018 9:10 am

Airstud wrote:
So.... it's kind of a coin toss. Do you believe Athens is a go, or shall I be deterred by silly metro maps and the possibility of non-spanakopita?

A visit to Greece is never complete without a visit to Athens, but I've immensely enjoyed the non-Athens bits of Greece much more.

Also kreatopita > tiropita > spanakopita, but YMMV.

lewis · Thu Jun 21, 2018 4:58 pm

Athens was a city of the Ottoman Empire for close to 400 years during which Islam was the dominant religion, there are Ottoman era monuments in many parts of the city. The Parthenon also served as a mosque during that time, minaret and all.

There is no shortage of spanakopita, but that's just a snack. There's so much more in Greek cuisine to try out.

Summer may be hot (and expensive to fly in at the peak of tourist period) but August is my favorite time to visit Athens. The locals are mostly out of the city for vacation and its less congested and quiet all around.

737307 · Sat Jun 23, 2018 9:49 am

Athens is a nice cute capital. Very different from the biggies like London or Paris. It has more of a village feel. I stayed in Plaka in mid-April, had a great time.

directorguy · Sat Jun 23, 2018 8:44 pm

Airstud wrote:
Do they have a Greek Art museum in Cairo?

We have the Alexandria National Museum, which houses plenty of Hellenistic artefacts. In fact, Alexandria is littered with remnants of its Greek past-the city is named after Alexander the Great. The catacombs, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Greco-Roman Museum are all related to Greece. One of the Greek language's best poets-Cavafy- spent his entire life in Egypt.

einsteinboricua · Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:36 pm

Airstud wrote:
I might have mentioned that whilst cleaning my apartment I found my long-expired passport, which means it is finally possible to apply for a new passport without the embarrassment of stating on the form that I childishly "lost" my previous one.

I think you only report a passport as lost if it's still valid. If it has expired, it will do no one any good. That being said, it saves you the headache from having to bring other proof of citizenship. I had a passport issues back in 2010 in order to expedite credentials with the NWS when I was an intern. It was stolen in 2013, though I still had the one issued as a minor. That was the only thing I needed to bring to prove citizenship (and the form reporting the previous one as lost, though I had already contacted the State Department). If not, birth certificate and SSN card.

Airstud · Sun Jun 24, 2018 9:23 am

directorguy wrote:
Airstud wrote:
Do they have a Greek Art museum in Cairo?

We have the Alexandria National Museum, which houses plenty of Hellenistic artefacts. In fact, Alexandria is littered with remnants of its Greek past-the city is named after Alexander the Great. The catacombs, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Greco-Roman Museum are all related to Greece. One of the Greek language's best poets-Cavafy- spent his entire life in Egypt.

Which, is what I said basically.

einsteinboricua wrote:
Airstud wrote:
I might have mentioned that whilst cleaning my apartment I found my long-expired passport, which means it is finally possible to apply for a new passport without the embarrassment of stating on the form that I childishly "lost" my previous one.

I think you only report a passport as lost if it's still valid.

It looks to me like if you're applying for a new passport and you've had one issued previously but cannot produce it, that you have to fill out form DS-64, whether the mislaid passport is still valid or not. :boggled:

Airstud · Thu Jun 28, 2018 11:54 pm

It seems the Britannica people have this to say about Athens (https://www.britannica.com/place/Athens):

Some three centuries after the death of Pericles (429 BCE), Athenians entered upon a period of bondage that lasted almost 2,000 years. The city was freed in 1833, and in the following 170 years it was the scene of more than a dozen revolutions, another brutal foreign occupation, and a civil war of especial savagery.

Gross.

Aesma · Fri Jun 29, 2018 12:42 am

I've not been to Greece yet but moussaka and tzatziki are just delicious.

Dutchy · Fri Jun 29, 2018 11:41 am

Greece is fantastic and so is Athans. Just don't go there in mid-summer, way to hot.

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