2016 • Athens
April 8, 2016 to April 9, 2016
During this trip, I visited two places that are ancient beyond words. The second stop on my Eastern Mediterranean tour was the Greek capital city: Athens. Unfortunately, because my flight was extremely delayed from Tel Aviv to Athens, I was only able to spend two days in Athens, but I did my best to see and do as much as I could in this historic city. While in Athens, I made sure to visit the world famous Acropolis and some of the other structures that remain from the classical era. I also saw the other half of the pediment statues after seeing the first half at the British Museum in London (that is a a major controversy and point of contention between the two countries). While I was also intending on going out to a Greek isle, that had to be cut in the interest of time, but there really was no shortage of things to do in Athens. Like so many European cities, Athens has a rather interesting founding myth. It is said that Athena, the goddess of wisdom and Poseidon, god of the sea, were fighting over who would be the patron of the new, yet-to-be-named city. Poseidon slammed his trident into the ground, giving the city a spring. But, being that he was the god of the sea, the spring had undrinkable salt water. Athena, on the other hand, gave the city an olive tree. Athena’s gift was accepted and she became the patron goddess of Athens.
