July 7 more about Athens' Acropolis

We had one day left on our bus ticket so we headed for the Acropolis Museum which is an archaeological museum built to house every artifact found on the archaeological site of Athens' Acropolis and on the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece.  It is truly excellent.  The amount of work they have done to rescue, in some cases, and to preserve some of the stunning marbles is almost incomprehensible. The museum is located on the southeastern slope of the Acropolis hill, on the ancient road that led up to the ‘sacred rock’ and was built over an existing archaeological site. The construction of this building over this historically sensitive site was quite clever. Large holes were drilled for a dozen or more pillars and their foundations secured. Once in place, the entire archaeological site was covered in sand to protect the archaeological excavations. Once completed the sand was removed and the old excavations covered with glass. Opened in June 2009, today the museum crouches above that old excavation site and exhibits well over 4000 objects. It is a modern beauty.

In the museum itself there is massive conservation program to recover and protect the ancient artefacts of the Acropolis. This cost and expertise are extensive but oh! how worthwhile.

The use of glass from the top floor to the excavation site below is very effective
 and the floor in places is sloped mimicking the slopes of the Acropolis

This gallery held many ancient marbles; no photos were allowed

The museum is full of amazing marble figures. I experimented with my iPhone to
highlight just one of the multitude. Stunning isn’t she!?

The young Dionysos with theatrical mask in hand sits on the
shoulder of Pappopilenus, his tutor. C2 BC

Heracles fighting Triton

Massive sculptures and pediments from the original builinds have been removed and are protected here - mnay undergoing innovative restoration work.  One the many that captured my imagination was a huge sculpture representing the mythological Heracles fighting Triton, a merman sea-deity half-man and half-fish or dolphin (Poseidon and Amphitrite were his parents). Heracles was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene.

From the western pediment of the Patheon

The conservation-restoration techniques are fascinating and mysterious to me. We watched a video that showed how they clean the black crust and sootdeposits from artefacts using laser technology. The laser technique has been especially developed for the project by the Acropolis Museum together with the Institute of Electronic Structure & Laser at the Foundation for Research and Technology in Crete. You can watch a clip of how it is done using this QR code. 

Our curiosity truly sated after wandering this stunning museum and after a wee rest and cool drink, we climbed aboard the bus - again - and headed for the National Botanical Gardens which occupy a huge green space in the centre of Athens.

While Lindsay went in search of birds I found a peaceful spot to read.

The Zappeion - a grand hall built in the 1880s for the 1st modern Olympic Games, is now used as a conference centre

It had been a long and rather tiring day mostly walking so we were glad to sit down to dinner. Tonight we had a delicious Indian meal at the hole-in-the-wall near to our hotel - they remembered us from before and put extra spice in the curry for us (the Athenians don't like hot spicy food)!  

The Theatrou district is rather rundown but quite colourful