Scoutmaster trip to Eurpoe 2007

Europe 2007 2008

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Olympic Airlines offers many different airfares for seats on the same flights. How much you pay depends on how far in advance you book your seat and which flight you select. For example, there was a flight for 30 Euros, about $45.00, from Santorini to Athens, and there were other flights for as much as five times that amount. Guess how much I paid? It turns out, that different fares for the exact same mode of travel are usual in Europe. In fact, Ryan Air and other carriers offer seats on their flights for almost no cost, but you have to pay the normal taxes. They want to fill their seats. Some national bus and train systems also offer deeply discounted fares if you book on-line and in advance.

My flight yesterday from Santorini to Athens took about an hour on a twin-engine turboprop aircraft. The ferry would have taken about nine hours, overnight, and would have actually cost more than flying. The bus from the airport took about forty-five minutes to the center of Athens, arriving at a downtown plaza called Syntagma, near the Greek Parliament. I had copied directions to my hotel from the Internet, but they were not accurate, and the people around Syntagma could not help me. However, not far from the bus stop was a very large bookstore, and on the seventh floor they sold excellent maps of Athens. Using the map, I plotted my route to the hotel, which involved taking the metro about five stops. I checked in, got settled, and went for a walk to a nearby area with nice cafés to have dinner.

My first impressions of Athens were not good. The parts of the city that I saw yesterday were grimy and commercial; there was also a lot of graffiti. Traffic is not horrendous, but parking is. Cars are parked everywhere, and in every direction. Some cars park parallel to the curb, some with side wheels on the curb, some with front wheels on the curb, and others at crazy angles to the curb. They even park on the corner of streets making it impossible to cross at intersections with zigzagging around parked cars. I read that Athens had a major clean up when it hosted the Olympics a few years ago; I am not sure I could tell.

This morning, my first stop was the Acropolis. The entire area around and on the Acropolis is under construction. Major archeological restoration is underway to reinforce and correct some of the previous work that had been done. Despite the work site appearance, the Acropolis and the ruins of the Parthenon, the Temple of Athena-Nike, and the six large Carytids (columns in the form of statues of women) at the Temple of Erechtheion are truly amazing. Poseidon supposedly stuck his trident into the ground under the Temple of Erechtheion, and so it became a sacred place in ancient Greece. I walked up from the south side of the Acropolis, passing the ancient Greek theaters. I spent several hours walking around, and then made my way down the north side of the Acropolis to a large rock outcropping that I climbed. From the top of the rocks, I saw a splendid panorama of Athens that included the ancient Agora, marketplace.

Another complaint, aside from the construction site appearance, is there were too many tourists visiting the Acropolis…again from cruise ships. This time of year is considered the ”low season”; however, I can’t imagine what the crowds must be like during the summer “high season.”

Leaving the Acropolis, I headed for the ancient Agora. On one side of the Agora, an American group rebuilt a place called the Stoa. It is an incredibly long building with a very long double row of columns, hundreds of columns. The outer row of columns has Ionian capitals with rolled, fluted scrolls, and the inner row of columns have simpler Doric capitals without scrolls. The Stoa in ancient times offered people a place to conduct business and politics; in fact, the Agora might be the birthplace of Greek Democracy. The Church of the Holy Apostles on the Agora site is more than a thousand years old, and is a beautifully restored archeological site. At the far end of the Agora, the Temple of Hephaestus sits like a small version of the Parthenon. Unlike the Acropolis, the Agora was thankfully not teeming with tourists.

After leaving the ancient Agora, I stopped for lunch at a busy sidewalk café. I had another Greek specialty, large baked fava beans in a tomato sauce. The meal was very tasty, and it fortified me for a long walk to the National Archeology Museum. Once I turned the corner away from the street with cafes, I found myself in the middle of the flea market area. Literally, hundreds of small shops sold used and refurbished goods of all kinds. In one section, the shops seemed to deal mostly with furniture; I watched a man refinishing a wooden frame in his open-air workshop.

My walk reinforced my general impression of Athens from my first bus ride into town. Athens is not only grimy and commercial, but it’s loud and full of smoke. The most common vehicles, un-muffled motorcycles and scooters, drive everywhere, they even drive on the streets where people are walking. Whenever I hear a noisy muffler, I turn around to see if a motorcycle is heading in my direction on the sidewalk! Great clouds of car exhaust add to a serious pollution problem. Additionally, on a personal level, there is no such thing as a non-smoking environment. Everyone seems to smoke, and the cigarette smoking really bothers me when eating at restaurants, even outdoor cafés, despite the fact that the food is excellent.

Continuing on my journey to the National Archeology Museum, I passed the headquarters for the Bank of Greece. There was a sign outside that said something about Maria Callas, and indicated a free exhibition. So in I went, and I discovered they had most amazing exhibit of Maria Callas’ opera costumes. I say amazing because the costumes were made from recycled aluminum soda cans! I joke not, there were copies of Maria Callas’ opera costume dresses made from aluminum Coca-Cola cans, and they were incredibly beautiful. Where do artists come up with their ideas?

After visiting the exhibit, I finally got to the National Archeology Museum of Greece. Without a doubt, this museum, I believe, has the largest and finest western archeology collection in the world, and the collection is all from Greece. I walked around the museum for at least four hours, and I learned quite a lot. The museum has a large display of Cycladic art that included gold objects, some of which had been returned to Greece from museums and private collections from around the world. The gold collection includes jewelry, shields and life masks, weapon ornamentation, and cups. Of course, stone, marble and bronze statues, friezes and reliefs make up the collection of large objects in the museum. It is a humbling to realize you are looking at the works of people who lived two thousand years ago. Although I have seen Greek archeological finds in many other museums, nothing compares to what is on display here in Athens. Some of the marble statues are incredibly lifelike. They have a special exhibit of statues carved by Praxitelis, perhaps the finest ancient Greek sculpture. In another part of the museum, the tension and expression on the face of a bronze statue of a boy jockey riding a huge bronze horse captivated me.

The National Archeology Museum also had a small display about the Battle of Thermopylyea, 480 B.C.E. Leonides commanded an army of three hundred Spartan warriors, and faced perhaps 250,000 Persians led by their King Xerxes. The battle lasted three days, and in the first two days, perhaps as many as 6,500 soldiers from other parts of Greece fought alongside Leonides Spartans. The Persians had to take the mountain pass through Thermopylyea to get into Greece, but the Spartans would not budge. Xerxes tried diplomacy first. He sent Leonides a message demanding the Greeks’ surrender, and Xerxes demanded that the Greeks give up their weapons to avoid being slaughtered. In a brazen response regarding giving up Greek weaposn, Leonides answered, “come and get them!” Despite their small numbers, in the first two days of fighting, the Greeks decimated many in the huge army of Xerxes. But a Greek traitor showed the Persians a way around the pass, and this allowed the Persians to attack the Spartans from the rear. Realizing the cause was lost, Leonides sent the other Greeks away. The Spartans fought to the last man; the courage and bravery of Leonides and his Spartans have become the stuff of legend. In total, about three thousand Greek soldiers died, but they killed as many as twenty thousand Persians. The Spartan dedication to duty, self sacrifice, and sense of a high moral purpose in defending their homeland has been an example and an inspiration to men of arms ever since. Thermopylyea is simply one of the truly great stories of military valor.

Friday, October 26, 2007

I visited the Jewish Museum of Greece this morning. The museum has artifacts and presents the history of Jews in Greece. I learned a lot. Not many Jews live in Greece today. However, prior to the Second World War, Jews had lived in many parts of Greece. In fact, Jews have lived in Greece since the at least the 6th century B.C.E., after the time of the Babylonian Exile. Jews were part of Alexander the Great’s empire in the 4th century B.C.E., and in the 3rd century B.C.E., the Greeks ordered seventy scholars to translate the Hebrew bible, the Torah, into Greek This translation is known as the Septuagint.

Evidently, many Jews became Hellenized, but perhaps not quite Hellenized enough. In the 2nd century B.C.E., Antiochus tried to impose the Greek religion on the Jews, and he tried to convert the temple in Jerusalem into a Greek temple to Zeus. The Jews revolted under the leadership of Judah Macabee; the Jews defeated the Greeks and reclaimed the temple in Jerusalem…the story of Chanukah.

Following the revolt, Jewish communities continued in many Greek cities. These Jews became known as “Romaniot,” when Rome controlled Greece. Some Jews converted to Christianity during the Byzantine period. During the middle ages, many Jews from central Europe, terrified by crusaders, moved to Greece. Then when the Ottoman’s conquered Greece in the 15th century C.E., Jews were welcomed. Under Ottoman rule, Jews had religious freedom for perhaps the first time. In fact, when Ferdinand and Isabel kicked the Jews out of Spain in 1492, the Ottoman’s accepted the Jews in large numbers, even sending ships to Spain to transport the Jews to Greece and Turkey. The Jews from Spain spoke their own language, Ladino, and practiced Sephardi Judaism. The Jews who came from northern European countries to evade the crusaders practiced Ashkenazi Judaism. The customs of the two, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, are somewhat different, but the fundamental beliefs, and the Torah are the same. So for a time, three categories of Jews lived in Greece: Romaniot, Ashkenazi, and Sephardi.

During the Greek war of independence in the 1820’s, Jews were massacred along with Turks. Then in the 20th century, Greek Jews suffered greatly. Both during the First World War and during the Second World War, Greek Jews were persecuted shamelessly. As many as 65,000 Greek Jews perished in the Holocaust, and by the end of the Second World War, only about ten thousand Jews remained in Greece. Many Greek Jews chose to leave Greece for Israel and America, and today, only about five thousand Jews still live in Greece.

Many people know the story of the King of Denmark and the Danish Royal Family wearing the Star of David at the Tivoli Gardens in response to the Nazis order that Jews had to identify themselves by wearing a yellow cloth Star of David on their clothes. The Nazis issued very specific orders as to the size and placement of the patch of cloth. This was an amazingly courageous act on the part of the Danish royalty, and many ordinary Danish citizens, when they heard what their king had done, also sewed yellow stars on their clothing.

I think, few people know that the head of the Greek Orthodox Church wrote a letter demanding the Nazis stop persecuting the Jews of Europe. His name was Archbishop Demaskinos, and his letter was co-signed by many important Greek intellectuals, academics, and representatives of various organizations. After receiving the letter, the Nazi General, named Stroop, threatened to have the archbishop shot, and in response to the General’s threat, the archbishop sent the following courageous response, “General Stroop, the priests of Greece are not shot; they are hanged. Please respect this tradition!”

Another amazing story I learned about occurred on the island of Zakynthos. When the Nazi officer requested a list of all the Jews, the senior Greek Orthodox clergyman, the Metropolitan Bishop, named Chisostomos and the Mayor, named Karrer, with chilling bravery, turned in a slip of paper with only two “Jewish” names, their names! The Nazis did nothing, and no Jews on this small island died.

After spending the morning in the Jewish Museum, I moved on to visit several other museums in Athens. I saw the collections of the Binaki Museum, the Cycladic Museum and the National Gallery. The Binaki Museum and the Cycladic Museum are both private museums in beautiful mansions. Their permanent collections both museums are similar, but neither of their collections is as spectacular as the collection in National Archeology Museum; however, a special exhibition of El Greco, is temporarily at the Cycladic Museum. El Greco, of course, was Greek, but he lived and he worked in Spain during the 16th century. This special exhibition has works both by the master, himself, and also his students who painted copies of El Greco’s paintings. I got to see both the original El Greco paintings and the copies of these paintings at this special exhibition. El Greco’s students were great artists too, and seeing these paintings side-by-side is quite and experience. I think I now have to go to Toledo and Madrid to see more.

In the late afternoon, I walked uphill to a prominent peak in the center of Athens called Lykavitos Hill, which, according to my guide book means “Hill of Wolves.” A funicular railway goes to the top where there is a restaurant/café and a small chapel. The views of the Acropolis and the city are spectacular, and I could see all the way to the ocean at the port of Piraeus. When After visiting Lykavitos, I headed to another part of Athens called the Plaka. It’s sort of the old section, with small shops and lots of “Greek Taverna,” cafes and restaurants. I found a nice small outdoor café to have dinner, and then returned to the hotel by metro. This was a very satisfying day. I did a lot of walking, and learned quite a bit.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Today is “Ohi Day,” a national holiday in Greece; the word “Ohi” means “no.” During the Second World War, Germans occupied Greece in the north, Italians occupied most of the country, including the Greek islands, and Bulgaria occupied Thrace and Macedonia. When Mussolini asked the Fascist Greek dictator, General Ioannis Metaxas, permission to cross into Greece, Mataxas responded saying “Ohi,” “no.” So today, Greeks celebrate a national holiday called “no day.” Of course, Hitler managed to divide up Greece, and the Italians did cross into the country.

My plan is to leave Athens in the next day or two and go into the Peloponese.

Philip Sternberg
Scoutmaster, Troop 1131