The Agora, where Socrates and Aristotle held forth, where the Apostle Paul preached and the terms of democracy were hammered out, is a grassy park and pleasant place to wander around. For the visitor on a tight schedule it can seem to be a confusing hodgepodge of ruins. I suggest setting the details aside and chilling in the shade of its olive, cypress and poplar trees.
I made my stroll with a young Brit who had arrived the day before. Her phone and credit cards were stolen at the airport's metro platform, where this travelog began. Luckily she retained her passport. The British Embassy gave her assistance and her sister wired money. On this day, she navigated by paper map. No phone (meaning no camera) ― not even a pen to make a sketch, or record an address or memory. She saw an upside: "It will force me to perceive things differently."
We met just up the hill from Hadrian's Library, both of us looking for an entrance to the Agora. The only thing she keenly lacked, she said, was an alarm clock. With buses to catch for tours to Delphi and the Temple of Neptune, she would have to sleep with one eye open and leave her hotel TV tuned to a Greek news channel, where the time was shown in a corner of the screen.
Trying to lighten the mood, I suggest finding a sundial on Athinas Street.
Trying to lighten the mood, I suggest finding a sundial on Athinas Street.
"Take this, at least," I say, handing her a pen.
"That's a Muji, I couldn't possibly."
"That's a Muji, I couldn't possibly."
Visitors on a tight schedule can see a lot of important stuff in a short time. There's a good chance your hotel will be around here, but if not, get off at the Monastriaki metro stop and you'll find the Agora, the Roman Forum and Hadrian's Library all within a 5 iron of one another.
Right. The theft. The details are horrifying.
The scam goes something like this: Before the train pulls up, one man begins picking a fight with another man. They pretend not to know each other. Feigning desperation, the "victim" insists my new acquaintance get on the train first to escape the impending melee. "Quickly! After you!" Guiding her to the safety of the subway car, he puts a hand on her backpack, deftly unzipping one of its compartments and removing the phone wallet. The train's doors close shut. She is inside; he remains on the platform.
The Corinthian columns of Hadrian's Library (132 A.D.) are below. There was a school here, lecture rooms. music rooms, a theater. Add a few ashtrays and you've got yourself a nice little community college. [Rimshot.]
The library from the back, or west side.
We walk up to the Temple of Hephastus, below, which along with the Bekaa Valley's Temple of Bacchus has to be one of the best-preserved ancient structures I have ever seen.
"I'm terribly sorry, but would you take some pictures of me here?" Of course, and I promise to email them. That's all she really wants ― a record of having visited.
"I'm terribly sorry, but would you take some pictures of me here?" Of course, and I promise to email them. That's all she really wants ― a record of having visited.
Stubby columns remain from the Tholos (translated as "beehive"), a circular building where dozens of the city's earliest lawmakers lived and worked.
In a fenced-off pasture next door is the Roman Forum, a smaller, more recent version of the original Agora. Its focal point is the octagonal Tower of the Winds built by Syrian astronomer Androkinos Kyrrhestas in 50 B.C. Inside was a water clock, or clepsydra, that kept time by means of a regulated stream flowing from the Acropolis. I have never heard of such a thing.
Another vantage point, followed by personifications of the winds on the tower's frieze.
Also on these grounds is an 11th-century Byzantine church built over the site of the Nymphaion. It is agreeably domed and arched, as such churches are. No idea what a nymphaion is. Be kind to yourself; this city puts so much on our plate.
Sharm, if you're reading this, I wish you the best. Your pictures turned out great.
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