ATHENS HALF DAY TOUR

Athens

Athens is a city with heritage, more than four thousand years of monumental history under her belt, from the prehistoric mythological Minoan & Mycenaean kings, to the Persian wars, where they won the enemy. To the balmy days of the golden era, where Athenians had the mightiest naval fleet, creating an empire that spanned much of the Ancient world… it’s not just a myth, an idea, a unique history, a flame that disseminated the values of the Hellenistic ideals to every corner of the known world, Athens is the cradle of western civilization, science, theatre, art, and motherland of history’s most influential philosophers.

Success and prosperity allowed the Athenians to decorate their city with some of the most opulent buildings the world had ever seen, and to fund a political system whose standards we still live by today. This is where Democracy was born, and the idea that votes, not wealth or upbringing, determine politics.

Of all the Greek city-states, it was Periclean Athens that outlived, and survived the pillage of time. Hence, Pericles rightly claimed that Athens was an education to all of Greece. According to the governing council of Délphi, the Athenian people were the origin of all things beneficial to humanity, raising mankind from a bestial existence to a state of civilization. It’s these elements that render Athens unique.

Nowadays, the description that would best fit the city and her historic centre is “open museum” as relics from her world-shaping era stand witness of her former glory, shimmering under the famous Athenian sun. With a rich and turbulent history of myths, glory, wars, invasions, occupations, revolutions, decline, and finally, rebirth, 21st-century Athens wears her age well, vibrant and open for business 24/7, and never tires of extending a memorable welcome to her guests. After all, in Greek, hospitality “filoxenia” literally means to befriend a stranger, therefore the mentality of welcoming visitors is as old as Zeus.

Parthenon

Peering over the rooftops of modern Athens on top of the ancient Acropolis, the sacred city in the sky, the Parthenon rules in shimmering splendor. Even in its present form, a stark marble ruin, it is revered as an icon of western civilization, and, if imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery, it reigns as the most copied building in the world.

Parthenon erected from the most notable statesman of the Golden Age, Pericles (495-429 BC), who spearheaded the rebuilding programme of Athens after the Persian army razed the entire city to the ground in retaliation against Athenian defiance in the First and Second Greco-Persian wars in 490 BC and 480 BC respectively. During Pericles’ reign (461-429 BC) and for decades after him, a unique window of time emerged that gave birth to western ideals of beauty, science, art and a radical new form of government; Democracy.

Building of the Parthenon commenced in 447 BC and was completed in just 8 or 9 years. Ictinus and Kallicrates, the two most famous architects of the time were responsible for the construction. The virtuoso of marble, the great Athenian sculptor Phidias, adorned the building with the magnificent statues, completed some 4 years after the construction of the building. Nothing but the best could be more fitting for the patron Goddess of the city, Athena Parthenos (virgin), Goddess of wisdom & tactical warfare. The Parthenon, renowned for it’s great architectural and historic significance, was the physical embodiment of the Ancient Greek beliefs, values, ideology and remains for us today a powerful statement of what human beings are capable of under a visionary leader.