Greek trip, June 19

Last full day in Greece.  Elena was gone and our new guide was Maria, also a font of information.  After breakfast, we began our walking tour of Athens, starting with the Acropolis Museum, focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis.  The first museum was built in 1874 and underwent a modern expansion in the 50s.  However, subsequent findings at the Acropolis made it clear that more space was needed.  An additional motivation was the fact that with adequate space and state-of-the-art facilities, the British might return the Elgin Marbles which had been stolen.  Creation of a gallery for the display of the Parthenon Marbles has been key to all recent proposals for the design of a new museum, which is now in place, 310 yards from the Parthenon.  The collection is exhibited on three levels which treat the findings on the slopes of the Acropolis, including the Erechtheum, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Propylea.  The top level displays the Parthenon Hall, with its 48 columns and a display of the Parthenon marbles.  Very impressive museum, and I hope it convinces the British that it is time they returned the Elgin Marbles.
Along with tons of other tourists, we then climbed up to the Acropolis.  The Parthenon is a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena.  Construction began in 447 BC.  It replaced an older temple of Athena destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC.  In the 5th c. AD it was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary.  After the Ottoman conquest, it was turned into a mosque in the 1460s.  In 1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump severely damaged the structure.  And then Lord Elgin removed many of the Parthenon sculptures, which were subsequently sold to the British Museum.  Just these factoids to illustrate the checkered history of the place.  One of my favorite sites, once we ascended to the Acropolis, was the Erechtion and its maidens, the originals in the Museum and copies at the site itself.  From the top, we were able to view the impressive sweep of Athens and note an odeon and an amphitheater, below.  On the way down, we passed by Mars Hill, where Paul met the Athenian philosophers and preached to them.
Our next stop was lunch, which consisted of various tapas-like dishes, including zucchini pockets, eggplant, a scrambled egg dish, meatballs, and other items too numerous to name, and magnificent chocolate ice cream for dessert.  We walked back to the hotel, and eventually Suzanne and I walked down to Syntagma Square to check out the Grande-Bretagne Hotel, a historic grande dame whose guests included Adolf Hitler and Erwin Rommel, among others.  We also watched the changing of the guard at the parliament building  diagonally across the street from the hotel.  Had cold drinks at the hotel's top floor garden terrace before returning to the hotel for a final dinner.  Afterwards, we said goodbye to the ones to the travelers not accompanying us on our next morning's flight.  A 3:00 wakeup call for tomorrow!  But what a great trip!