Today was the earliest wake up so far, but it wasn’t nearly as rough as I thought it would be. Granted I did have a siesta in the middle of it, so that helped in the afternoon. This morning we started out by walking to the Weiner Lab. It was really interesting to get a tour from one of the faculty members and see the steps in analyzing the bones, geography and other finds on archaeological sites. It was especially cool when our guide explained how by looking at the bones of humans it can be seen whether or the not that person had leprosy or cancer. Everyone seemed really impressed with the different kinds of scientific backgrounds that the people worked there had, rather than strictly classics or classical archaeology.
In the afternoon we walked to the base of Mt. Lycabettus. There were an unimaginable amount of stairs that we had to walk up from the main square to get to the base. Dr. G. allowed some of us to pay and take the lift up to the top, which I eagerly took advantage of. From the top of the mountain you could see every direction of the city of Athens. Here is a view looking out towards the acropolis.
At the top there was also a small chapel where a Greek lady sat and yelled into a phone while I toured it. The lift down the mountain was the hardest part because we had to wait so long for the lift to empty out the supplies for the restaurant on the mountain before we could go down. Emma, Justin and I then had to walk six blocks to find a taxi back to the hotel. The walk was worth it though so that we could have a bit of a nap between the hiking in the morning and the tour of the Agora in the evening.
I think my favourite part though was finally touring the Agora. We’ve walked through it at least twice and never got to explore it, so it was really nice to finally be able to experience walking among the ruins of their city center and seeing the Hephaisteion in person after seeing it from the roof of the hotel all week. There is a strange sort of satisfaction when seeing monuments that you learn about in class up close. I studied the numerous metopes on the Hephaisteion with the labours of Herakles and Theseus in class on several occasions.
