Athens Attacks: Killer Heat Wave Wilts 3 Young Women

Photos: Cindy and Genevieve enjoying an evening cocktail; crazy crowds at the Propylaia; off-center caryatids; the Parthenon; and the Parthenon at night.

We managed to spend three days in Athens during the most unusual heat wave in recent memory. It was 116 the day we arrived, apparently, and temperatures have topped 100 degrees ever since. Leave it to me to find the least comfortable places to visit! Cindy, Genevieve and I are staying in an un-air-conditioned hostel. They have been very good sports about the heat, and I 'borrowed' an extra fan from the common area, so we're surviving. Yesterday we trekked through the National Archeological Museum and the Islamic museum before meeting Eliza, another Samothrace-bound IFA student, and her mother for a delicious dinner. Eliza and Mrs. Lee were our informants about the heat, and I think we were all relieved to know that we weren't wimps -- it really WAS very hot. So hot, actually, that the government closed access to the Parthenon and the Agora!

Today, despite continuing warm weather, we hiked to the top of the hill to inspect the ruins. The route is called the Panathenian way -- a winding path that devotees would follow during the great festivals honoring the goddess Athena. Worshippers would enter through the Propylaia, an impressive entryway that conceals your view of the Parthenon before dramatically exposing it as you pass through the arch. My favorite part of the Parthenon complex, however, is the Erechtheion -- the sacred space where the goddess Athena was actually kept. I love the graceful, solid caryatids (the woman serving as pillars). It was a great morning; completely exhilarating despite the heat, the crowds, and the smog-obscured views of modern Athens. After such incredible heat, we found a rooftop pool and spent the day there before wandering around the monuments at night (bad photo here). For a perfect end to the evening, Cindy and I raced to the Benaki Museum, an extraordinary house museum compiled by a Greek collector. They are open until midnight on Thursdays, and so we had an hour to wander through the collection after dinner. It was no where near enough time -- but it is a real joy to travel with people who think midnight expeditions to museums counts as 'fun.'

So much has changed since my last trip to Athens -- the subway is larger, cleaner and has digital information about the next trains; the drachma has been replaced by the Euro; the streets are cleaner; everything is labeled; simply stated, it is much friendlier to foreign tourists. Cindy imagines that this is the result of the Olympics. Probably true.

Tomorrow, we depart for Alexandropoulos. From there, we will take a ferry to Samothrace on Saturday morning. I'm looking forward to meeting the three non-IFA students and to eventually unpacking all my things! What a relief it will be to stop digging through my bag!

Academics in Athens

The world is very small. This morning, I enjoyed a coffee with Emilia and the bambine at their home in Caserta, and then I had a nice coffee and cornetto a crema with Frederick at the airport. By lunchtime, I met my friend Cindy, a fellow IFA student, in Athens. Air travel is amazing. It's 100 degrees here (wow, flashbacks to India!) but we enjoyed wandering the city and seeing new sights. Few people will ask (or indulge) questions about the style of scrolls on an early Byzantine church, so it's fun to be in the company of other art nerds. Last time I visited Athens, I was busy spending time with an attractive man that I met on the plane -- this time, I only had eyes for the Acropolis. Here is a pretty bad photo of the Temple of Hephaestus. Cindy and I wandered the agora, and then around the bottom of the hill where we found a fun concert. A few young women pinned 'I love life!' stickers on us, but who knows what that was about! After some more wandering, we found a delicious little Greek bistro with super-garlicky tsatziki and delicious stuffed grape leaves. This is a fabulous welcome to my home for two months! I'm settling in to the hotel with another fellow student, Genevieve, and preparing to take on the city tomorrow. yay!

Art in Hiding

Okay, don't worry -- in two days, I'm off to see Frederick, Emilia and the three adorable Woods children, so I will stop talking about art soon. Today was all about art in hiding. I went to Santa Trinita to look at a Madonna and Child by Scheggia. I have now taken to carrying pictures of what I'm looking for so that I can be very clear (when you ask an Italian guard, "Where is the Madonna and Child by Scheggia?" they say, "There are many Madonnas and Child here. Did you know that Scheggia is Masaccio's younger brother?" "Yes." "Oh. Well, I don't know where it is." This in Italian, broken on my side.) The sweet older guard and the church warden told me that the piece I wanted was upstairs, safe from robbery. I explained that I was not a robber. They laughed, and went upstairs to fetch the painting. They actually CARRIED IT DOWNSTAIRS LIKE A LAPTOP! Just grabbing the edge of one side! I couldn't believe it. I was afraid they'd drop it. But all was well, and I took a good look, and they then insisted that I take photos. With flash. Rather different from your usual museum experience.

One hidden picture found, I left for Arezzo, where the Museum staff had told me (per telephone) that the piece I wanted wasn't available because it was 'behind the walls.' I thought this was a way of saying 'in storage' so that I would understand (I am constantly playing Taboo here -- "May I have a utensil that opens wine bottles? Do you sell things for the feet that are not shoes? If there are eggs in this, are they cooked ones?" I should really learn more words.) But no! It turns out that ALL the art is literally behind some walls. They installed a new exhibition on these temporary walls built literally in front of the permanent collection! So there is absolutely no way to see anything behind the walls for two months! Crazy. Well, such is life! The woman in the bookshop explained, "only four people a day ever come to see the permanent collection. We didn't think they'd mind."

PS -- had a delicious lunch at my favorite lunch place -- an outpost of a local vineyard. This did not disappoint. They make these amazing open faced sandwiches (prosciutto and melon, salami and fig, chicken and garlicky cheese and tomato, salty cheese with carrot, apple, jicama and olive oil). Mmmm. Life is good.

Art. And then some more art.

Today was another busy day of art-viewing. It is perhaps at this point in the trip that many of you are happy not to actually be here with me. The other people in the hostel are completely dismayed at the amount of time I spend in museums -- but I'm breaking things up with two gelato stops a day, so it is the perfect week, in my opinion. This morning I went to the Palazzo Davanzati, a house-museum that has been closed to the public since 1995 (except for their ground floor, which is open on Fridays). Palazzo Davanzati happens to hold five works by Scheggia and so they were kind enough to let me in anyway. It is always so humbling and wonderful to be in a room by yourself with a work you admire, with no milling crowds to bump you or look at you - and the guards always seem almost flattered that you'd go through the effort to view their inaccessible collection. It was a great morning. I finished the day doing more Scheggia research and then headed to the Cathedral museum, where they have sculptures by Donatello and Michelangelo, as well as the original panels from the Gates of Paradise. AMAZING. After all that art, my feet hurt, but I still climbed the hill to the Piazzale Michelangelo to see the sun set over Florence. Unfortunately, I sat in melted ice cream or spilled soda or something, and also got hit on by a very scruffy looking young man. These incidents nearly ruined the lovely, romantic view. But Kerri bequeathed me sink-size packets of Tide before she went home, so now I'm clean and tired and happy and looking forward to more time, and more art, in Florence. I took decent photos of the view, I hope to add them tomorrow!

PS -- It was SO HOT in India that my GLASSES MELTED. I went to the optometrist because the lenses fell out of my frames. He asked me if I'd left them on a stove or on the dashboard in the sun. When I explained that they were safely in my bag, in a case, for four weeks, but that I'd been in India, he said, "How hot WAS it?" I am super-impressed with myself for not melting or dying in the heat. You can choose to be impressed or not, at your discretion.