Last Saturday I stood under a stellar Athenian sky and absorbed a virgin view
of the Parthenon. The Temple of Athena Parthenos — to give the Parthenon its
full title — has become a symbol around the globe of a certain kind of
civilisation.
When Barack Obama accepted the leadership of the free world and talked of his
hopes for liberty and democracy, images of the Parthenon flashed on many a
mind’s eye. She is an old friend, and now we can see her from a new angle.
Today the treasures of the Parthenon — as well as other gems from atop and
around the Acropolis (the Acropolis rock was a kind of holy hotel for Greek
gods, thick with shrines and temples and ritual dedications) — have a novel
home in the form of the new Acropolis Museum.
During its inauguration Greek dignitaries were puce with scarce-contained
outrage that their collection was still incomplete — there are bits of the
Parthenon in France, Germany, Sweden, Italy and, of course, the British
Museum — but also pink with pride at their achievements.
The new museum, which is expected to receive 10,000 visitors a day, is
designed in sympathy with the priceless artefacts that it shelters. Shaded
glass protects the antiquities from sunburn, and the porous concrete
interiors don’t compete with the works of ancient art for the creamy light
that is allowed to filter inside.
On the way to the museum opening I visited an archaeological dig in the heart
of the old town, in the Plaka district, next to the Ancient Agora. An
American team is painstakingly excavating what it thinks could be the famous
“Painted Stoa”, a walkway built in about 450BC and once decorated with
vividly patterned wooden boards.
Socrates, Euripides or Pericles may have ambled here in welcome shade. If you
stop off in one of the cheap and cheerful adjacent cafés at the bottom of
Adrianou Street, or browse among the nearby bric-a-brac stalls, you can peer
down at the real-life Indiana Joneses at work and see the archaeologists’
pick-axes fly and brushes flick .
Digging in Athens invariably yields something. When the foundations of the
museum were being sunk, architects uncovered a 10m layer of Athenian history
beneath street level. More than 50,000 stunning new artefacts were
unearthed. Byzantine, Roman, Hellenistic and Classical homes and streets
have been left in situ and cleverly covered by glass. Their ceiling becomes
the transparent floor on which the visitor walks, so you enter the museum
looking down on 26 centuries of history.
Once inside I found more delights. The architecture is industrial-cool and the
statuary marble-pale, but the galleries are vivacious. A serpent from the
Persian-sacked Parthenon temple writhes its way above the sloping glass
approach; and a blackened frying pan reminds you that even world-class
philosophers walked through a city heavy with the scent of fried vegetables
and fish.
I smiled with pleasure when a beautiful girl, 2, 600 years old, was
sufficiently close for me to smell her glittering stone skin, to see the
raised encaustic tattoos where her finely folded skirt would have blazed out
with viscous paint — peacock-blue, sage green and burnt sienna. Wherever you
think that Elgin’s Marbles should be housed there is no denying that this is
a fantastic museum.
Athens these days isn’t only about the ancient world. In the spirit of the new
museum’s devotion to 21st-century technology — “unabashedly modern”, as
Antonis Samaras, the Greek Minister of Culture, put it in his opening
address — I had determined on this visit to swap my habitual dust-laden
Greek nights-under-canvas for all that modern Athens could offer.
The Periscope Hotel (yes there is a periscope on the roof) in the central
Kolonaki district seemed an appropriate starting point. Staying in
contemporary accommodation to explore Ancient Greece isn’t as crazy as it
sounds.
Athens was, and still is, sensuous, experimental and enthusiastic in the
Ancient Greek sense — full of sublime inspiration. Say “Ancient Greece” and
you might imagine monochrome pallor, a rational, greybeard sagacity.
But Athens in 500BC, the Golden Age of the city, was a riot of colour. Marble
statues were painted harlequin bright; young aristocratic men — the It-boys
of their day — tied gaudy ribbons around their oiled muscles; prostitutes
worked day and night under exotically dyed awnings; and saffron was sold in
the Agora.
But where to eat in present-day Greece? After toasting the museum’s architects
and archaeologists with cocktails on the grand roof terrace, a dove-grey
expanse that faces the red limestone Acropolis rock and offers a glimpse of
the honeyed Parthenon above, I headed to the Papadakis Restaurant. Arriving
just before midnight I presumed I would be pushing my luck — but then two
elegant, elderly women turned up and started to order.
Greeks are hardened night-owls. Papadakis — established by an island girl,
Argyro Barbarigou, from Paros — has the feel of an adventurous, upmarket
taverna. Argyro wins awards for her gastronomic imagination. Octopus is
rolled in honey, and the Greek salad has grape musk and stamnagathi —
“greens that grow around a well”.
As I ate, oleander and silk-tree blossoms dropped at my feet and the Acropolis
— somehow always there, whichever way you turn in Athens — sat as the focus
at the end of a two-mile stretch of alleys and lanes. Five years ago it was
hard to get a refined meal in the back streets of Athens, but my meal that
night could not have been tastier.
Walking home from Papadakis in a straight line can be tricky if you accept the
Mastica, a traditional drink from the island of Chios, or the freshly
crushed strawberries with vodka that staff produce as a nightcap. Tipsy with
the charm of the place, and not, I promise, the booze, I got lost on the
ten-minute meander back to the Periscope, but happily so.
Kolonaki is a great little district. Much of its architecture comes from the
1960s; you’re in the neighbourhood of uptown Onassis-style Greeks. The
brilliant Benaki Museum is close by. Originally the collection of a wealthy
cotton trader, the Benaki travels from prehistory to 19th-century Hellenism
in a series of elegant rooms. With the best museum shop and rooftop
restaurant I’ve seen, the Benaki is a must, even if the new Acropolis Museum
is your main attraction.
Yet 24 hours into all this high-end sophistication and I was itching for the
wind-in-the-hair, raw Ancient Athens that I love. A 90-minute drive out of
the city, that is on offer at the site of Rhamnous. The lower town has been
accessible to the public for only a decade and you are likely to be one of
no more than three or four visitors. Rhamnous reminded me how far Classical
Athens’ home territories stretched.
The next day I woke up mad. Maybe I had been too long in the midsummer sun or
too close to those stone gods in the New Acropolis Museum (the ancients
believed that exposure to the gods could induce a kind of sensual frenzy).
I acted completely out of frugal character and decided to take my Athenian
friends, old and new, to one of the three Michelin-starred restaurants in
the city. (Athenians are spontaneously hospitable — one war photographer I
met popped me on the back of his motorbike to show off the Gazi zone, a
former industrial district that is now home to art galleries and hip
eateries.)
Spondi snuggles behind the five rings of the original 1896 Olympic stadium. It
is not the most obvious district for a high-class joint. But for the price
of a small holiday, the maitre d’ and helpful waiters led us through a
sensory landscape — mashed potato frothed with almonds and truffles, and
pistachio macaroons oozing berry jam. The sommelier lined up a wine made
from the rich grape used by the ancients and nominated “the Blood of
Hercules”.
Leaving for the airport at six the following morning, with the locals still
finishing off their meals of the evening before, the dawn was a little fiery
for my Samian-wine head, but the taxi driver whirled fresh air into the
lobby.
Why such brio? Because, he grinned, the new museum would “put the colour back
into our cheeks”. He couldn’t wait to visit it. Well, one more blush to add
to the contemporary Athenian experience — whether it be the past or the
present city in which you choose to steep yourself.
For Bettany Hughes’s books and broadcast projects visit www.bettanyhughes.co.uk
Need to know
Getting there Hotel Periscope in Athens has B&B doubles from £142 a
night. Details: 00 30 210 729 7200, www.periscope.gr.
British Airways (0844 4930787, www.ba.com)
has flights from Heathrow to Athens from £140 return.
Further information Greek National Tourism Organisation (020-7495 9300, www.visitgreece.gr)
Reading Athens Encounter (Lonely Planet, £6.99) Lord Elgin, the British
Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, 1799-1803, claimed that he took the
Parthenon sculptures to protect them from the Turks, who had been grinding
them down to make mortar.
Elgin's bitter legacy
Elgin took 247ft of the original 524ft Parthenon Frieze as well as 17 figures
from pediments.
While in Athens Lord Elgin suffered from a skin disease that ate up his face
and caused his nose to fall off. Some historians have commented that “the
Greeks lost their marbles, Elgin lost his nose”.
He later fell into financial trouble, selling his “marbles” to the British
Parliament in 1816 for £35,000. This was less than half the amount that he
spent on securing and transporting them.
The word “Elginism” has been coined to refer to an act of cultural vandalism —
see www.elginism.com
A huge explosion blew off the roof and destroyed many of the sculptures at the
Parthenon in 1687, when Athens was under seige from the Venetians.
More than 10,000 visitors are expected at the New Acropolis Museum each day.
The entrance fee is being held at €1 (84p) until the end of the year.
Tom Cheshyre
