Our Trip Through Greece by Ella

Our Trip Through Greece

By Ella Stainwright

Travelling Through Greece

Greece is the eighth country we have visited so far and my favourite country.  It was the most interesting country filled with all sorts of different information about Greek myths.  We went to museums, ruins, Greek restaurants, islands and beaches. 

Athens

Our first stop was Athens, the capital city of Greece.  We stayed there for seven nights and we did so many things, I can’t name them all.  We went on city tours, through ruins and we toured museums.  Our time spent in Athens was full of interesting times and schoolwork became even more interesting than usual.

I love the Greek myths.  I love the legends of battles and power and that was what we started studying in Athens.  I already knew a lot about the Greek myths, from one of my favourite book series – Percy Jackson.  Even though I knew quite a bit about the myths, studying the real stories, history and ruins was very interesting. 

On the first day in Athens we went on a very interesting city tour.  We learnt about the battle between Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, and Poseidon, God of the Sea, and how Athena won.  We got to see many ruins and learn a lot about them.  Did you know the Romans were so clever they discovered a way to tell the time at night by using water?  The Romans took over Athens, though they took over Athens with less battles than usual.  They allowed the ancient Greeks to continue their work because they knew they could learn things from the very clever Athenians – the citizens of Athens.  The Romans copied the Greek Gods, but gave them different names.  For example, Zeus, the Greek God of the Sky, was the Roman God Jupiter, and Artemis, the Huntress and Goddess of the Moon, became the Roman Goddess, Selene, named after the moon.

The city tour taught us so much, as did the Acropolis museum – I never realised an old ruin could hide so many secrets of history.  I learnt that when the Greeks were carving themselves or other humans they only carved the front side of the body, but as the gods were so important they carved a whole statue, even though you could only see the front side.  The Greeks carved every part of their temples to the gods.  Each carving was a gift to the gods so that the gods would stay happy and help the Greeks live peacefully.  The Greeks were just as clever, or perhaps cleverer than the Romans, as they knew just how to protect their temples from earthquakes.  Instead of building the columns as one big column, they built little drums of the columns and they left a hole for a cedar stick to join all the drums together.  Doing this gave the columns room to move during earth quakes.  The Romans built columns in one solid piece of marble, which gave them much less flexibility and they broke easily during earthquakes and attacks.  We could tell the difference between the two types of columns, by looking at the different patterns.  We learnt all of this, and much more in one small museum.  I found it extremely fascinating.

The rest of the time we were in Athens, we looked at ruins throughout the city.  We explored the ruins on the Acropolis, including the Parthenon, as well as many others that were dotted around Athens.  My favourite was Zeus’ Temple.  Despite the fact that there was hardly anything there, the history was what captivated me.  It had a fallen down column and you could clearly see the drums and hole for the cedar stick. Apart from that fallen column and the 15 standing columns there was only the bottoms of statues remaining. 

The Parthenon is on the top of the sacred rock, the Acropolis.  It is up there with the other ruins, the Erectheum, the Temple of Nike, the Odeon Theatre and the Theatre of Dionysus, god of wine and theatre.  The first ruin we got to was the Temple of Nike, which means victory and battle in Ancient Greek.  That is where the shoe brand ‘Nike’ came from.  Their symbol is the same as Hermes’, the messenger of the gods – a wing that Hermes wears on his helmet and shoes.  After the Temple of Nike, which stood at the entrance to the Parthenon, we saw the Parthenon.  It would have seemed much more powerful if there had been less cranes blocking its beauty from view.  It had tall columns, though many drums had been replaced.  It was huge and was the second most sacred temple in its days of glory.  It was amazing.

The next ruin we saw was the Erectheum.  It was the most sacred temple in its time, as it was said to be the place where Athena and Poseidon battled.  It was the place where the olive tree and the salt water spring grew and it was the only temple that two gods shared.  On Poseidon’s side, there were six caryatid columns (lady columns), but now there are only five because the last caryatid was stolen by Lord Elgin.  There is a legend that the other five caryatids would cry at night for their lost sister, though their cries were probably just the wind.

We also saw the Odeon Theatre.  That was the first building we actually saw and there are still shows and concerts held there.  The Theatre of Dionysus was a total ruin.  The theatre could have once held 17,000 people, but now bricks are strewn everywhere and it could not have fit more than 200 people – probably less.  However, the theatre was beautiful and probably once had beautiful smooth, white marble benches and the ruin still has signs of old stone thrones. They were once beautiful and now dusty grey.

Down in the city of Athens we also went to the two agoras, the Ancient Agora and the Roman Agora.  An agora is a meeting and market place – a sort of town square where people used to meet to vote, discuss problems and trade for food and money.  The Roman Agora had the night time clock that used water.  The Ancient Agora was much the same, though without the water clock and with different columns. 

We went to other ruins as well, including Hadrian’s Library, Hadrian’s Arch and a few others.  The ruins were uncountable and we didn’t visit them all, though the most famous one is still the Parthenon.

Our time in Athens held many adventures and learnings and was an interesting and enjoyable experience.  I have left with many excellent memories.

Santorini

Santorini is a volcanic island that we were lucky enough to visit for six days! 

The beaches did not have sand only dark grey pebbles that made my foot super sore.  On some days, we lazed around by the beach and the pool where we got to relax.  Resting by the pool gave us a chance to enjoy school work.  We did a page of maths and then, SPLASH, we jumped in the pool with an hour of races instead of work.  The beach water was quite a nice temperature, though I had to wonder in slowly.  It was very relaxing, though sand would have made my experience by the beaches in Santorini much better.  On one beach there was sea weed, though no sand, and that made the ground much softer.

Santorini borders a caldera.  Santorini is a volcano and it used to erupt.  When the ground became unstable the crater collapsed and it took part of Santorini with it.  I find it hard to imagine what it would have been like watching the volcano erupt.  I imagine slow running lava or a huge eruption almost half a kilometre in the air, and many moments too late people turn and run, but the lava chases them.  It must have been terrible.

Santorini is most famous for two things – white buildings and blue roofs.  It really does give the island credit.  The blue roofs were beautiful and glittered magically in the sun.  One blue roof had a few beautiful blue stones on it and it was one of the most beautiful manmade things ever.  It was unbelievable.  This particular blue roof was called Aghioi Theodoroi church (Saint Theodore) church.  Most of the blue roofs were churches and the other buildings just had blue shutters and doors.

There were ruins on Santorini too.  A ruin called Akrotiri and another called Ancient Fira.  We only went to see Akrotiri and the closest we got to Ancient Fira was the beach town Kamari.  Akrotiri had the ruins of an old rich town and the archaeologists have found paintings and beautifully painted old pots.  We followed a guide around and learnt about how the people would have gone to the toilet the same time, in the same room over a wooden board.  It was very interesting.

Mykonos

Mykonos was way better than Santorini.  For one thing it had sand beaches and we could build sand castles instead of rock castles.  Also, Mykonos had many more trees and that made it, for me, more beautiful.  Not only that, our accommodation had a really good view and location, except for the hill we had to walk on the way home.

On some of the days, all we did was look around and play in the pool, well Kaelie played in the pool.  The pool was freezing!  On the day I did go in the pool, I had so much fun.  Kaelie and I played races and dodgem cars and tackling, though she always insisted on winning.  The beach was a very enjoyable experience with sandy water to play in.  It had a lot of deck chairs and not enough room for people to relax on towels so we had to squish in.  On the first day on the beach I just sat around with Mummy and we talked, but on the second day I had a lot of fun.  I imagined I was Cinderella and that I had to clean with the water and sand.  It was so much fun.

On one day, we went beach hopping by boat and it was very cool.  We stopped off at three different beaches and each one was slightly different.  On one there were lots of shops and deck chairs, though not as many people as on other beaches.  That one was called Paranga.  Another beach was called Super Paradise and almost everyone got off there.  It had very expensive floats, lots of bars and heaps of deck chairs.  Super Paradise had a lot of fun stuff, but it was missing one thing to make it a complete paradise -  ice cream.  The other beach was called Agari and was a lot like the other ones – with less shade.  We got the last patch of shade and we had to shared it with other Aussies.  On the beaches we built sand castles and played in the sea.  We had a lot of fun on those epic beaches of Paranga, Agari and Super Paradise.

On another day, we went to town where we got to see some beautiful windmills and streets.  There were five old windmills, that are only there for show and don’t do any more work.  They had huge powerful arms that would have produced a lot of power.  The streets had beautiful Bougainvillea trees with pinks leaves that clustered together to make flowers that waved in the wind.  Right near the water’s edge there was Little Venice with beautiful blue and white houses.  The streets were narrow and windy like a maze and they had many markets throughout them.  They had streets made from cobbles and other streets made from cement.  The streets of Mykonos town were beautiful.

On another day in Mykonos we visited Delos Island and it was very interesting.

Delos Island

Delos is a famous island filled with ruins.  It was very important to the Ancient Greeks as it is said to be the mythical birth place of Artemis and Apollo, two very important Greek gods.  The Greek gods are mythical beings that have the power to create natural disasters when they get furious and to create a peaceful atmosphere when they are pleased.  The Greek gods are said to be unpredictable with constant changes in their attitude.  It is no exception for these twin gods.

The myth goes like this:

Zeus, the god of gods, had just married another wife and his main wife, Hera, was not pleased.  As she could not punish Zeus, because he was so powerful, she decided to punish his new wife Leto, half god, half human, who was pregnant with twins.  She threatened all the islands, telling them not to accept Leto.  Leto prayed to Zeus for help and Zeus answered her prayer by turning to his brother, Poseidon, god of the sea.  He ordered Poseidon to create an island called Delos, and as it was only a new island Hera had no power over it.  Leto rested under the shade of the palm tree, though she could not give birth to her twins without the birth goddess.   The other gods felt sorry for Leto so, they enchanted an eight-yard, amber scarf that hypnotised Hera and changed her mind.  Finally, Leto could give birth to her twins and they grew up to be, Artemis the huntress, goddess of new born baby animals and the moon and Apollo, god of light, music and the future. 

In another version of the myth Hera sends a snake to chase Leto so she could not get any rest, but the snake could not enter Delos.

There were many ruins on Delos.  The ones with columns were houses and the ones made only from granite were markets.  The houses were in better condition as the pirates who took over the land lived in them.  The markets were in terrible condition as the pirates didn’t care about them and destroyed them.  There were six lion statues and three other bottoms of statues.  One has been taken to Venice and its head has been replaced by a rather ugly head.  Only one of the statues has its full body and even then, it was still patched.  The ruins were beautiful and some had old mosaics in them.  The people who lived on Delos Island were very clever.  They filled a mosaic sort of bath with water and let the water evaporate.  As the water evaporates the condensation keeps the air cool.  Very clever! 

There was a museum on Delos Island and it was filled with original statues, pots and other priceless items.  It held many ruined statues, that would have been impossible to replace.  We had to be very careful.

While we were in Greece I had an interesting and enjoyable time.  It was a very educational opportunity and I had a wonderful time.  I hope you liked my blog and learnt a thing or two.