Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the development of the Doric order with its decorative sculptures considered to be one of the high points of Greek art. The Parthenon is regarded as an enduring symbol of ancient Greece and of Athenian democracy, and is one of the world's greatest cultural monuments – and that is clearly evident by the sheer amount of tourists. The Greek Ministry of Culture is currently carrying out a program of restoration and reconstruction, so scaffolding pretty much encases the temple.
The entrance to the Acropolis is through a monumental gateway called the Propylaea, comprised of a rectangular building divided by a wall into two porticos. 
Once in, the Parthenon is the structure that takes your focus completely off the other buildings. Colossal in size and framed in scaffolding its dimensions are 228 ft 
x 101ft. The cella (the inner chamber at the centre of the building, usually containing a cult image or statue) is 97 ft x 63 ft, with internal Doric colonnades in two tiers, structurally necessary to support the roof. On the exterior, the Doric columns measure 6.2 ft in diameter and are 34 ft high. The corner columns are slightly larger in diameter. The Parthenon had 46 outer pillars and 19 inner pillars in total.
The Parthenon replaced an older temple of Athena that was
destroyed in the Persian invasion of 480 BC. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon was used as a treasury, and for a time served as the treasury of the Delian League (a conglomeration of fifth-century BC Greek city-states led by Athens). In the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin. After the Ottoman conquest (in the early 1460s) it was converted into a mosque. On September 28, 1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures. In 1806, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (or as the Greeks like to say “That Bastard Elgin”) removed some of the surviving sculptures. These sculptures, known as the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles, were sold in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they are now displayed. The Greek government has been trying to get the British to the return of the sculptures to Greece, so far with no success.
Aside from the Parthenon there are other structures on the Acropolis, to the south of the entrance is the tiny Temple of Athena Nike and to the east of the entrance and north of the Parthenon is the temple known as the Erechtheum. South of the platform that forms the top of the Acropolis there are the remains of the Theatre of Dionysus and a few hundred metres away, there is the now partially reconstructed Theatre of Herodes Atticus.
The theatre was built in 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. It was originally a steep-sloped amphitheater wide with a three-storey stone front wall and a wooden roof, and was used as a venue for music concerts and had a capacity of 5,000. The audience stands and stage were restored using marble in the 1950s. Since then it has been hosting the theatrical, musical, and dance ecomponents of the Athens Festival, which runs from June through September each year (didn’t Yanni play here?).
Located on the north side is the Erechtheum which was associated with some of the most ancient and holy relics of the Athenians. The most striking part of its architecture is the famous "Porch of the Maidens", with six draped female figures (caryatids) as supporting columns. Each is sculpted in a manner different from the rest and engineered in such a way that their slenderest part, the neck, is capable of supporting the weight of the porch roof whilst remaining graceful and feminine. The porch was built to conceal the giant 15-ft beam needed to support the southwest corner over the Kekropion, after the building was drastically reduced in size and budget following the onset of the Peloponnesian war.
One of the caryatids was removed by “That Bastard” Elgin in order to decorate his Scottish mansion, and was later sold to the British Museum (along with the pediment and frieze sculpture taken from the Parthenon). Athenian legend had it that at night the remaining five Caryatids could be heard wailing for their lost sister. Elgin attempted to remove a second Caryatid; when technical difficulties arose and he tried to have it sawn to pieces.
The statue was smashed and its fragments were left behind. It was later reconstructed haphazardly with cement and iron rods. Nowadays the five original Caryatids were displayed in helium-filled glass cases in the Acropolis Museum and are replaced by exact replicas. Needless to say, in case you haven’t picked up on this yet, the Greeks really hate Elgin!
We decided to grab a taxi to head across town to the archaeological museum. This turns out to be a lot harder then we expected, we must have flagged down a half dozen cabs that all refused to take us there. I’m not really sure why, I think it was because none of the drivers wanted to go far from the cash crop of short trip acropolis tourists. We eventually got one person to take a few miles into Athens where he said we could grab another taxi. When we did get a cab, the driver took us to the wrong museum! So we had to try and flag down another cab. I started losing my patience by this time telling my brother in law to not even ask the cabbie if he would take us somewhere, but instead just jump in the cab and tell him the only way we’ll get out is if he take us to the archeological museum (have you ever tried to hijack a taxi?). The driver we got was a very nice young guy who was a student. I suspected that he was nicer to us because he wasn’t a career cabbie.
The National Archaeological Museum of Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from the Greek antiquity worldwide (next to the British Museum – just kidding!). One of the highlights of the museum is the famed gold funeral mask of Agamemnon. Discovered at Mycenae in 1876 by Heinrich Schliemann, and was found over the face of a body located in a burial shaft. Schliemann believed that he had discovered the body of the legendary Greek leader Agamemnon, and from this the mask gets its name. However, modern archaeological research suggests that the mask is from 1500-1550 BCE, which is earlier than the traditional life of Agamemnon. 
Not only were there funeral masks made out of gold, sometimes the whole body was wrapped in gold foil as well. This was from the body of a small child.
This statue of Venus was a welcome variance from what you usually see when you tour Greek ruins. You see a lot of statues, and many statues are of…will nude men. What really makes this noteworthy is the position of her arms - standing after a bath, covering her breasts with her right hand, and her, umm other girl parts with her left hand. All the statuary of nude Greek men has their manhood clearly out there in the fore front; however, the woman is covering her nudity in modesty.
x 101ft. The cella (the inner chamber at the centre of the building, usually containing a cult image or statue) is 97 ft x 63 ft, with internal Doric colonnades in two tiers, structurally necessary to support the roof. On the exterior, the Doric columns measure 6.2 ft in diameter and are 34 ft high. The corner columns are slightly larger in diameter. The Parthenon had 46 outer pillars and 19 inner pillars in total.The Parthenon replaced an older temple of Athena that was
destroyed in the Persian invasion of 480 BC. Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon was used as a treasury, and for a time served as the treasury of the Delian League (a conglomeration of fifth-century BC Greek city-states led by Athens). In the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin. After the Ottoman conquest (in the early 1460s) it was converted into a mosque. On September 28, 1687, an Ottoman ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures. In 1806, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (or as the Greeks like to say “That Bastard Elgin”) removed some of the surviving sculptures. These sculptures, known as the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles, were sold in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they are now displayed. The Greek government has been trying to get the British to the return of the sculptures to Greece, so far with no success.Aside from the Parthenon there are other structures on the Acropolis, to the south of the entrance is the tiny Temple of Athena Nike and to the east of the entrance and north of the Parthenon is the temple known as the Erechtheum. South of the platform that forms the top of the Acropolis there are the remains of the Theatre of Dionysus and a few hundred metres away, there is the now partially reconstructed Theatre of Herodes Atticus.
The theatre was built in 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. It was originally a steep-sloped amphitheater wide with a three-storey stone front wall and a wooden roof, and was used as a venue for music concerts and had a capacity of 5,000. The audience stands and stage were restored using marble in the 1950s. Since then it has been hosting the theatrical, musical, and dance ecomponents of the Athens Festival, which runs from June through September each year (didn’t Yanni play here?).
Located on the north side is the Erechtheum which was associated with some of the most ancient and holy relics of the Athenians. The most striking part of its architecture is the famous "Porch of the Maidens", with six draped female figures (caryatids) as supporting columns. Each is sculpted in a manner different from the rest and engineered in such a way that their slenderest part, the neck, is capable of supporting the weight of the porch roof whilst remaining graceful and feminine. The porch was built to conceal the giant 15-ft beam needed to support the southwest corner over the Kekropion, after the building was drastically reduced in size and budget following the onset of the Peloponnesian war.
One of the caryatids was removed by “That Bastard” Elgin in order to decorate his Scottish mansion, and was later sold to the British Museum (along with the pediment and frieze sculpture taken from the Parthenon). Athenian legend had it that at night the remaining five Caryatids could be heard wailing for their lost sister. Elgin attempted to remove a second Caryatid; when technical difficulties arose and he tried to have it sawn to pieces.
The statue was smashed and its fragments were left behind. It was later reconstructed haphazardly with cement and iron rods. Nowadays the five original Caryatids were displayed in helium-filled glass cases in the Acropolis Museum and are replaced by exact replicas. Needless to say, in case you haven’t picked up on this yet, the Greeks really hate Elgin!We decided to grab a taxi to head across town to the archaeological museum. This turns out to be a lot harder then we expected, we must have flagged down a half dozen cabs that all refused to take us there. I’m not really sure why, I think it was because none of the drivers wanted to go far from the cash crop of short trip acropolis tourists. We eventually got one person to take a few miles into Athens where he said we could grab another taxi. When we did get a cab, the driver took us to the wrong museum! So we had to try and flag down another cab. I started losing my patience by this time telling my brother in law to not even ask the cabbie if he would take us somewhere, but instead just jump in the cab and tell him the only way we’ll get out is if he take us to the archeological museum (have you ever tried to hijack a taxi?). The driver we got was a very nice young guy who was a student. I suspected that he was nicer to us because he wasn’t a career cabbie.
The National Archaeological Museum of Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from the Greek antiquity worldwide (next to the British Museum – just kidding!). One of the highlights of the museum is the famed gold funeral mask of Agamemnon. Discovered at Mycenae in 1876 by Heinrich Schliemann, and was found over the face of a body located in a burial shaft. Schliemann believed that he had discovered the body of the legendary Greek leader Agamemnon, and from this the mask gets its name. However, modern archaeological research suggests that the mask is from 1500-1550 BCE, which is earlier than the traditional life of Agamemnon. 
Not only were there funeral masks made out of gold, sometimes the whole body was wrapped in gold foil as well. This was from the body of a small child.
This statue of Venus was a welcome variance from what you usually see when you tour Greek ruins. You see a lot of statues, and many statues are of…will nude men. What really makes this noteworthy is the position of her arms - standing after a bath, covering her breasts with her right hand, and her, umm other girl parts with her left hand. All the statuary of nude Greek men has their manhood clearly out there in the fore front; however, the woman is covering her nudity in modesty.
The bronze Poseidon/Zeus of Cape Artemision is an ancient bronze sculpture that was recovered from the sea off Cape Artemision, in northern Euboea in 1928(check out his lack of modesty). It represents the God of the Sea, slightly over life-size brandishing the (missing) trident or thunderbolt with his raised right hand and sighting over his extended left hand. The god is caught at the moment of pause in the full potential of his coming possibly violent movement. The empty eye-sockets were originally inset with bone, the eyebrows with silver and the lips and nipples of copper.
This fine bronze sculpture symbolically ends this trip where it all began, in Northern Euboea. Phew, am I tired.
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