GREECE: Athens and Delphi, Guest Post by Lucas Gutierrez-Arnold

Changing of the Guard, Syntagma Square, Athens

In May, my grandson Lucas spent two weeks in Greece and Turkey with his family—my daughter Jennifer, her husband Humberto, and my granddaughter Alessandra. During the trip Lucas kept a log of some of their activities as part of his school assignment. I am delighted that he has agreed to share some of his posts with The Intrepid Tourist. Lucas just finished fifth grade. The trip was organized around a professional conference Jennifer was attending in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Alessandra, Humberto and Lucas at the Acropolis, Athens

Day 1: Athens

I woke up on the plane and we were about to descend. When I got out of the airport, our taxi driver he told us that the airport was built in 2001 for the 2004 Olympics in Greece. 

Olympic Stadium in Athens; built in the late 1800's for the first modern Olympics

Once we got to where we were staying, I looked up and I could see the Acropolis right in front of me.  Two hours later, we went to the Acropolis museum.  They have statues and sculptures made solely out of marble. The artists were almost as talented as machines now. They could precisely etch a heart into an eye, and the heart was only two millimeters across!  (I’m getting a lot of practice with my metric system. Two pounds is equal to one kilogram.)

Reconstruction of the east pediment of the Parthenon, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece

Day 2: Delphi

I woke up and had to hop in the car and hit the road to Delphi. When we got to Delphi, I realized it was 51 degrees F., when it was 83 degrees F. in Athens.  One hour later, we went to see the Archaeological Museum of Delphi.

Sphinx, Delphi

In the museum there was a huge statue of a sphinx that was fully intact.  There was a statue of a man in the time when they would make statues of very wealthy persons in the community.  Before  that time, they would also make statues of wealthy persons, but as the person’s dream persona. So the statue of the man we saw was made in the time when they were changing over to making sculptures of the actual person, not the dream persona.

Archeological Museum in Delphi. The left statue is one that illustrates the shift to depicting people in realistic ways.