Feel-ing Croesus (before the airport)
Every journey is about new and past feelings. We travel when we need a change to feel different, when we need a type of change inside us. We travel to see, to meet new cultures of people, new experiences, when we have realized that the need to learn is the most important need for a human, a human who needs to evolve and progress.
Greece is full of feelings, good or bad, that is not the question. Greece gave birth to music, theater, philosophy, mythology because of feelings. Athens, as its main center, not only mythical, but also classical, today tries to present these feelings to the rest of the world.
When 19th century travellers arrived from Piraeus to Acropolis (actually Acropolis could be seen from there), before Athens international airport access to Athens was mainly safe by sea, they felt both sea breeze and seeing ancient ruins at the famous port. They walked with mules, donkeys, horses or carriages up Piraeus street and reached firstly Keramikos and its ancient gates, Dipylon.
There they realised how ancient Athenians were feeling. The sacred way from Elefsina, that led to ancient agora and via Panatheneon street up to Acropolis, is also getting to Keramikos, where the Athenian craftsmen were preparing the famous vases that were exporting Athenian olive oil across Mediterranean. This is how astonished Romans were feeling, Augustus himself, who funded the Roman Agora, but also Emperor Hadrian, who built the new city of Athens, trying to imitate mythical Theseus. The remains of these period are still visible to the modern Athens visitor.
Athens after the airport
How about modern Athens? The city passed from Ottoman occupation and many disasters, that gave the city the today cosmopolitan atmosphere. Today Athens has many Orthodox temples of the 11th century, that are open to the public and anyone can feel that through Orthodox festivals around the year, that can be found around Attica as well. Monuments of Christian faith that marked the passing from ancient world to the new one, after 6th century.
So, what stays for a visitor today? The vast amount of Athens museums, that are waiting to educate everyone who wants to feel the same as Croesus, Hadrian, Sulla, Freud, Jung or maybe Hans Christian Andersen and feel unreal?
The city is waiting for anyone since Socrates’ time to teach anyone!