Visiting The Parthenon in Athens, Greece with Azamara Club Cruises

Note: click all photographs for larger views. ©2017, David A. Porter

The Parthenon, sitting atop the world-renowned Acropolis of Athens, is quite certainly the most famous structure in all of Greece.

Carol and I were visiting Athens, Greece as the embarkation point for a 10-day cruise with Azamara Club Cruises that would take us from Athens, down into the Greek Isles, back up through Croatia and ending in Venice, Italy. To read the article about our sailing with Azamara Club Cruises click here, and to read our article about the Acropolis of Athens, click here.

The Parthenon is dedicated to the goddess Athena whom the people of Athens considered to be their patron. Remarkably, this structure, completed in 432 BC, has survived the years even while becoming a Christian church in the 6th century AD, an Ottoman mosque in the 1400s, and then was extensively damaged by an explosion during the Great Turkish War in 1687.

In 1832, Greece became an independent country. However, just 30 years earlier, the British obtained a “questionable” edict from the ruling Ottoman Sultan to study the structure and its antiquities. Subsequently, a great many of the original objects we removed and now reside in the British Museum in London. As our guide demonstrated to us, even today, this is a great matter of dispute between the Greeks and the Brits. The Greeks want their antiquities back. The Brits say, “nope.”

To learn more about the history of The Parthenon, check out this Wikipedia article.

Expect Large Crowds in the Summer Months

We visited The Parthenon on July 5th in the mid-morning. The sun was hot and the temperatures were working their way to the mid-90s with strong gusting winds.

If you can, visit in the spring or fall. The temperatures will be more welcoming, and the crowds will be significantly smaller.

Travel Tip: Some travel publications make a big deal out of the number of steps that one must climb to get up to the top. It wasn’t as bad as they made it sound. The journey up consists of a few steps followed by paved incline. I was expecting to have to climb 200 stairs with my arthritic knees. It wasn’t the case at all.
 
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