Piraeus & Athens: Learning so much, and yet so much more to learn

by Richard L. Weaver II

Prior to arriving at the port of Piraeus, we had a badly needed sea day. A day of rest between excursions! We needed time to just relax. In addition to listening to two lectures — one by a professor of history, Dr. Martin Binder, an excellent talk on the “Classical Greek Empire,” and one by the tenor, Alejandro Guierro, on “The Three Tenors” — I spent time in the ship’s library, “Words,” where many of these essays on Mediterranean observations were written. Celebrity’s “Discoveries and Enrichment” series is excellent, and the lectures are well attended.

Celebrity’s “Discoveries and Enrichment” series reminded me of Grand Circle Travel’s (GCT) “Discovery Series,” designed specifically to offer passengers unique opportunities to discover local people and cultures firsthand. Although GCT offers more experiences and numerous one-on-one style adventures, the difference comes down to numbers. Celebrity had 2,067 people onboard; GCT had only about 136, which they always divided into three groups of about 45-people with a cruise director in charge of each one. The point is — and this needs emphasis — their concern over providing passengers learning opportunities is greatly appreciated.

The port of Piraeus is a busy, international port that services all of Athens. Our Acropolis and sightseeing tour began on time, and our experienced (34-year) tour guide majored in English literature at the University of Athens. Knowledgeable, with a great sense of humor, she gave us dates, rulers, and historical information that you don’t get from reading a brochure.

Our tour began by entering the city center of Athens from the southwest along Syngrou Avenue. We drove past the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, the largest Corinthian-style temple in Greece, taking over 700 years to build. We saw Hadrian’s Arch which separates the old and new Roman towns. We saw the National Gardens, the National Library and Parliament Building as well as the Panathinion Stadium built in 1895 for the first modern Olympics in 1896.

From the Panathinion Stadium, our bus took us to the Acropolis, where they expect 17 million visitors this year. The marble pathways and 150 steps to the top of the hill were slick, the weather cool and windy, the crowds dense and loud, the structures imposing and impressive, and the views out over Athens unbelievable. We entered through the Porpylea Entrace, saw the Erectheum, and the Temple of Wingless Victory.

The Acropolis is the best known acropolis (high city) in the world. It is also referred to as the “Sacred Rock.” On March 26, 2007, it was proclaimed to be the pre-eminent monument in the European Cultural Heritage list of monuments. It is a flat-topped rock that rises 512 feet above sea level.

There is archaeological evidence dating human occupation of the Acropolis (then known as Attica) as early as the Middle Neolithic Era (6th millennium BC). Once into the Bronze Age (4th to 5th millennium BC), a Mycenaeum (last phase of the Bronze age) megaron (great hall) stood on top of the hill, housing the local potentate and his family, guards, workshops, and ordinary habitations. It was surrounded by a thick wall and this early Acropolis was spared the violent destruction experienced by other Mycenaeum palaces during the Dark Ages.

There were numerous changes in the Acropolis as various factions took it over in their attempts to seize political power by coups. Most of the major temples were rebuilt under the leadership of Pericles during the golden age of Athens (460-430 BC), and it was during the 5th century BC that the Acropolis obtained its final shape. Construction on it began in 447 BC and it was completed in 438 BC. Decorations were added until at least 432 BC.

Information from our tour guide that I found most fascinating was about the Parthenon named after Parthena (“Virgin” or “Maiden”) Athena. It was the Emperor Theodosius who turned the Parthenon into a Christian Church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was the Franks who turned it into a Catholic Church in 1204, and the Turks turned it into a Mosque in 1458.

You may wonder how it became the shell it is today? In 1687, when the Turks were using the Parthenon as a powder magazine, they were attacked by Venetian military forces of Morosini (with Otto Vilhelm Konigsmark (1639-1688) as field commander). A German lieutenant fired the fatal shot on September 26, 1687, and it reduced this crowning glory of Grecian art to a mere skeleton. The roof collapsed, and parts of the sculptures and pillars were destroyed, It is imposing nonetheless, and there is work going on that will completely restore the structure.

We were standing in the place where public speaking had its birth. On our tour of the Acropolis, we stood on the spot where Demosthenes and other citizens not only practiced, but in the Greek democracy, spoke out freely and often. The most important aspect of Greek society given to the rest of the world was democracy — stated by our tour guide, reinforcing in almost the same words what Dr. Martin Binder had told us earlier in his lecture on the Greek empire.

Given the excellent tour guide we had, it is clear that our sightseeing tour of Athens and the Acropolis could be done individually — without a tour — only with great difficulty. Knowing your way around and getting to the places you desire is tough for like other early European cities, the streets are narrow and the traffic is heavy. Even though our tour bus was big as it plied the narrow streets, it commanded an undisputed presence and negotiated easily for its right of passage, despite the yellow taxis, small cars zipping in and out, and the ever-present motor scooters. Our tour guide said, “There are many scooter accidents.”

We have learned so much. Our tour guide to the Acropolis, at the end of our tour as we were entering the port area, apologized for giving us so much information all at one time. She was right, it was overwhelming, but she didn’t need to apologize. The history and background of Greece is fascinating, to say the least. There is just so much to know and understand, and she barely touched the surface, of course. The information about the Acropolis and Parthenon in this essay gives little evidence of how much information we would have to absorb to completely understand it all and put it into the proper context.

One reason for writing these essays — especially for writing each so close to the time the excursion was taken — and for my wife taking the many photographs she did, is to preserve some differentiation. That is, the goal is to keep all of this information from becoming gray and undifferentiated. Clearly we learned so much, and yet there is so much more to learn.
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At www.in2greece.com, there are at least 40 icons tourists can click on to get information about Greece, the Port of Piraeus or surrounding areas.

At www.Greece-Athens.com you’ll find a panoramic view of the Port of Piraeus as well as nearly 40 icons, one of which has a variety of 360 paroramas. At its Athens website, you’ll find just as much helpful information on the city.

Matt Barrett’s Travel Guide, has an Athens Survival Guide that gives all the specifics including basic Athens information, walking in Athens, services, and additional information.
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Copyright July, 2009 - And Then Some Publishing L.L.C.

SMOERs: Words of Wisdom

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come through unsought for are commonly the most valuable. —Francis Bacon

Day #64 - Treasure your thoughts.

SMOERs: Self-Motivation, Optimism, Encouragement Rules! - Daily Reminders for Outstanding Living
An everyday guide full of quotations to uplift your spirits.
Free 10-Day sample: smoers.com

And Then Some News

Thursday’s essay is the sixth in a ten-part series about our Mediterranean cruise. It is entitled, “Piraeus & Athens: Learning so much, and yet so much to learn.” The other essays in the series (with their posted dates in brackets) are:

1. “Cruising is incredibly self-indulgent” (06-04-09)
2. “Barcelona and the French Riviera (Nice and Eze): Minds Stretched in New Directions” (06-11-09)
3. “Livorno, Civitavecchia, and Tuscania: So much history it boggles the mind” (06-18-09)
4. “The Sistine Chapel, Saint Peter’s, and the Colosseum - Our tour of Rome” (06-25-09)
5. “The Port of Napoli - Our tour of Pompei and our warning about Naples” (07-02-09)

The series will cover additional cruise stops in Istanbul, Santorini and Mikanos (Greece), as well as Venice. The essays will offer a little history, our experiences on the excursions, as well as additional insights and observations.

Share your link. Have you written anything on Mediterranean cruising? Have you visited the port of Piraeus or the city of Athens? Do you know someone who has? Can you share some insights about any of your own touring or excursion experiences with readers? What would you like to tell people who want to cruise the Mediterranean? Places to go? Things to see? Any personal information you would like to share with them? Share your link with us. We’ll post it and move traffic in your direction. And, a big “thank you,” in advance, from AndThenSomeWorks.com, for sharing your link.

Click here to LINK your And Then Some story

Thursday's And Then Some Essay preview
Piraeus & Athens: Learning so much, and yet so much to learn
by Richard L. Weaver II

Excerpt:

We have learned so much. Our tour guide to the Acropolis, at the end of our tour as we were entering the port area, apologized for giving us so much information all at one time. She was right, it was overwhelming, but she didn’t need to apologize. The history and background of Greece is fascinating, to say the least. There is just so much to know and understand, and she barely touched the surface, of course. The information about the Acropolis and Parthenon in this essay gives little evidence of how much information we would have to absorb to completely understand it all and put it into the proper context.

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And Then Some Works - see you Thursday!!

Book Review Mondays

More information at Amazon.com No obligation to buy Click below:

Totally Wired
by Anastasia Goodstein

Book Review by Richard L. Weaver II, PhD.

In Totally Wired, Goodstein has written a superb book. It is so good that I wrote an essay using her book as the centerpiece. The essay is entitled: "Being totally wired means being more communicative and expressive." If you are a parent and you have a teenager, please read this book. This is the essay I wrote in its entirety:

I want to admit upfront in this essay that I am not totally wired; however, I spend a great deal of time at my computer, and I have written extensively about the Internet and its effect on various aspects of communication in my textbook, Communicating Effectively (McGraw-Hill, 2009).

What I want to do in this essay, more than anything else, is simply to document what is happening in our society. It will be outdated, of course, almost as I tap on these keys, but what a benchmark it establishes as technology races forward. This is an essay that will be entertaining to read ten, fifteen, or twenty years from now simply for the contrast it provides to what is happening at that time. Although teens will be totally wired, the technology will be different.

I am indebted to Anastasia Goodstein and her book, Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007). I sought this book for the insights Goodstein could provide in helping me write the ninth edition of the book referred to in the first paragraph above: Communicating Effectively. The characterization of teens that follows is Goodstein’s.

When totally wired teenagers today get out of bed in the morning, the first thing they do—before breakfast and before showering—is to fire-up their “at rest” computer to check for messages on their favorite community sites. They open iTunes to accompany them while getting dressed and listen to songs from CDs their friends burned for them. Before going downstairs for breakfast, they check their cell phone for both voice and text messages from their friends.

Totally wired teenagers will call or text their friends on the way to school so they know where they are and where to meet them when they arrive. To protect themselves from having their cell phones confiscated during classes, they turn them to vibrate, but they use them between classes to keep in touch with their friends and plan activities for immediately after school.

Schools have many computers, and students own their own laptops as well. Students use school computers to check their Web e-mail messages, do research for school projects, type projects and papers, and make PowerPoint presentations. Students, for the most part, are more comfortable with computers than most of their teachers, and often students end up answering their teachers’ questions and helping them figure things out.

In English, the teacher created a special website just for his classes that includes the syllabus, course expectations, brief project outlines and papers that must be downloaded, and a FAQ (frequently asked questions) link as well. One feature of the website is an ongoing, up-to-date blog which students are required to respond to using their special class names that only they and their teacher know.

This English teacher has received high ratings on Ratemyteacher.com not just because of his use of the computer but how he integrates the computer into classroom activities, maintains a daily question-and-answer page on the website where students can keep up with any aspect of the course about which they have questions, and a “contact me” link where students can contact him directly regarding problems, suggestions, or personal insights.

The algebra teacher, unlike the English teacher described above, does not receive high ratings on Ratemyteacher.com. She assigns too much homework (according to the students), sometimes embarrasses them when they don’t know answers, and calls on them when they aren’t paying attention.

Totally wired teenagers often are incredibly busy after school hours. In addition to athletics, homework takes up time, but spending time on the computer dominates. They update their LiveJournal (LJ) entries, post comments on their friends’ Ljs, instant message (IM) their friends and relatives, check their own website blog, add a new entry to it as well. They go to their MySpace profile to keep in touch with distant friends. They may even keep tabs on boyfriends’ or girlfriends’ online profiles, sometimes leaving flirtatious comments, posting recent pictures of themselves or cute photos of them together. Although they like having boyfriends and girlfriends, they realize such contacts take time.

Much time is spent, too, interspersed within all of this, sending and reading e-mail messages and text messages. If there is even a little time remaining, they may surf the Internet, enter a chat room, post a note on a message board, hang out on community sites, or just go back through all of their contacts to see answers to their questions or more recent posts. Sometimes they just relax and review what they have done.

When they are away from home, it is not uncommon to receive cell phone messages from parents who are just checking in. When they are somewhere they know their parents would not like, they lie and tell them they’re somewhere else. As long as they answer their cell phones when their parents call, they get away with it. When at parties, it is not uncommon to receive text messages from someone across the room, telling them to check out someone else, or talking about someone else who is in the same room.

When they hang out with friends, they go see movies, rent DVDs, play video games or watch others play video games, just talk as they watch for text messages or communicate with someone else on their cell phones, or listen to their iTunes or MP3. They find such multitasking comfortable and easy, and most students perform multitasking when they do their homework, work at their computer, or watch DVDs.

Today’s teenagers spend enormous amounts of time socializing with friends, love listening to music and playing games, actively use their computers for socializing, doing homework, and researching papers and projects, and find it easy getting information of all kinds from the Internet. Because of the Internet, gossip travels quickly just as negative information and mean pictures. Writing diaries, once considered a personal form of expression, has become public documentation and sharing diaries, emotional experiences, and likes and dislikes is common practice.

“There are more opportunities for teens to express themselves and distribute their work as writers, artists, videographers, or podcasters (Internet radio hosts who create audio recordings you can download from the Web)” (p. 13), writes Goodstein. There is no doubt that totally wired teens raise new issues of privacy and safety, but it may be, too, they are becoming more communicative and expressive at the same time. We live in a far more verbal world than ever before.

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Through our reading, researching, and writing, And Then Some Publishing (and our extended family of readers) mine volumes of books representing a wide variety of tastes. We use the books in our writing, test and try suggested techniques, and we read for enjoyment as well. We wouldn't spend the time reviewing the books if we didn't get something out of it. Read more reviews on other fantastic books at our BookWorksRules.com website.

Weekend Words

"Like apples of gold in a silver setting is a word that is aptly spoken." ---The Bible, Proverbs 25:11