Day 4: Temple of Zeus

Today was another exploratory day. This time we walked around a more commercial district. Athens is a very densely packed city — probably more so than Paris due to the narrowness of the streets. Most of the time I’m surrounded by six story buildings, but occasionally the view breaks out into the surrounding mountains.

We went to the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, formerly one of the biggest ancient temples right in the middle of the city. Now only a half dozen columns remain, one toppled due to a storm two hundred years ago. The scale of these things is mind boggling when you consider that they were erected using only muscle and geometry. What’s more: most of the stone that used to make up the columns was removed elsewhere using the same level of technology. “That’s a fine piece of art and engineering that weighs many tons; it would look lovely in my home city 500 miles away.”