Last day in Europe!

Our final day in Europe, and again, we decided on a fairly quiet one. We had not yet checked out the Ancient Agora of Athens, a site that, back in the day contained a host of temples, stoas, village houses and even a jail.

It’s housed in a park at the foot of the Acropolis and it’s main thoroughfare the Panathenaic Way, was once the main road leading to the Acropolis.
The Temple of Hephaestus is the best preserved temple in the whole Acropolis area and gives an excellent understanding of how these buildings were used. It’s namesake, Hephaestus was the patron god of metal working and pottery, and a number of blacksmiths workshops and potters shops in the same area, hence his temple being nearby.

The other major landmark is the reconstructed stoa. A stoa is a large, long building, two storey in this instance, built for the people to have an open space to come and congregate out of the heat of the sun, or from the rain. It’s a communal space for catching up with friends. It also contained a number of shops and stores, so it’s effectively a precursor to Westfields, just without a movie theatre. It was fully reconstructed in the 1950’s and now houses the museum for the Agora site.

Our last walk through Plaka allowed the boys to have one more quick game of hopscotch, before we went home to face the task of packing suitcases… we were on the move again in the morning…Read more