A visit to the Acropolis of Athens

If you visit the Acropolis in Athens, be prepared to join the crowds of other tourists visiting at the same time. There’s an insatiable interest in the area, of course, because it’s so well known.

First you walk up the side of the Acropolis hill, and enjoy nice views of the city, including the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, and the modern buildings surrounding it, and then the crowd bunches up as you enter the ruins, with tour guides holding flags up and lots of chatter from everyone.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I got up there. The smooth cement ground pictured above continued through the middle of what turned out to be a massive construction site, with scaffolding around a few of the buildings. Those paths made the site more accessible for everyone, which is to be commended.

Walk to the side, and you were on rougher ground, on gravel and bare rock, with construction materials and tools seemingly left unattended, within roped off areas.

If you’re hoping to get photos of the site without other tourists, you’ll probably have to go early in the morning, with a tripod to take multiple photos of the same photo and remove people digitally.

This is a long exposure shot of the Parthenon temple. There were loads of people around. A huge group was congregating to the far left of this photo, and another group was heading over from the far right.

On the way out, when I wanted to take a photo of the Erechtheion, a smaller temple apart from the Parthenon, someone else wanted to pose. Our bus was waiting for us below, so there was no time to waste. Afterwards, I liked seeing the human element in this photo.

If you’re visiting Athens, a trip to see the Acropolis has to be high on your list of things to do. I only had an hour or so there, but I’d love to return and spend more time there taking photos.

As an aside, I find it funny that the Unesco ID for the Acropolis site is 404. No chance this place will go missing.

This is the last post of the year 2024 here. The Acropolis has been around for thousands of years. What will human civilization look like in another two thousand, five hundred years? What will happen to all our digital records? Who or what will be remembered of us in that era? Not much survives over those time periods.

Aperture	ƒ/6.3
Camera	ILCE-7M3
Focal length	24mm
ISO	100
Shutter speed	1/1000s

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