Category Archives: Travel to Athens

Travel, photos and articles about Athens

Athens sightseeing in a different way

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Scooterise Athens Tour

Last Saturday I had a really fun experience seeing Athens in a different way. Travel Bloggers Greece members were invited to join a Scooterise tour of Athens via a Electric Trikke vehicle. The  three wheels Trikke is like a toy and from the first moment I enjoy the ride. The tour starts from 18 Chatzichristou Street where company’s office is, near Acropolis Metro station.

Scooterise offers to its clients a lot of different tours . The Scooterise Athens Highlights Tour, The Scooterise Art & The City Tour, The Scooterise Athens Food Safari tour, The Acropolis & Athens Scooterise Combo tour, The Scooterise Athens Riviera Tour. We just took the Scooterise Athens Complete Tour .

Happy TBG members Scooterising in Athens

During 2 and ½ hours we saw some of the more interesting spots of the city. Hadrian’s Arch and the Temple Of Zeus, Zappeion and the Kallimarmaro (panathinaiko) stadium, the Presidential mansion, an interesting ride through the National Gardens, Syntagma Square and the Greek Parliament, Monastiraki square, Ancient Roman market, Tower of the Winds, Plaka and tours ends. I had so much fan that for sure I will do it again in the future.

More information about Scooterise Athens Tours

Scooterise

Dimitrios Asithianakis is a photographer and photography teacher. You can find him on Facebook Dimitrios Asithianakis.

Athens Metropolitan Expo

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I visited once again the Metropolitan Expo Event Center for the Greek Tourism Expo an international Tourism Fair for Greek destinations. The weather was fine and I grab the opportunity to take some photos.

The Metropolitan Expo – Exhibition Center is the largest, most modern and functional venue for exhibitions, conferences and events in Athens, designed to the highest standards, ensuring thus functionality, flexibility and aesthetic integrity of facilities.

Metropolitan Expo building is located just 2 km after Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos” in Spata, Attica. Although the exhibitors usually offer free transportation in their events, you can easily visit the venue in the same way someone can visit Athens International Airport.

Dimitrios Asithianakis is a photographer and a photography teacher. You can find him on Facebook Dimitrios Asithianakis.

The Theatre of Dionysus at the Acropolis

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theatre of dionysus photos

On the south side of the Acropolis is located the remains of the ancient Theatre of Dionysus. In this area there was the sanctuary of Dionysus whose worshipers came from Eleutherae of Boeotia and for this reason he was called Dionysus Eleuthereus and was celebrated every year during the month of Elafivoliona in late March to early April, the Great Dionysia festivities were held in glorious celebration in honour of the god and was one of the most important festivals of ancient Athens. On this side of the Acropolis was created The Ancient Greek Theatre as a place of significance and all of the plays that were written during ancient times were to be shown firstly at the Theatre of Dionysus.

theatre of dionysus photos

In the first years of its operation there were wooden stands in the Theatre of Dionysus. During the period of the archon Lycurgus, the Theatre was expanded using stone. It is estimated that at that time The Theatre of Dionysus could hold an audience capacity of more than 15,000 people. In the first series of rows there were 67 marble seats for the officials. This was the custom of Proedria (presidency) and each seat was inscribed with the name of the person for whom it was intended.

theatre of dionysus photos

Over the subsequent centuries, the theatre was destroyed. For several years ​​works of excavation, maintenance and restoration of the Theatre of Dionysus using materials similar to those used in ancient times has been in progress and the ancient theatre slowly returns to its original form. When you walk around the orchestra and the stands you are dominated by a sense of awe, when you think that here on this site, 2500 years ago, Theatre was born.

theatre of dionysus photos

The Panathenaic Stadium or Kallimarmaro

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Panathenaic Stadium Photos

The Panathenaic Stadium is located on the site of the ancient stadium of Athens, which was rebuilt thanks to the orator Lycurgus in a private space that had been approved for the city by Deinias. The stadium was used for the first time during the celebration of the Great Panathenaia in 330-329 BC; it had the form of a classic ancient Greek stadium and would hold athletic games.

Panathenaic Stadium Photos

In Roman times, the orator and sophist Herodes, son of Atticus, spent much of his enormous assets on public works among them was the total renovation of the stadium. He changed its original shape of a rectangle with the addition of the semicircle that we see today, and installed seats for the spectators made of white Pentelic marble.

Panathenaic Stadium Photos

In the years that followed the stadium was destroyed and the marbles were used as building material. On the occasion of the organization of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and sponsored by a rich Greek benefactor George Averof, stadium was rebuilt from scratch following the form that it had had in the Roman era, again of white Pentelic marble, designed by the architect Anastasios Metaxas. That was the first time that the stadium was named Kallimarmaro (meaning “beautifully marbled”). So it took the form that it has today and we all admire it as one of the finest monuments of Athens.

Panathenaic Stadium Photos

The Propylaea of the Acropolis of Athens

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propylaea acropolis athens

The Propylaea of the Acropolis of Athens is the impressive entrance to the Acropolis from the west side, built during the golden age of Pericles by the architect Mnesicles. It is believed that here also stood the gate of the Mycenaean Acropolis. All previous buildings were destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC.

propylaea acropolis athens

After the Persian wars, the buildings were reconstructed by Themistocles and Cimon. The Propylaea that we can see today belongs to the large reconstruction program that took place at the Acropolis during the Classical era, which unfortunately was interrupted by the Peloponnesian War. So the Propylaea were never completed.

propylaea acropolis athens

The Propylaea is impressive in every respect of architecture and art, although it was not completed, Mnesicles passed into immortality along with Ictinus, Callicrates and Phidias the other architects and artists of the Acropolis. At the Propylaea of the Acropolis in a separate room was the very first gallery of the world. There were housed among others, paintings by Polygnotus.

propylaea acropolis athens

The first photos of Athens

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In 1839 the year that Photography was invented, Pierre-Gustave-Gaspard Joly de Lotbinière arrived in Athens on the first stop of his trip to the Middle East and took some photos of the Acropolis. These photos are the very first photos of the Acropolis, the first pictures taken in Greece and everything shows that they are the first travel pictures ever taken by the first “travel photographer”.

athens first photos

Athens first photos October 1839

Unfortunately, none of the 92 original photos taken by Pierre-Gustave have been preserved from his trip to Greece, Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Turkey.

athens first photos

Athens first photos October 1839

The only ones that have survived and we know of nowadays are those which were printed in two books  ‘Excursions daguerriennes : vues et monuments les plus remarquables de globe – Daguerreotype Excursions: the world’s most spectacular views and monuments’ in which we can see some photos of the Acropolis and in the ‘Panorama d’Égypte et de Nubie avec un Portrait de Mèhemet-Ali et un text orné de vignettes – Panorama of Egypt and Nubia with a portrait of Mèhemet-Ali and a text illustrated with vignettes’  in which we can see some photos from Egypt.