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'Highest City' the symbol of Greece
The Acropolis, the Sacred Rock of Athens, will forever remain the symbol of the capital of Greece.
By: Anonymous
The Acropolis hill - acro is edge, polis is city - is one of the most recognizable monuments of the entire world. It is certainly the most significant reference point of ancient Greek culture, as well as the symbol of the city of Athens itself.
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It represents the apogee of artistic development in the 5th century BC. The first habitation on the Acropolis dates from the Neolithic period and over the centuries the rocky hill has been continuously used either as a cult place or as a residential area, or both, www.greece-athens.com.
In fact Athens, with a population of just over three million, remains one of the world's most vibrant cities. Particularly since the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, it has good communications, and we love its Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, designed by French architect Paul Andreu, who also did part of Paris Charles de Gaulle, and managed by Athens International Airport SA, a public-private partnership between the Greek Government and the Germany company Hochtief Aktiengesellshaft. We love Athens' subway system, Attica Metro, built over a hundred below ground to avoid ruining the many archaeological layers of the city: of all the splendid stations, favorites include Monastiraki, in a splendid neoclassical building dating back to the end of the 19th century, and Sidagma, which has many archaeological finds.
One of the best places to view antiquities, however, is above ground, at the New Acropolis Museum, which opened on the southern slope of the Acropolis on June 21st, 2009. Designed by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, the New Acropolis Museum contains nearly 4,000 objects.
Culture-hunters will, indeed, never be satiated in Athens, Greece. Music and art lovers are also in for a feast. On September 8th, 2009, for instance, MGMT, the band that won over music critics and music lovers all over the planet in 2008 is coming to Athens for a main-event appearance at City of Athens Technopolis.
The Brooklyn, NY-based indie rock duo of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew Van Wyngarden will be featuring such hits as Electric Feel, Kids, Time to Pretend and new material from their yet-to-be-released new album. The City of Athens Technopolis is a brilliant conversion of the old Athens Gasworks known as Gazi (Gaz), founded in 1857. It started functioning in 1862 and when it closed down its furnaces in August 1984 it was the last factory in Europe that was functioning in the traditional manner.
There are continual arts exhibitions. In January 2009, for instance, 30 artists from around the world took part in the modern art exhibition Unconfined at the Melina Cultural Centre. The exhibition started in Athens, and went on to France, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the USA, www.breathtakingathens.com.
One of the best-known Athens-based art collectors, by the way, is Dakis Joannou, a Greek Cypriot industrialist who started collecting when he saw Equilibrium, by the American artist Jeff Koons (not only known for his art, and the incredible sums it attracts, but for the fact that he was once married to the Italian porn star Ilona Staller, now, as La Cicciolina, a member of the Italian parliament). Today, the Dakis Joanou collection also includes works by Vanessa Beecroft, Michael Bevilacqua, Ashley Bickerton, Cai Guo-Qiang, Maurizio Cattelan, Verne Dawson, Matt Greene, Ralf Ziervogel, Mike Kelley, Joseph Kosuth, Liza Lou, Miltos Manetas, Allan McCollum, Takashi Murakami, Ningura Napurrula, Shirin Neshat, Cady Noland, Chris Ofili, Gabriel Orozco, Yinka Shonibare, Shahzia Sikander, Kara Walker, Nari Ward, and Christopher Wool.
Dakis Joannou is also the founder of the Deste Foundation, a non-profit foundation that organizes exhibitions and supports
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publications that explore the relationship between contemporary art and contemporary culture. He does not, by the way, always shrink from flaunting his 'art'. In 2008 he asked Jeff Koons to paint the exterior of the 114-ft Joannou yacht, Guilty. The result, which is, well, more of a Roy Lichtenstein boat than a Koons, was launched at a party where the guest list included such art-world greats as New York-based gallery owner Larry Gagosian and the director of the Tate, London, Sir Nicholas Serota.
Over 300 of Dakis Joannou's non-yacht art treasures can be seen in the Athenaeum InterContinental Hotel, Athens, of which he is co-owner. WOW.travel especially likes the lifesize gentian statue of a man, in a full motion of a cartwheel, that dominates the hotel's main lobby. We like the Vogue covers by Maria Papadimiriou in the eighth-floor club lounge, which also displays the delightful Punisment of the Peevish Black Cat, 1994, by Tassos Pavlopoulos. (At the 543-room luxury hotel, ask for a room or suite with a view of the Acropolis, oh so near you feel you can touch it. The club lounge has a divine big terrace, oh so nice for outdoor breakfasts, with that Acropolis view, and for dinner we thoroughly recommend the main-floor Cafezoe, designed by Tony Chi, or, for more of that view, the tenth floor Première restaurant. There is an outdoor swimming pool, and, year-round, under no circumstances miss having a fabulous massage or facial by Constantina in the icy-sleek I-Spa by Algotherm, which is next to the 24-hour Technogym)
Yes, there is lots of activity in Athens. Take dance, for instance. It is a fact that Greece possesses a vibrant dance scene that craves for spaces and locations that they can promote their work and their aesthetics in, locations that live up to an alternative mentality, technically apt and familiar to those who refuse to forget and those who crave to know the «rave» aspect of a party.
Apart from the artists who are still based in Athens, many participants have relocated to such cities as Berlin and London, thus establishing an even closer relationship with the international dance scene and taking part in such well-known festivals as Movement in Detroit, Sonar in Barcelona, Serbia's Εxit in Novi Sad and Miami's Winter Μusic Conference. On September 5th, 2009, indeed, New York-based Panayiotis Pilafas and Nektarios Ioannidis, founder of Team ReSolute, organized a 24 hour dance event, enTechno,
at Athens' Hellenic Cosmos cultural center, to a background decorated by Ioannis Sochorakis.
And if you want to be active yourself in Athens, and if climbing round ancient temples and walking round modern art collections does not suffice, try cycling, golf, sailing - or even skiing. Believe it or not, during winter (from December on) you can ski in Greece, at under three hours' drive from Athens. Your closest bet is at Mount Parnassos, 16 miles from Arachova. The slopes reach up to Fterolakas, just under 6,000 feet a.s.l.: there are 13 lifts, open 8.30 am to 3.30 pm daily, and the slopes are 3-easy, 6-medium, 5-difficult, 1-very difficult, 1-cross country, www.greecetravel.com/delphi.
Athenaeum InterContinental Athens, Athens, Greece
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