Day 4 - Athens

Day 3 - At Sea

Day 4 - Athens
ATHENS, GREECE - is the main port and capital of Greece with 4 million inhabitants. Athens has sun 360 days each year. Athens is one of the world's oldest cities in the world with recorded history from at least 3,000 years ago. Athens is the birthplace of Socrates and Pericles and other important philosophers. Athens is widely referred to as the birthplace of Democracy due to it's cultural and political achievements in the 5th and 4th centuries BC.

Today, if builders find ruins or remains, the government has 6 months to claim it or the builders can proceed.

90% of the country's Christians are orthodox, which allows them to marry 3 times. But their priest can only marry once.



Acropolis - a religious center on the hill, honoring pagan gods. Poseidon and Athena fought to be the protector of the city. Athena won. She gave the city an olive tree. It is still the only olive tree on Acropolis Hill. (olive trees can live 5,000 years). Later, the Romans after conquering Greece, claimed Greek gods as their own. However, they changed their names because they couldn't pronounce them. Zeus was the god of wisdom, became Jupiter. Athena became Minerva, Artemis, the fertility god, became Diana. Poseidon became Neptune, the god of the sea, and Apollo became Apollo. They didn’t want to miss with god of sun. Nike was the god of victory.

The Greeks had all of their temples face east so that the first rays of sun from the god Apollo would cleanse the deeds done the night before in the dark. Today, most churches want their altars facing east. The Christian church do because Christ will return, at the second coming, thru the East gate of Jerusalem.

At the corner of the building, a carved stone lion opens his mouth and drains the building's roof. The building is a perfect symmetrical rectangle. The walls are 5th century BC. Some of the marble statues from the Acropolis are owned by the British and it is their decision when they want to return them to Greece. The British own them because they bought and paid for them from the Greek Government.
Original Olympian games played here.



The statues of the emperor's were changed with each new emperor. They did this by changing the head and leaving the original body. In the Temple of Athena, 6 women statues were used as the columns holding up the portico. The 3 women on the left had their left knee bent and the three ladies on the right had their right knees bent, allowing for perfect symmetry. The statue of Athena had her wings clipped so that her powers would always remained in the city of Athens.

Greece has a special marble, the angelic marble, that cannot be shipped outside Greece, and is only used to repair the statues.

The Parthenon was a temple of virgins. Athena was the ever virgin. Owls were used to signify Athena’s wisdom.

In 54 AD, St. Paul addressed the Athenians and converted Senator Dionysius who became the first bishop of Athens.

In 393 AD, the temples started turning into mosques. Mosques are temples honoring the pagan god, allah, the god of the muslims.

In 1896 the modern Olympiad was built for the Olympian games.