Attica: Thorikos and Sounion

We got off of the ferry and the bus driver picked us up and dropped up off at a Starbucks a few minutes down the road. This was the third Starbucks I'd seen on the trip, and the third Starbucks I'd seen completely empty on the trip, because the Greeks wouldn't go into one if you paid them. This is also true of Kat, the Greek-American in our group, and by this point we'd all started trying to go local and shared her indignation. So something like nine of us out of the thirteen marched down the street to the nearest periptero. The normal translation for that is kiosk, and it's basically some Greek guy on a stool who's built a shack around himself out of cigarettes, chewing gum, public transportation tickets, potatoe chips and Greek junk food. They also all have a cooler with water, soda, juice and the two brands of foreign beer they sell in Greece (Heineken and Amstel, who must share a rivalry as intense as Coke v. Pepsi). Most of them even have a freezer with cheap ice cream, too. Anyway, while this makes us all feel appropriately Greek, the food is probably more expensive and less good than if we'd all stayed at Starbucks and I ended up finishing Dr. Farney's muffin.
Leaving Starbucks, we drove about an hour and a half east to the end of the Attic penninsula to hit two more sites before our day off and the test. The first of these was Thorikos, which I don't have any pictures of because I left my camera on the bus. Thorikos has two big claims to fame and they're both pretty well-preserved and reconstructed. The first is that it was a mine, and the source of silver that bought Athens its navy and, in the long run, is probably the reason we're not all Zoroastrians. They've got some of the equipment used for filtering the silver, lead and copper from each other and the useless rock, and it gave us a pretty good idea of how little anybody would enjoy ancient mining. The other noteworthy point is that we got to sit in the oldest stone theater in Greece. They'd been making theaters for some time, but the audience just sat on the hillside, like lawn seating at an outdoor concert. Actually, most of the stone seating in theaters and stadiums was later done under the Romans. Anyway, it was kind of cool, and because it was an early attempt they messed up and the theater is more oval than a perfect semi-circle.

The next stop was Sounion at the very tip of the Attic penninsula. Once a wealthy town under Athenian control, all that was left by the end of antiquity is the fortified hilltop with the temple of Poseidon on it. The area was important to sailors heading east to Euboeia, northern Greece and points further east. The temple also made it into the 19th century, unlike most Greek buildings, mostly intact, above ground, and without being converted into something else. You also can't beat the view. Because of this it became one of the main inspirations for neoclassical architecture and a popular tourist destination for the European Romantics coming to Greece in droves to fight in the war of independence. One of the more famous of these, Lord Byron, joined in the tradition of carving your name into the building. We didn't see any British poets, but there was a grouse, which I, for whatever reason, found important enough to take a picture of. Probably because of the Tom Stoppard play "Arcadia", which is named after a part of Greece and features both Byron and grouse.
Another good shot of the temple. Again, this is both better preserved and more impressive than the other stuff we've seen because it's later. After crushing a few Spartans at Thermopylae, Xerxes and the Persian army marched mostly unopposed down to Athens, where they burned the city and the surrounding countryside. Fortunately, everyone who wasn't retreating with the Athenian army to Corinth was loaded onto the ships of the Athenian navy and carried to safety. After Xerxes withdrew with some of his army to put down a rebellion, the Athenians beat the remaining Persian navy at Salamis and their allies finished off the remaining army at Plateia. After this there was a big oath to not rebuild any of their temples until they'd beaten the Persians, but that only lasted until they made a real peace treaty with them in the 440s. At this point, the Athenians had access to a huge treasury they'd been collecting from their allies in case of another Persian invasion, and decided to spend it all on contruction projects. This temple is one of them, as is the temple of Hephaestus in Athens and all of the stuff on the Acropolis.
Looking down.
Another horrible candid of my professors.
A lonely olive tree.
Unlike the Americans, the Greeks aren't exactly obsessed with safety precautions. For example, I saw a construction worker in Pylos using a jackhammer while wearing sandals. So it's always fun to see where they think of putting warning signs. As a side note, Dr. Farney's favorite warning sign is in Italy and reads "Attenti! Viperi!" or "Attention! Vipers!". Helpfully enough the sign was actually sitting right next to a sleeping viper.
The girls, so small that I can't really identify them individually.
A hole in the wall.
The view from the taverna we passed through on the way back to the bus.

After this we were driven back to Athens and given a day off. The next day was Ana's birthday, so we went to this club at the shore to celebrate. It was a nice, open air place with free couches and pleasant but boring European techno. The evening was pretty fun and we got to sleep in the next morning.