Visit The Parthenon

visit-the-parthenon
Visiting Athens and not going to see The Parthenon is like going to Italy and not eating a pizza or like being in Paris and not eating a crèpe. It is undoubtedly the greatest jewel of Greece and the main tourist destination for all travelers who come to the city of Athens. It was built about 400 years before the birth of Christ and is 10 m high. It began to be built almost exclusively with white marble from Mount Pentelic and it is a work begun by Pericles to thank the Greek gods for their victory against the Persians. In the following centuries it became a Latin church, a Byzantine church and even a Muslim mosque, until in 1687 the Turks used it as a depository for gunpowder during the Venetian siege.

Its current image, half demolished , is due to one of the Venetian bombs, which when it fell there left it as it is preserved until today, being the best known ruins in the world. The decoration of the Parthenon is a unique combination of the tympanums, metopes and a sculpted bas-relief frieze. In them various scenes from Greek mythology are represented. It remains the greatest exponent of the Doric style. It is one of the clearest examples of the excellent knowledge of geometry that the Greek architects and mathematicians of the time had. The architects achieved a visual effect that when you see it you do not appreciate the deformations that are perceived if you are in the vicinity of the great monuments, a unique perspective.

The Parthenon is on the Acropolis of Athens, in the upper part of the city and the entire area can be visited from 8 in the morning to 7 in the afternoon. In the Acropolis you can enjoy other historical wonders such as the Erechtheion, the Temple of Athena Nike, in Pandroseion or Propylaea, but those are monuments that deserve a separate article so they will have it in due course.