Acropolis Special

The Acropolis and the Parthenon is one of those iconic places that has seeped into the popular consciousness of most of the human population. In this way it is reached the situation that other heritage sites have reached such as Stonehenge in that perhaps to fully have the monument fulfill the expectations we have of it, it is best perhaps never to visit. The number of times I've heard 'It was way smaller than I imagined' about various places.
Real life simply cannot compete with glossy, artsy photography shot with exactly the right light in exactly the right conditions with no tourists in sight, or sitting back watching the same scenes in HD with stirring orchestral music and an Charlton Heston telling the colourful story of the monument as you sit in your darkened living room, fully hydrated.

The great staircase

Restoration work

People say they are trying to rebuild it, or at least put the roof back on

From the amount of new stone this is clearly not a conservation job...

The modern counterpart of the holy olive tree

A warden bunker, every now and again an angry man or woman emerges from one of these and blows a whistle at the naughty tourists before telling them to behave and going back inside.

My host's apartment was half way up this hill.

wow

hehehe, iz at yr parthanon, steelin' yr marbles

Dionysian Theatre

My trip to the acropolis in Athens was more of a pilgrimage to a site that I had revered for a long time. It symbolises a lot to the Greeks, but also to everyone else. The decision to restore much of the 5th century structure at the detriment (as in complete obliteration) of subsequent wall, buildings and defenses leaves me a little speechless. I came to see the Parthenon as a ruin. It had been ruined by the deliberate and accidental acts of people over history, but that, in my opinion is history, things happen, empires rise and fall. the story continues to be written if we ignore it or not, there was no golden age of civilisation here, instead for 2,600 years of civilisation has ebbed and flowed around the monuments here leaving it's mark as the sea does to the cliffs. 
It makes me sad to think the current custodians of the acropolis think they should and can turn time back, in effect re-writing history.