The amount of history in this country is mind blowing.

I think I first realised this when we finally visited the Acropolis, on the forth day of being in Athens. Work is currently underway to renovate and rebuild parts of the Parthenon, so that at least the parts which are known and found, can be experienced as in the days of old. The trouble is: Which age are we talking about?

This is greatly underlined when visiting the brand new Acropolis museum, which does a quite good job at giving an overview of the history of the Acropolis. The first temple (not the first building, that was even earlier) was build in the 6th century BC. The fact that it was burned down by the Persians shortly after isn't just a story from some greek or roman historian, but emphasised by the burn marks on the statues and other stones found from that era. So the new Parthenon came to be, which is basically the temple one nowadays knows.

But, of course, when Christianity took hold, all those gods along the top sides of the temple had to go, so one part of it had to make place for a big cross, and the center of the temple was transformed to a church. When the ottoman Turks came, they in turn added a minarett tower to the ensemble, peeking it's head through the middle of the whole building, before it was blown up by Venetian bombardment. So, when now resurrecting the buildings of the Acropolis, which epoch do you choose? Athens had, after being the birthplace of democracy, had a plethora of rulers: first the Romans, then the Byzantine empire, after some time the Ottoman empire, before finally Greece regained independence. Every time had to add something to the whole.

This gets even more evident in the ancient Agora of Athens, the marketplace and central public space. The whole area was filled with buildings and Stoas, the philosophical schools, sponsored by all kinds of rich entities around the Mediterranean. Later, a roman agora was added, just because, you know.

What gave some more depth and actually made it most real for us was the site of Kerameikos, the best preserved part of the ancient city walls. Outside the walls were the tombs of the VIPs, along the streets leaving the town (the more important, the closer to the city, the tombs extended out for miles and miles), inside of the walls where the fountain house to clench your thirst after a long travel to Athens, and a tavern with its ancient riches. With the Acropolis as a backdrop, one can imagine what a sight this city must have been, for the traveller arriving at its enormous city gates.

If was astounded on how much of the old ages has been preserved, and can still be experienced today. Taking the time to walk all the archaeological sites and read all about it in museum around the city was totally worth it. Oh, and, dear British Museum: Please get your act together and give the Athenians their temple back. This is ridiculous.