Travel

Kicked off the Acropolis

Filming in Athens today for the podcasts that go along with my book, Pilgrim in the Palace of Words. It’s hot, like 38 Celcius (that’s what, for my American friends, about 200 Fahrenheit?). I was up on the Acropolis shooting some footage when I was stopped by the guards because I didn’t have a permit. They escorted me out (but I’d already got everything I needed – heh heh heh). Later went to the new Acropolis museum that just opened in June. It was supposed to be opened for the Athens Olympics but when they started digging the foundations, of course, they found ruins and that slowed it all down. The museum is beautiful and the whole intent is really to prove to the British Museum in London that they should send the famous Elgin marbles back to Greece. Lord Elgin took all the statuary from the Parthenon in the 1800’s (or the bits that survived a Turkish explosion anyway) and the British have always argued that the statues couldn’t be properly taken care of in Athens (what with the acid rain – remember acid rain?) but they have no excuse now. Time to ship those treasures back. They do belong here.

Tags: Acropolis, Athens, British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Glenn Dixon, Greece, Parthenon, Pilgrim in the Palace of Words

About the author

I've paddled a dugout canoe up the headwaters of the Amazon. I've hiked over the Andes to the lost city of Machu Picchu. I've wandered through the Dalai Lama's palace in Tibet. I have camped under the palm trees in Tahiti. I've cried at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. I've fallen in love in Prague, fallen off a cliff in Turkey and fallen for a thief's clever ruse in the back alleys of Kathmandu. And this is my story.