During our last couple of days in Naxos, I began thinking about how I might like to spend our last day in Athens – we were to arrive at 6 PM; Sam and Nafisa and their children would need to leave for the airport at 2:30 for their flight home, and we would have to leave at about 7:30 for our flight home. I thought about where we might have dinner with Sam and Nafisa and the kids, but also what we we might do together the following day, and what Nancy and I might do on that final afternoon. I had been reading in my archeology book, Ancient Greece: An Explorers Guide, about some ruins just to the west of the Acropolis that might be fun to explore. And maybe we could go past the Parliament building atop Syntagma Square, letting Abe see the costumed Evzones perform the full Sunday morning ceremonial changing of the guard, with their fancy uniforms. And I was thinking that maybe we could end up at the Museum of Cycladic Art, because – I admit it– ever since I first saw the Cycladic collection at the very beginning of our tour of the National Archeological Museum, I had developed an admiration for those figures. It turned out that the Cycladic collection was but part of what that museum had to offer.
Well, those plans were mostly out the window, not least because of our late arrival thanks to Olympic Airways’ incompetence, as well as the delay in our luggage due to Olympic’s incompetence-at-best. We had to wait at the apartment until we could find out that our luggage was in, and getting the luggage; there were contents that needed to be sorted between Sam and Nafisa’s bags and our own. And then there was the extreme heat – Athens was so hot that they closed the Acropolis to keep tourists safe.
We heard by late morning that all of our luggage had reached Athens airport on early and mid-morning flights out of Naxos, but it remained uncertain whether it would be delivered to us by the time Sam and Nafisa had to head back to the airport, so we told the luggage service that we would pick up our luggage just before checking in for our flights that afternoon and evening. That would also make it unnecessary to get a big van to take Sam and Nafisa out to the airport. Still, we lingered in the nicely air-conditioned apartment, having leftovers for lunch, until it was time for Sam and Nafisa to leave for the airport . Nancy and I then decided that we would spend our afternoon at the Cycladic Museum.
On the way, we passed a small troop of Evzones marching their way toward the front of the Parliament;
then, along the wall along the north end of the National Garden, we passed an exhibit of poster-sized photographs
Then, after passing the Benaki where Joe and I had visited during out previous time in Athens, here was the Museum of Cycladic Art
In addition to the permanent collection, for some euros extra we could also have seen a temporary exhibition drawing on the connections between Picasso and Cycladic art; the teaser was the photo on the left, from Picasso’s studio, next to a Roman copy of the 5th century BC torso of the minotaur.
To my regret (we only had so much time!), we passed on that and plunged into the collection of Cycladic statuary, beginning with this very typical feminine figurine from the middle of the third millennium BC, standing in the customary pose with arms folded across her slightly swollen abdomen
Then, we went even further back in time to see statuary from the neolithic period, late fourth to early third millennium
This one was from the late 5th to early 4th millenium
Some pots from the third millennium period
And here, a head alone
This is one of the rare figurines shown lying prone
This feminine figurine is from later in the third millennium
A group of smaller items
The figure shown at the top of the page was just about as tall as Nancy (who agreed to be photographed standing next to it, in folded-arms position, on my promise not to post that photo here!)
And here a more slender figurine
and rare figurine in the sitting position; also rare for this period is to see an arm extended
These are male figurines, also fairly rare in Cycladic art
From the second millennium BC come these bull-shaped vessels
And then we moved into figures from the Mycenaean period, the second half of the second millennium, one of them with that period’s familiar “arms-outstretched” stance
These animal figurines and amphora are from still later, the Archaic period, the 8th century BC
As were these pots, one of which had a marvelous four-horse lid
Into the seventh century BC for this “rooster alabastron”
Here, a wine jug from the classical period, in the 5th Century BC
There followed several displays of vases painted red on black from the classical period
These smaller figurines would have been used in the graves of ordinary people to link them to the gods
These are funerary steles from the 4th century BC
The next floor of the museum shifted focus to a different island – the art of Cyprus (which mirrored the trends on the Greek mainland)
This figurine from the third millennium BC was a rougher version of figurines being made in the Cyclades (I cannot figure out why it appears sideways!)
These jugs with multiple spouts were unique
Here are Cypriot funerary monuments from 300 BC and AD
and zoomorphic rattles from 600 to 480 BC
The final floor of the museum shifted focus again – it juxtaposed various art-forms spanning the Classical, Hellenistic and early Roman periods, grouped by themesto show “Scenes from Daily Life in Antiquity,” such as toiletry, weddings, war, and athletics
We walked back to our apartment, and headed off for an early dinner. I took Nancy back to Anafiotika, with its lovely scene along the steep street, steps down the center and cafes all along the side, for yet another excellent dinner
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| Secne from a midcentury Greek movie at Anafiotika Restaurant in Athens |
Our waiter explained that the legend on the table mat above refers to “neighborhood tastes, basil and gesso.”
And then we were off to the airport for the long set of flights home. It had been a wonderful vacation despite the bumps along the way
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