In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we make our final push north to mainland Greece and we go back in time to visit the Acropolis where the ancient Greek Part...
Closed Captions (CC):
Well we nearly made it. Our tram which
is just parked here took us to here and the
tram ain't going no further because of that over
there. So we're gonna get on the
interwebs, find out where we are and find out
how far it is to get to where we want to go
Lost in Athens!
We're leaving Kythnos us today
and we're heading for mainland Greece
Yeah it's a big thing you can't miss it
it's just over there, so even with or
without an auto pilot we're bound to get
there. Yeah yeah so we're hoping for fair
winds and calm seas and off we go
yeah almost our final push north
depending on what our plans are for the
winter and we have a plan that's in
motion and we'll let you know about it
as soon as we've confirmed it but in the
meantime we'll see you in Greece, mainland
We will yeah.
We had between 12 and 18 knots of wind
on our passage and speeds between 5.2
and 6.4 knots along the way
And after just over five hours we
arrived at Sounion and anchored in sand
in four metres with 36 metres of chain
out. We were finally on the Greek
mainland overlooked by the Temple of
Poseidon on the cliff on the edge of the bay
Monday morning just after first light I
was woken up by a banging and a
clattering outside. Going up on deck what
did I see but the big red monster
machine and the blokes at work building
a new breakwater just off our starboard side
Because we want to go to Athens to buy a
couple of things and also see the Parthenon
we've decided that today's a good day to
leave Sounion where we stayed overnight
last night and go to Varkiza, which is
much closer to Athens and it will allow
us to get public transport fairly easily.
The weather's really nice there's a light
breeze, not too sure until we get around
the headland what we're going to find
whether it's sailable, on the nose or what have you
There's quite a few yachts around, there's about
ten yachts within visual distance and a couple of tankers
as well. It's quite a busy area obviously coz
Piraeus is just around the corner. It should
take us about three hours I think it's
about 15 and nautical miles
so we'll see you when we get there
We've arrived. Yes bang on time, 3 hours exactly. Yep and we did get a
bit of sailing to start with didn't we?
Yeah but then the wind when we came past
the island the wind was on the nose and
sails away unfortunately. Yeah
Strangely enough we looked at the forecast
this morning and this was not meant to
be happening here wind wise so you just
never know what you're gonna get really
You can look at all the predictions you want but
the reality of what you see on the ground
or on the sea is what you've got to deal
with so it's a westerly - yeah it's coming
from the west! It's what 20 knots? About 20 knots yeah yep so we're in what four
metres did you say that? We are in four metres of
water and it's a sandy bottom and we've
got thirty metres of chain out which is
eight to one, plenty. We're not going anywhere are we?
So I'm gonna dive the anchor and take
the chances with the two wind surfers
yeah the wind surfers so I'll put
something bright on
Well this is it
we've made it to mainland Greece and
today we're gonna go back in time to the
Parthenon yeah we're gonna catch a bus
up to Athens itself
yeah and then we will find a way to the
chandler we need to go visit and then
we'll find either a bus or a tram to
take us to the Acropolis where the
Parthenon exists. It's so exciting! It is.
Oh gosh we moored the dinghy at the dock there and it's
the wall is really high! Yeah. Oh, that was fun
getting back in's gonna be fun as well! Well it's easy you got gravity working
with you when you get back in. That's true yeah. Just
jump. Take all the bags off first
Anyway we've got to catch a number 122
bus - yep - which will whisk us to our
destination. Yes so excited. Yep
We now have a mantus 10mm chain hook
sing the praises of Mantus. In Mantus we trust
So that's part one. The next bit is to do a 15 minute walk to the tram stop and take
the tram to the Parthenon in Athens, mainland Greece. Wow!
Well we nearly made it. Our tram which
is just parked here took us to here and
the tram ain't goint no further because of that over there
I think they call that the end of the line
So we're gonna get on the interwebs,
find out where we are and find out how far
it is to get to where we want to go.
Lost in Athens
We are currently
strolling through the back streets of
Athens and we've come across something and
we want to know which of our viewers can
tell us what they are. We do know what
they are - do you know what they are?
Leave your answers in the comment
section down below. Yeah
I think we've found it
Crikey, all that scaffolding, they're
probably still building it. They've been
working on it for 30 years - restoration - yeah - and they reckon they've go another 30 years worth of work. Wow
Onwards and upwards then
I'm not sure what time it is, probably about
two o'clock - maybe a bit more
but we've finally arrived and we've got to
climb up some more steps
Right let's get in there, it's not as
busy as we thought it was gonna be
I guess it's coming to the end of the
summer season. I mean when you look at
all the ticket booths that are around
you can see that they're set up for thousands of people. Yeah
Yeah and I think we're fortunate we've come when we have. Yep.
I've a feeling we're not allowed to drink drinks inside.
So it's 20 Euros
per ticket to see the Acropolis and
there are several other sites around. If
you buy a 30 euro ticket then you can go
to all the other sites and that ticket
is valid for five days, but really we
just want to see the Acropolis not the
other things. Well contrary to what we read on the website you can come in here
with backpacks on I think what you're
not allowed to do is bring suitcases and
large holdalls. But backpacks of our
size are certainly okay. Another thing the
polished marble on the path is really
slippery so just be aware that when you
choose your footwear
So you can see where they're reconstructing these parts
Just before we left boat this morning I
was having a conversation in the chat
section underneath one of our videos
with Murray who is a longtime subscriber
and patron and he was telling me that
they built this with very good advanced
mathematics and one of the things they
used to figure out how everything was
going to be put together was the
Fibonacci sequence
Go figure. No pun intended there of
course. Now I don't know if you can see but
up there I heard rumours that this is the
inspiration that the creators of Lego
got their idea for Lego making. It's not
true by the wa,y it's not true, I'm just joking
Here's what these Lego pieces
look like close up. You can see they've also got a
slight angle to them so if this was if
this block was actually flat horizontal
and they would be slightly angled. Clever people, very clever people.
I don't know if you can see but all the way up
there is a horse's head and it looks
perfectly like a horse's head and the
roofline used to go up to a V into a
point and there was a freize across the
top of there but a Pommy bloke called Elgin came along
and stole them all
Hmm less said about that the better
Just look at the detail here in this carving
These columns were made in the Doric
fashion which means that they've got
very plain tops and they also don't have
any base stone at the bottom
Doric temples were built to look very
much like the original wooden temples
Here's an example of an Ionic building
with the scrolls at the top and the
columns sitting on a base, so this
building is slightly newer than the Parthenon
In order to make the columns
look straight they are actually
very finely tapered because it gives an
optical illusion of straight columns
when you look from the distance and
apparently every single column is made
uniquely see even though they're made
with individual parts you couldn't sort
of swap a couple of parts from one
column with another one because they're
all unique to each particular column, isn't that amazing? Clever people very clever people
What we're looking at here are actually
copies of the Caryatids I believe that's
what they're called the columns carved
like women that are holding up the roof
of this little temple and originally in
the 19th century Lord Elgin carried off
the third from the West and also the
column of the northeast corner. They've
been replaced by copies, in fact I
believe all of them are now copies so the
others are in safekeeping but Lord Elgin
took those columns and he also took a
lot of the freize from the Parthenon back
to the UK where they are now situated in
the British Museum and there's some
contention as to whether the British
Museum will send them back to Greece
because Greece wants them back
We'll see what happens
Now that looks interesting
There's no plaque here to tell us what
that is, there is a plaque just up ahead
on the path here, maybe that tells us
what that is but it's er fascinating
The only problem here is the ground is so
uneven and you're trying to look up at things
but you've got to keep an eye on where you're walking
We've been enlightened. St. Mary of the
Cave. Unfortunately we can't go in there
which is a shame because
looking at this picture or sketch it would be fascinating
Time to go? I think so. It's been huge hasn't it? Yeah
It's well worth the money and you know that you're paying towards the restoration
We came, we saw, we walked
Now we got to get back to the boat. Yeah
More walking. More walking!
And trying to find the right tram and the
right bus. Yeah before it gets dark. Yeah
What an adventure Baz. It is
Join us next
week on Sailing A B Sea as we experience big
wins at Varkiza, install our Mantus chain hook and meet
friends in the Evia passage on the way to Porto Rafti. Like our vlogs? Give us a
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