Athens, Delphi, Hosios Loukas, Cape Sounion: Wonders of mainland Greece

Greece is made up of three geographic regions. To the north, continental Greece with the cities of Athens and Delphi. To the south, separated by the Gulf of Corinth, the Peloponnese Peninsula with the cities Epidaurus and Mycenae. And of course, the islands that make up one-fifth of the total surface area of the country. After the civilizations of the Cyclades and Crete concentrated on the islands, the Mycenaean civilization flourished on the continent from the 16th to the 12th centuries BC. Then invasions resulted in the destruction of the civilization and marked the beginning of the ancient Greek period, the classical or golden age of which was between the 6th and 3rd century BC, with Athens as its leading city. After that, the Romans and the Ottomans took control of the country and molded it to their cultures. Gaining independence in the 19th century, Greece then became a popular part of the world for cultural as well as seaside tourism, thanks to its Mediterranean climate. Today, Athens is the capital and largest city of the country with 750,000 inhabitants and over 3 million including its surroundings. It is the political, economic and cultural heart of the Hellenic Republic and holds the majority of its institutions, like the Parliament, the Supreme Court and the headquarters of the government. But Athens is also one of the most ancient cities in the world, founded around the year 800 BC with the fusion of several villages around the protected site of the Acropolis. The Acropolis is a rocky plateau around 148 meters high, the flat top of which measures 300 meters east to west and 85 meters north to south. It is only accessible via a steep slope on the western side. Traces of occupation dating to the Bronze Age have been discovered. Then, in the 13th century BC, it was used for a fortress where the king lived which was surrounded by powerful Cyclopean walls. After the fall of the Mycenaean civilization during the archaic period of antiquity, all the old fortifications, buildings and statues were destroyed during the Persian occupation of Athens. Then, entirely rebuilt in the classical era of the 5th century BC, the Acropolis was no longer a fortress and became a sanctuary sheltering several monuments and temples. Now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is one of the most visited touristic sites in the world. Standing majestically on the Acropolis, the Parthenon is the symbol of ancient Greece. The 70 meter long by 31 meter wide building was made entirely from marble and since antiquity it has been considered a perfect representation of Doric architecture. The 46 columns over 10 meters high have smooth capitals and the layout follows a rigorous sense of proportions. While today the work of the hundreds of sculptors is bleached white by the sun, the sculptors were originally painted various colors and decorated with gilded bronze in places. On the pediments and on the entablatures resting on the colonnade, the episodes portrayed deal as much with myth as with history and politics. And the history of Athena, the daughter of Zeus, was naturally in the spotlight. She was the patron goddess of the city and the Parthenon was her home. In this sense the building was more than a temple, it was a treasury that stood as a place of tribute to her. The Erechtheion was the real temple where the goddess was worshipped. Constructed shortly after the Parthenon, it replaced an ancient temple which held a sacred statue made of olive wood. The religious ceremonies themselves were held on an outdoor altar. Later on then, the Baroque succeeded classicism here and simplicity gave way to refinement. It is the triumph of the Ionic style. Attached to the temple, on the southern side, there is the famous porch of the Karyatids where six statues of draped young women serve as columns supporting the entablature. The creation of this porch was a revolution at the time due to the use of the women, even if the clear folds of their peploi evoke the grooves of a column. With a rare postural elegance, each supports a capital that has the appearance of a basket. The braids and curls of their hairstyles are all different and frame very noble faces. It was the last monument erected on the Acropolis before the end of the 5th century BC and is renowned for its elegant and unusual architecture. We leave the Acropolis from the same pathway in which we arrived, the sacred path that traverses the entire site and passes through the Propylaia, which are the monuments that make up the entrance to the sacred hill. On the slope of the Acropolis, there is the most important theater of ancient Greece, the theater of Dionysus, the god of wine. The major celebrations of Dionysia were held there each year in his honor. They initially consisted of songs, dances and ritual sacrifices, taking the form of theatrical performances. Its construction goes back to the 5th century BC and in the beginning it consisted of only a hemispherical orchestra with a dirt floor in front of a wooden stage and the spectator sat on the natural slope of the site. The stone structure that we can admire today was built 100 years later. The first row of seats consisted of 67 marble thrones, reserved for various dignitaries, magistrates, important people and judges of the competition. Then, going up, the theater had 78 rows of seats and could hold 17,000 spectators. The great Dionysia took place before the statue of the god and were presided over by a great priest in the spring of each year. During these celebrations, all the city's activities stopped and the citizens were all invited to participate in the event, which strengthened social cohesion. What's more, even the prisoners were temporarily free to participate in the festival. This event also attracted a considerable number of foreigners, merchants and allies of the city of Athens. The famous classical tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were created for this occasion, which made this structure the cradle of the ancient Greek drama and tragedy that is still taught today in schools around the world. In the 3rd century BC, the decline of the military power of Greece, faced with all kinds of pirates, led the Romans to conquer the country and include it in the Roman Empire. For five centuries, local life continued more or less as it was before, and in fact, Greek culture greatly influenced Roman culture, which we now call Greco-Roman culture. The theater of Herodes Atticus, a great Roman dignitary and a rich friend of the emperor, is a vestige of this era. It was built on the slope of the Acropolis in the year 161. From the beginning, the main function of this audio room was a site for the performance of theater and music. Its excellent acoustic qualities made it an exceptional performance space. The building was rather small and could hold 5,000 spectators, while the population of the city totaled 300,000 inhabitants. There was a restoration of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in the 1950s and the concentric rows of seats were refurbished. They stage various tragedies, operas and dance performances there, including the International Festival of Athens, which is held here each year from May to September. At the foot of the sacred hill, a new museum was created in 2009 to shelter objects from the monuments and excavations on the Acropolis. Built on stilts, the museum preserves and incorporates an archaeological site unearthed during its construction. The distribution of the pillars was dictated by the location of the vestiges. With a surface area of 25,000 square meters, ten times larger than the old museum, it can also exhibit numerous objects that were previously held in storage. Notably, it holds the originals of the Karyatids, which were replaced with copies on site. The goal is to protect all these masterpieces that deteriorate in the open air due to chemical reactions with the pollution of the city, which eats away at the stone. Four of the Karyatids are originals, the fifth is a copy, and as for the sixth, it is held in the British Museum in London. There is also the Great Frieze from the Parthenon, which shows the major procession given by the city in honor of the goddess Athena, which took place every four years. On this day, a procession made its way towards the Temple of Athena, the Erechtheion, in order to leave offerings at the foot of the statue of the goddess. The frieze, which portrays this event, was made of 115 blocks and had a total length of 160 meters, completely encircling the Parthenon. Fifty meters of what remains of the frieze are here in the Acropolis Museum. Eighty meters are in the British Museum in London, one block is in the Louvre Museum in Paris, and other fragments are dispersed throughout various European museums. But in Athens, the vestiges of ancient Greece do not stop at the Acropolis. Spread throughout the city, the remains of this golden age appear suddenly amidst the modernity, like clues to decode to uncover its history. At the foot of the Acropolis, the Agora was the meeting place and market of the city. It was also where there were government buildings and democratic institutions, as well as various religious edifices and courts. Little by little, during the long Byzantine period that followed the Roman era, as the city contracted following barbarian invasions, the Agora became a simple working-class area in the small town that Athens had become. Much later, in the 19th century, the houses built on the remains of this square were progressively purchased and razed, and the ancient site was cleared. Among the vestiges, a statue of Hadrian shows the overlapping of the Greek world and the Roman Empire between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD. On the armor of the emperor, Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, stands above a wolf, the symbol of Rome. This not only means that Rome supported Greece, but also that Greek culture dominated Rome. This is a reminder that Rome, after having conquered and brutalized the Greeks, had been fascinated by Hellenistic culture, starting with the reigns of Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Hadrian, who considerably enlarged the city. But back to the golden age of ancient Greece. On the Agora, there's the temple of Hephaestus, the god of fire and brother of Athena. Like the Parthenon, this temple dates from the 5th century BC. It is the best-conserved ancient monument in Athens. Here, too, the Doric columns are slightly bulged to give the temple a slender silhouette for those who look towards the top. Opened in 415, it is made entirely of marble and its proportions also conform to the golden ratio. The friezes evoke the combat and victory of Theseus, the mythical founder of Athens, over the centaurs, creatures that were half man, half horse. All around the temple, sacred plants like pomegranate, myrtle, and bay trees were planted to add to its harmony. Apart from the Romans, the Christians considerably changed the country starting in the 1st century. This was the slow but inexorable passage from polytheism to monotheism. Located near the southern entrance to the Agora, the Church of the Holy Apostles was the first large church in Athens, even if today it resembles something more like a small neighborhood church. It was built at the end of the 10th century on the site of an ancient Greek temple in order to cover the growing need for parishes in a constantly evolving city. It contains a certain number of 17th century frescoes. The initial outline of the church was a cross shape with a marble floor and altar. In the eastern part of the Agora, the Stoa of Attalos is a portico that contained around 40 shops in ancient times. It was a shopping center that was rebuilt identically in the 1950s and now holds the museum of the ancient Agora. Among its treasures, there's a beautiful statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality, with a magnificent drape effect. And two statues, one of which represents the Odyssey, Homer's literary masterpiece from the 7th century B.C., which recounts the adventures of Ulysses. And the other, the Iliad, which evokes the Trojan War with heroes like Achilles. These two statues represent the two founding poems of all European culture. On Monastiraki Square, a mosque is a reminder that Greece was also part of the Ottoman Empire. This is the area where the city's flea market is now held. On the square, the Church of the Pantanasa is the only vestige of a 10th century monastery that is now gone. Just behind the ancient mosque, Hadrian's Library had been created by the Roman emperor in the year 132. It had contained over 20,000 papyrus scrolls. In the Byzantine era, after the destruction of the city by the Visigoths, people who came from the Ukraine in the 3rd century, three churches were built on the site. Ermou Street is the long, several-kilometer thoroughfare that joins the archaeological center and the city center. Its pedestrian zone is the most popular and well-known shopping area. With its high-end fashion boutiques and shopping centers, it is one of the top 10 most expensive shopping streets in the world. In a small square right in the middle, there's a small Byzantine church probably built around the year 1050. As was often the case with the first Christian churches, it was built in the sight of an ancient Greek pagan temple dedicated to the worship of a goddess, certainly Athena or Demeter. The walk continues by plunging into the small streets of the Plaka. It is the old historic neighborhood of Athens, clustered around the northeastern slopes of the Acropolis. It is mainly built around the ruins of the ancient Agora, in an area that has been continuously inhabited since the ancient times. During the Ottoman domination, Plaka was known as the Turkish Quarter of Athens. In a maze of small streets, the houses are painted in pastel hues or more vivid colors, and it is now a very popular touristic neighborhood where there are numerous restaurants and souvenir shops. Adjacent to the old quarter, the Agora called the Roman Agora was begun by the emperor Augustus at the end of the pre-Christian era. This Agora was meant to complement the first, which was by then very crowded. It was a large 111 by 98 meters square, surrounded by four-columned porticos. The Tower of the Wind stands on the eastern side. This octagonal tower was a monumental hydraulic clock that worked on the principle of a regular flow of water over time. It is remarkable for the high relief figures of the gods of the wind that decorate each of its eight sides. Furthermore, each of the sides of the monument is exposed to the sun at a precise time of day. The large, central rectangular space was surrounded by shops and contained public latrines. The western entrance has retained its monumental gate marked by historic columns topped by a pediment. It was the Gate of Athena. During the Ottoman period, the Roman Agora was built over by houses that would only be demolished in the 19th century when the square was brought back to light. Overlooking the Agora's, the Penix Hill was the seat of the assembly of citizens who voted on laws and budgets or the selection of judges by raising their hands. The site was more calm than the Agora and conducive to the various debates. After Caesar and Augustus, it was the emperor Hadrian who worked the most for the city during the Roman period. Many monuments still attest to that involvement today. First of all, this arch, which was built in his honor after his visit to Athens in 131. It marked the entrance of the new Athens that the emperor hoped for. It's a small, triumphal arc in the Roman style topped by a light superstructure of Corinthian columns and a pediment in a Hellenistic style. The monument measures 18 meters high and 12.5 meters wide. A little further away, there's the Olympion, the Temple of Zeus. Its construction, which began in the 6th century BC, was finished by Hadrian in the year 131. Its sponsors wanted to make it the largest temple in the world. But of this 108 meter long temple that had 104 17 meter high columns, only 15 columns remain today, supporting a few architraves. The capitals are Corinthian, sculpted and plant-like. Hadrian dedicated the temple to Zeus, the supreme god of Greek mythology. He was the god of the air, the blue sky, and the weather. He is the protector of the laws of the world and gradually became the god of gods. Ammonia Square, or Concord Square, is one of the main squares of Athens. It is the former town center rebuilt in the 1970s and now rather notorious after dark. Not far away, the National Library of Greece is a 19th century building made of white marble that evokes a Doric temple. This is what is known as neoclassical architecture. This library contains centuries of knowledge and holds no less than 500,000 volumes and 3,000 manuscripts. It was financed by a member of the rich Valianos family, whose statue stands at the entrance. Founded on May 3rd, 1837, the University of Athens is the oldest university of the East Mediterranean. Today, it is the second largest but most prestigious in Greece, with over 50,000 students. On the square, a statue of Ioannis Kapodistrias, the governor of the Young Greek Republic, freed from the Ottoman Empire in 1830. Behind the portico of the façade that makes you think of an ancient temple, a fresco depicts a good number of illustrious characters from ancient Greece, as well as allegories of the disciplines taught at the university, like medicine and theology, or astronomy and physics. Like the library and the university, the Academy of Athens perfectly illustrates the wave of neoclassicism that swept through the Greek capital in the 19th century. Here, it's the domains of science, the humanities, and the fine arts. The birth of Athena figures on the pediment. To the left, a statue of Plato, a philosopher of antiquity, is flanked by a statue of Athena perched on the top of an Ionic column. As the patron of the city, as well as the goddess of knowledge and wisdom, Athena naturally has her place here. To the right, it's Apollo, the god of musicians, who stands above Socrates, another philosopher from antiquity. Here, too, the Corinthian columns and the marble dominate the classical style. And on the inside, the frescoes recall all the unifying mythology of the Greek nation. After having gained independence in the 19th century, the country rebuilt itself. Athens, which had become a small town, raised its old neighborhoods and opened wide avenues bordered by modern buildings. And turning its back on the Ottomans, it became deeply Europeanized as a just reward. Kolonaki, the little column, is a rich area in the center of Athens with its proximity to government buildings like the parliament and the presidential mansion. Syntagma Square, or the Constitution Square, is found there. Luxury, haute couture, and jewelry shops abound here, as well as restaurants and fashionable cafes. It is the symbol of independent, modern Greece. In the center, there's a marble fountain that is a key meeting point for the Greek people, who like to meet there for demonstrations. In a way, it is the modern agora of the city. But Greece is not confined to Athens, it's capital. Since the beginning of its history, the cities held sway and fought wars to establish their superiority over each other. In the 8th century BC, in the mountains north of the Gulf of Corinth, Delphi was one of the great sanctuaries of ancient Greece dedicated to the god Apollo. On the slopes of Mount Parnassus, the ancient Greeks from all the cities came to consult the Pythia, who was the priestess who delivered the oracles, meant to be the god Apollo's responses to the questions that were brought to him. The sanctuary contains a large number of structures, including the tholos, which is a circular shaped edifice with a funerary or religious purpose. It is a rare and atypical structure due to its distinctive architecture. Originally, 20 door columns supported the entablature and the roof decorated with tiles. The tholos is considered the most beautiful monument at Delphi, but it is also the most mysterious. Its origin and its purpose are still unknown. An earthquake in 373 BC provoked a landslide that damaged a part of the site, but luckily the catastrophe was not too extensive. The sanctuary of Delphi was active throughout the classical period of ancient Greece and even during the Roman era for more than a thousand years. On the sacred way, a Roman agora was even built in the 4th century AD. Equipped with a portico containing shops, this construction was part of a larger ensemble that also contained thermal baths and houses. Today, the columns of the portico have been erected again and behind them you can see the spaces that held the shops. The use of bricks is typical of Roman buildings. On an image of the Temple of Apollo as it was at the time, you can see the small Athenian portico, which stands against the supporting wall at its feet. Erected in 480 BC, this portico was a building consisting of 48 Ionic columns, only three of which can still be seen today. It contained trophies taken from the Persians after naval victories. On the site, the structures are called treasuries. During the consultation of the oracles, offerings were brought to Apollo and they were stored in these buildings depending on their richness. Here, the Sicyonian treasury contained statues and votive elements. Much like the site that had several thousand of them according to testimonies from the era. Here's a navel of the world. It was the symbol of the unity of the Greek world. And here, the Boeotian treasury. Former rivals of the Athenians, they became their most valued allies in the war against the Spartans in the 4th century BC. For the Athenians, the Boeotians had a reputation for being uncultivated, dimwitted, and unsophisticated. Even now, the adjective Boeotian means an uncultured person. Sanctuaries were architectural complexes outside of the cities and their politics. Which means that they were frequented not only by the ancient Greeks but also by the nearby sometimes barbarian people who worshiped the same gods. The site is traversed by a sacred path that was used for processions and led to all the sites of worship dispersed across the side of the mountain up to the sanctuary. It passes in front of the Athenian treasury, built around 480 BC to commemorate the victory against the Persians at Marathon. Amongst the numerous more or less well-preserved vestiges of the site, the theater, with a 5,000 person capacity, was built in the 4th century BC. With its 35 rows of seats, it can now be seen in its state from the Roman imperial era. They held festivals here that celebrated Apollo's victory over the serpent Python. The role of the theaters at the time of their construction was closely tied to religion. In the Greek world, theatrical performance was born from the celebration of Dionysus. Dionysus was the god of wine and the inebriation that made it possible to pass from the imagination to reality, just like the illusion of theater gives life to the imagination of the author on stage. The theater was thus a vector of mysticism in ancient Greece. Just below the theater, the temple of the master of the site, Apollo. At the end of it, there's an altar where sacrifices were carried out. Usually, they were goats whose throats were slit. The animals were first washed with water and if they shiver during this rite, they were fit for the ceremony. The temple itself is rectangular with an elongated form measuring 23 by 60 meters. It had six Doric columns on its facade and 15 on each side. After the sacrifice, the great priests arrived and the oracle was questioned. If there should be a war or not, if someone should get married, if it would be dangerous to do such and such a thing, etc. The pilgrims were separated from the Pythia by a curtain when she was in a trance. She then uttered words that were incomprehensible to the common man, but not to the priests who translated the responses to the questions asked. In verse until the 3rd century BC and in prose afterwards. In the temple, a sacred fire was maintained and always kept burning. The stadium, built in the 5th century BC, was also remodeled by the Romans in the 2nd century AD. Every four years, the games called the Olympic Games demanded a truce between the cities that were in perpetual conflict or even war. The truce began a month earlier so that all the competitors could arrive peacefully and train there following an identical diet. The sporting events for which the participants were completely nude began with horse races, harnessed or not. Then the pentathlon unfolded which included five disciplines. The discus throw, the javelin throw, the long jump, running and wrestling. And there was only one winner who was awarded. At Delphi, the archaeological museum compensates for the things missing from the site. First of all, it displays a model that shows the sanctuary as it was during antiquity. It shows the place occupied by the temple facing the theatre or the treasuries. The board showing the symphony and treasury clearly shows all the attention that was paid to the architecture and decoration of the various monuments. The pediment was rediscovered during excavations in 1893. The frieze that runs around the entire edifice shows the Olympians deciding the fate of Troy, seated and talking while before them the Greeks and their enemies battle furiously. The treasury made of brilliant marble was preceded by an entrance with two columns that supported the architrave. These columns were in the form of karyates, the young girls richly dressed in robes and Ionian jewellery. Another wonder of the museum, the statues said to be of Cleobis and Biton, called the twins of Argos, which were created around 600 BC. With their stocky and muscular stature, the twins could have been wrestlers. Legend has it that their mother, very proud of her sons, asked the goddess Hera to give them the best. The two brothers then went to sleep and never woke up. In this, the goddess showed that it was better for them to die than to live, possibly sparing them from suffering, although nobody knew. In one of the rooms you can see fragments from the pediments of the temple of Apollo. Dionysus is shown on one of them. In Greek mythology, Dionysus is the god of the vine, of wine and its excesses, of madness and in moderation, as well as theatre and tragedy. He is the son of Zeus, but does not live on Mount Olympus. He is a wandering god. Of the other pediment, there only remains a piece of a lion devouring an antelope and a fragment of a young girl. Another statue shows Aegeus, a wrestling champion, who was inadvertently killed by Telemachus during bare-fisted combat. His brother Agelaus was also a wrestler, but less talented. With the two previous statues, this third one was part of a group of seven given to the sanctuary of Apollo by a rich family. In the room, there's a Roman copy of the Amphalos, the stone navel of Delphi. The original marked the point where, according to legend, the eagles released by Zeus at the two ends of the Earth crossed paths, defining the center of the world. Through the remains of the statues and finely chiseled columns, you can appreciate the degree of skill and expertise of the sculptors who worked at Delphi 2,500 years ago. Certainly the best of ancient Greece. As proof, this 13-meter-high tripod with three dancers, which held a bronze cauldron for the offerings. Like a giant perfume diffuser. These are the priestesses of Dionysus. To the left, the marble altar of the Temple of Athena shows sculptures in relief. Just like the magnificent friezes found in the ruins of the theater. Another vestige of the Roman era, this marble statue portrays Antinous. This lover of the emperor Hadrian died at 20 years old, drowned in the Nile in circumstances that remain mysterious. Today, he's one of the most famous faces of antiquity. Another famous portrait, that of Flamininus, a Roman general who saved Greece from the Macedonian invaders in the 2nd century BC. He was one of the first Romans to appreciate and spread Greek culture in his own country. But the most famous piece in the museum is certainly the charioteer of Delphi. This bronze statue the size of a man was commissioned by a Greek prince to commemorate the victory of his chariot in the Olympic Games of 478 BC. The statue is of the chariot driver. The cult of Apollo taken up by the Romans will come to an end in 392, when the Christians, the rulers of Rome at the time, outlaw all pagan cults. Then the dark ages of barbarism will bury this culture forever under rubble and oblivion. The new masters of the Mediterranean, the Byzantine Christians, who had already built churches in the 1st century, will then guide Greece towards new mystical destinations. Twenty kilometers from Delphi, the monastery of Hosios Loukas, or the Monastery of St. Luke, is among the most beautiful Byzantine monasteries of the country. It was built in 1011 on the foundations of a church built in 944 and consecrated by its founder, Luke, a hermit of the 10th century. It is now one of the most important medieval structures in Greece and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Originally, in 946, Luke built himself a lodge and a garden on the site of an abandoned Greek temple to live as a hermit. He had the gift of healing and prophecy, which is why after his death his tomb was the destination of numerous pilgrimages. A first church dedicated to the virgin was already built and the second, for the pilgrims, was begun in the second half of the 10th century. The gallery that you can see on the second level is the genasium, the women's area, which forms a platform running along three sides of the building. The large dome measures 9 meters in diameter. 500 years later, after the Turkish conquest, the Latin monks were replaced by Orthodox ones. The monastery was often pillaged and suffered numerous earthquakes, but today it is still occupied by a few Orthodox monks. The monks follow an austere rule and dedicate much of their time to meditation and prayer, but they also have to carry out all the manual labor necessary for their subsistence. The monastery has vast agricultural spaces and the cultivation of olive trees holds an essential place. Within the walls of the monastery you can see all kinds of side buildings for specialized work like baking, sewing, cooperage and the making of olive oil. The larger of the two churches dedicated to St. Luke is found to the right of the courtyard. Its facade shows clear signs of the recuperation of stones as Greek marble is mixed with Roman bricks. A beautiful fresco decorates the portico of the entrance and you can see an Arabian decoration. Today, the visitor's entrance goes through the refectory turned into a small museum. Then the church is preceded by a rectangular vestibule, the narthex, reserved at the time for people who were not yet baptized. On the ceiling the archangels Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael keep watch. The interior of the church retains much of its 11th century decoration. It is divided in two zones, the lower section adorned with slabs of precious marble and the upper section with its decoration of mosaics created by artists who came from the capital of the Byzantine Empire. The cupola is decorated with a figure of Christ, master of the universe. On the vault of the central apse a mosaic on a gold background depicts the mother of God on a throne holding the child savior of the world. Below there are the apostles who represent the word of Jesus and beyond that the word of God. One corner is decorated with the episode of the baptism of Christ in the Jordan by Saint John the Baptist. The second and older church is dedicated to the Virgin. It was begun in 946 and finished in 955, only two years after the death of the saint. Here, the decorations have disappeared over the course of time. But you can still admire the beautiful religious icons. Beneath the church the crypt consists of a central nave at the back of which there's the tomb of the saint. This is where people come to venerate him, even if today the tomb is empty because his relics were transferred to the Vatican in Rome, in Italy. The walls and ceiling of the crypt are covered by frescoes and superb mosaics. With a square layout the crypt has several chapels including one decorated with a beautiful 11th century fresco depicting the descent from the cross. This monastery is truly a treasure of religious art. You can admire one of the best preserved and most complete cycles of Byzantine iconography in Greece. This site is above all remarkable for its mosaics, all with golden backgrounds and the refinement of its marble, jasper and porphyry decorations. The monastery of Hosios Loukas belongs to the Orthodox Church which is understood as the Christian Church of the origins of which all of the other churches are members including the Roman Catholic Church. It refuses the authority of the Pope only recognizing that of Jesus Christ through the writings of the Apostles, the Gospels. Further north, Cape Sunio is especially famous for the ruins of a temple devoted to Poseidon. The first mention of the Cape in the ancient texts occurs in the Odyssey which mentions Cape Sunio as the sacred cape of Athens. The ruins of the temple of Poseidon built in the mid-5th century B.C. overlook the sea from a height of 60 meters. Today, the bay has been transformed into a seaside resort extremely popular with the Athenians. The pillars of the temple rise 6.10 meters high with a base diameter of one meter. Their splines were designed to resist the effects of saline air. Homer called the temple of Poseidon the sacred promontory and here, navigators called upon the god of the sea. According to legend, Cape Sunio is the place where Aegeus, father of Theseus, leapt to his death by jumping off of the cliff because he believed that his son had perished in a battle against the Minotaur. Thus the name of the Aegean Sea, the famous sea that surrounds Greece. You can see with its rich past that Greece is truly the cradle of western civilization. During the first millennium BC it planted the seeds of a culture that is still in force today. The first republican history Athenian democracy knew a great intellectual life bringing together philosophers and playwrights. The Greeks are also considered the inventors of logic and the precursors to physics, mathematics and astronomy. Furthermore, Greek art is still considered a model of balance and proportion for artists around the world. Throughout history ancient Greece strongly influenced the culture of modern western civilization.