A little exercise - Part 1 (Alifira)

You know how sometimes you find yourself saying, "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition..."

In all of my research on places to see in Greece, I read about Alifira (Alipheira) and this Temple to Athena.  Yeah, we'd already seen her main temple in Athens, but this was supposed to be pretty good too.  So, we drove to Alifira, not quite knowing where it was, but expecting to see some signs about a major archeological site.  And I knew that the temple itself was on the east side of the acropolis there.

In the center of town, however, there were no signs, and nothing that we saw on the road coming into town.  Cautiously continuing to drive on, we found a sign about an ancient temple, written all in Greek.  We couldn't read it, but I could identify the pictures.  Before we had a chance to process the faded map, an elderly man approached our car, and tried to be of assistance.  I still don't speak any significant Greek, nor he any English, but I could point to the sign, and he gestured something like "off that way and to the right" and I caught something that sounded like 100 meters.

What he meant by "off that way about 100 meters" was that if you blinked you would miss the sign for "archeological site" and the arrow that pointed up the road.  It was kind of in a bush, and rather than make Randall back up on a narrow mountain pass, I got out to make sure I was right (I was) and then help him back the car up so we could make an 85 degree turn onto a 30 degree ascent.  That was one of just 3 more hairpins we would make before the next ascent looked too specious for our vehicle and we got the brilliant idea to get out and walk the rest of the way.

(This was the next ascent)

You're probably thinking at this point that we were either stupid or insane, or perhaps just naïve.  But we did take water with us.  And it was off and on sunny.  And that summit in the top of the picture is not where we are going...

The next 3 or 5 stretches of switchbacks were all around 30 degrees in vertical ascent, as we walked up the very old tire ruts, now covered by weeds and flowers.  Eventually, we hit a fork in the road, and could have continued straight, or turned and seen the next sign:

I don't even remember how many more switchbacks it was--could have been 7, could have just as easily been 17, but we finally hit a hill of grass which had never been walked on as long as the grass grew, and it was about a foot tall, and in the distance were two big signs.  You could faintly make out where the tire tracks stopped.

OK, so there's a sign.  Where's the path?

And we thought, great, we're almost there!  Because why would anyone put up signs that weren't near the monuments???

I don't even want to speculate on how many more stretches there were to get to the first summit.  Yes, I said first.  We passed a herd of goats, which was just amusing, and provided a little distraction.  And then we saw the ruins.  They did not disappoint.

This is the Temple of Aesclepius (back) and his altar (foreground), which is better seen from this higher elevation.  Yeah, we kept climbing...this was the first stop today, and we knew it wasn't going to close at 3pm.

But we still hadn't found the Temple of Athena, and we weren't on the eastern side of the acropolis.  After more wandering and more climbing, we found ourselves in the "Suburb of Akras".  

More wandering and more climbing, and we hit another summit, with what appeared to be some ruins.  We tried to make sense of them.  Long walls at the edge of the acropolis, but no columns, and nothing that appeared to have the configuration of a temple.  There was yet higher ground, so I climbed it to try to get some more perspective.

A firm believer in Darwinism whenever I am traveling abroad, I fully embrace that people should be allowed to do whatever stupid thing they want even if that injures them in any meaningful way.  There was a real goat path that took you perilously close to the edge of the acropolis, and then the ruins opened up to view.

The Temple to Athena (Randall on the corner) and the altar (me).

It was worth the climb.  As I kept telling Randall as he kept muttering about what kind of people built a temple in a place like this, the climb was to prove that you were worthy to ask the gods for their intervention.  I don't know that I intended to ask for anything with this journey, but I certainly felt worthy to see these spectacular remains of an incredible culture.

Here is a zoomable map of our journey to the acropolis at Alifira.  In all, it was a 2 mile hike in and out with about an 800 meter vertical ascent: